Clearing up after Christmas.

I've spent yesterday and this morning clearing away all the Christmas stuff and arranging some new bits 'n pieces, mostly purchases from our holiday. This is the Cath Kidston jug that I bought in Lyme Regis...

And this chicken pottery I bought in a giftshop/tearoom in a place called Abbotsbury where we stopped one day for a walk and popped in here for some homemade cakes and rolls. Mmmmm. I'm using this to keep my camomile tea bags in.

This is part of a tea set I bought in a charity shop in Bridport for £2.50!

And these hyacinths I bought in Tesco yesterday for £2!

I've got fish chowder in this 'ere slow cooker for dinner tonight.

It was absolutely freezing in bed last night, even with the heating on. Everyone seems a bit tired and 'off' today especially hubby who appears to have 'man-flu'. He is irritated with me being irritated about so much rubbish and clutter everywhere. I popped next door on Sunday to thank my neighbour for looking after our chickens. When she opened the door I couldn't help but notice how smart her hallway is... no coats and shoes to be seen and she has a carpet which isn't filthy from people trudging in and out with dirty shoes on. How do people do that? (She has 3 kids, too, although much older than ours).

More snow is forecast. Mr Sainsbury delivered my shopping this morning, loads of stuff to keep us going.

Lashings of Ginger Beer!

This, I think, was the highlight of the holiday. On New Year's Day we drove, quite a long way, to Poole. We had bought the kids an in-car DVD player for the long drive so this came in very useful again. Honestly, you'd hardly know they were there, in the back of the car, eyes glued to Muppet Treasure Island or Merry Madagascar! Now. When I was a child I was a massive Enid Blyton fan (who cares if she ain't politically correct?) and, I suppose, still am. The first book I ever read of hers was The Castle of Adventure which I found, one day, looking very unremarkable in a plain, red cover, sitting in Mum's bookcase. Of course in those days, (the good 'ol seventies!) there was no all-day sky tv, x boxes or whatever or wii's to distract children from reading. So there was not much else to do but get stuck into this book (which is why I don't let the kids have a tv in their bedrooms... all they have is books and is probably why they are such good readers!). Anyway, I couldn't put it down... secret passages, a mystery to solve and, of course, these kids were allowed to go off by themselves on adventures! Blimey! A few years back I introduced Honor-May to the wonderful world of EB. She bought her first one (Five goes to Smugglers Top) at an antique book fair and now has quite a few. So she was as keen as me to visit this museum.

At the entrance we were introduced to these 'baddies' illustrated on the wall by Eileen Soper - actually, the exhibition is really about her! One of these guys has stolen a painting from Professor Kirrin's study and we have to work out who from the clues.....

Here, we had to find the secret passage in the study. How cool is that?!

These pics are a bit dark but we were in the secret passage looking for clues with a special pen torch!

The mystery has been solved now after exploring feely boxes, listening to sounds etc. The rest of the exhibition is an hommage to 1940's childhood and Eileen Soper's life. She was a keen on nature so here, Honor-May is studying her nature table.

Henry in Noddy's car.... another famous EB creation.

Gypsies crop up quite a bit in some of EB's stories. Here was a beautiful Romany caravan with dressing up clothes insidea and a pretend campfire beside it. The kids loved playing in this.

Well. We all really enjoyed this visit and only left in the end because the baby was crying. Every other place we've been to (including Weymouth Sealife Centre) the kids couldn't wait to get to the gift shop or cafe... but here they didn't want to leave, even when I said "it's time to go to the gift shop!" Hubby and I decided that in the shop they could have a book (max cost £5) and a drink because they were keen to try ginger beer!.. Of course, they didn't really like it!

Fossil hunting at Charmouth

It's snowing again. I'm hoping it'll mean a few more days off school. Though, really, I think I need to go and see Honor's teacher as yet again I'm disappointed with her last report. It's clear that she is learning very little and I wonder why I send her. Other than actually go in every day with her and make her work, I don't really know what else I can do. Perhaps the teacher will have some answers????

Anyway, here are some more holiday pics, this time of fossil hunting in Charmouth. The waves at the beach were quite dramatic and the kids saw this as a bit of an adventure, though they did get a little scared! Henry, in particular, was on a mission to find himself a fossil. I think he likes doing things that involves tools like hammers, knives etc!

Even more from Dorset!!!

These two photos were taken at the Eileen Soper exhibition in Poole. Eileen Soper did the illustrations for the Enid Blyton books. This was a great day out but I want to do a separate post on that later. For now, just a couple of pics of us being silly with some silly specs out of an old 1940's toy box!

These next two pics are in a cafe. The thing I like about this cold weather is I haven't done anything with my hair for weeks (apart from wash it!). I can just stick a hat on every time I go out!

Full of excitement, waiting for Father Christmas to arrive. The kids have pillow cases laid out by the tree, and that is all they had. And they didn't seem to mind that SC brought a few books some other bits 'n pieces and....a cuddly toy.

And she is simply.... beautiful!

More from Dorset

These pictures are from the Dinosaur Museum in Dorchester. We had just been to the Tutankhamun exhibition which cost £22.50, lasted for 10 minutes, made Honor-May cry and the lady on reception was really rude! So a very pained hubby, then agreed to shell out another £22 for this one down the road. It was much better, still expensive though.

Here is Honor-May (drinking cherry juice!) in our log cabin, waiting for the turkey.

And here are Honor-May and Henry (drinking coke! - well, it is Christmas!) in a pub on Lyme Regis sea front, just before we go back to the log cabin for Christmas dinner.

Five have fun in Dorset!

This is Honor-May and Henry at the harbour at Lyme Regis on Christmas Day. The weather was beautiful. Hubby put the turkey in the oven (upside-down) and we left it cooking while we went for a walk. Lyme Regis is a lovely, well-kept town and there were plenty of people out and about, even going for a Christmas Day dip in the sea! Even some of the prettily painted beach huts on the seafront had been opened up and delicious smells were wafting about from them and the other beach front houses. It was a very nice walk and there were loads of things to look at, not just the boats andd fabulous scenery but the decorations in windows and outside houses. I was particularly taken with the driftwood christmas trees adorned with starfishes and pretty shells...awesome! I didn't get any pictures of those, though, it didn't seem too polite to be flashing my camera at peoples windows!

Dorset is all about fossils so there were plenty of fossil shops, museums and stuff about dinosaurs to be discovered. And there was a lovely shop in Lyme Regis High Street called A Touch of Vintage which sold lots of Cath Kidston things. I got a little jug for when I clear away all the Christmas decs, I shall put some pretty flowers in it to freshen the place up.

I'm back!

We have just returned from a fabulous Christmas break in Dorset. We are just sorting out the boring stuff that needs to be done like washing, etc but maybe later on this evening I'll get to upload some photos and record all the things we got up to.