Getting messy with it: in-between days

THE LATEST INSTALMENT OF FUN FAMILY LIFE FROM OUR MESSY MUMMY LUCY...

This is an odd time of year, I think, as the end of Autumn blends in to the beginning of Winter. All of the excitement about Halloween (intense for the kids) and bonfire night (intense for me) has faded, I refuse to acknowledge Christmas until 1 December and even though Black Friday is an awesome time to buy a telly, we do not have the luxury of the extra Thanksgiving holiday to focus on. School slogs on; Nancy is learning to read and is excited but EXHAUSTED (woke up every hour the other night to wail, "I'm so tired!". I loved it). Sam has developed an almost medical aversion to the school run which, unfortunately, is not treatable with modern day medicine (nor apparently with bribes, or anger, or sympathy). He has, however, suddenly mastered colouring in and has developed an almost Picasso-like persona, with a pen permanently in hand, and hours spent, tongue sticking out, diligently colouring in ballerinas in the books Nancy lets him use and Kit can say "duck" (almost definitely) and "bear" (sort of) and can fake-cough on demand, which in my view really goes above and beyond expectations at 13 months old.

During half term we visited The Book Nook in Hove, a gorgeous little bookshop and café with a pirate ship in it (just to manage your expectations - a small, wooden boat-like structure easily interpreted as a pirate ship by young minds rather than an actual mode of transport for swarthy sea-based criminals) where the kids can play and read the large array of books whilst you drink coffee and eat delish brownies. The shop is 3 minutes from a lovely stretch of beach with good-sized patches of sand, where we decamped and played around for a couple of hours afterwards. We took packed-lunches and were very lucky with the weather but there was a nice-looking café literally on the pavement between the beach and the bookshop, so it is an easy, fun morning in any season.

One little thing that I'm glad we did this Autumn was buying a roll of sticky-back plastic in September; we stuck it to one of the windows in our conservatory and then stuck all the beautiful leaves we collected as the trees turned behind it. The sun shone through them and it was beautiful; they all slowly turned brown over the coming weeks (yes, okay, I haven’t got round to taking them down so now I just have compost splattered up against my windows - a perfect allegory to my previously mentioned gap in the seasons) and I also bought a book of leaves (one of many examples that you really can buy anything these days) from The (good old) Book People for £2.99 and the kids spent some happy (i.e. quiet) times identifying them as well so it was all positive. I suppose if I stretch my small, tired brain I will be able to come up with some festive takes on this plastic against window theme and if I come up with anything good, I will let you know!

My book recommendation this week is easy peasy lemon squeezy (ie not difficult difficult lemon difficult for any In the Thick of It fans). The book Nancy picked in The Book Nook (they picked one each as a treat) is called 'Rosie Revere, Engineer' by Andrea Beatty and David Roberts and it is completely lovely and brilliant. It is about a little girl that really wants to be an engineer (surprise twist!) but when she shows her first big invention to her uncle, he laughs at her and she is demoralised. The arrival of her great-aunt gives her the inspiration and encouragement to keep trying. It manages to concisely combine being a lovely feminist story (a whole page devoted to ground-breaking women aviators, obvs great for Nancy) as well as thought-provoking about perseverance (perfect for "I can't do it" Sam). I have subsequently been tipped off to two others by these authors 'Iggy Peck, Architect' and 'Ada Twist, Scientist' which will definitely be in stockings this year. It occurs to me that when I blog again, December will nearly be upon us and I CAN'T WAIT! Happy middle of November y'all.