Not quite National Trust...

Following a successful trip to the Sudbury Hall Museum of Childhood last summer, my mother-in-law kindly signed us up for National Trust membership. This came in very handy on our hols to Yorkshire and today we motored on down to Calke Abbey, which is about 25 minutes drive for us. We've been there before - last spring we went to have a look around, but the weather was pants so we had a very enjoyable car picnic and then meandered round the craft fair which was there before coming home.

Today we intended to see the garden...only to find out it isn't open until 26th February... Anyway, we have a play in the playground (Zachary and Leo very happy about the swings!) and then ended up in the shop and cafe. Something tells me though that we're not quite National Trust material... We had mentioned to Zachary that if he was good, we might buy him a small toy in the shop - turn around and he'd dragging a boule set, tennis rackets and a Diabolo across the floor! Removal of said items caused a few screams and quick removal from the shop! In the cafe, Leo was only happy when he was stuffing his face, Zachary played at squirting apple juice from the carton, then attempted to drink my tea milk straight from the jug. He also wanted to leave with the pencils they leave out to amuse children while they're eating and licked my piece of flapjack when I said he couldn't have it because he had his own piece! Nice. (although I did then eat his piece in retaliation!)

National Trust - what have you let yourselves in for???

Also making me laugh this week is one of the presents we gave Zachary for Christmas. It's a Leapfrog electronic pad which helps children learn to write their letters and teach them the associated phonics. There's a drawing space on the pad which has a grid of red lights behind it, which flash in defined patterns to show you how the letters are formed.

There's a section with games on there - one of which asks the user to follow a trail of lights around the pad to draw a surprise picture. This game always starts with the phrase 'put your pen on the blinking light. Follow the blinking light.' Well...surely no need for that kind of language!!!