• exploring Ickenham Marsh
    Family Life - Hillingdon - Local Review - London

    Exploring Ickenham Marsh

    May 17, 2020 - By 

    The major benefit of life right now is the chance to explore our local area. Living on the edge of London means the best of both worlds – a quick hop on the underground into town, and fields and woods on our doorstep. Over the last 2 months we’ve been exploring all the paths and byways around our village. We’ve kept the kids busy with geocaching and collecting leaves and flowers to press when we get home. Hillingdon Trail We live in the middle of the Hillingdon Trail, a 20 mile path though Hillingdon’s countryside from Cranford in the south…

  • Crafts to celebrate the Chelsea Flower Show from the gingerbread house
    Crafts for kids - London - London crafts

    Crafts to celebrate the RHS Chelsea Flower Show

    May 16, 2020 - By 

    I’ve always wanted to visit the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It takes place every year in May at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London. It opened in 1862 and has been a fixture of the gardening world every year, except during the First and Second World Wars. As mass gatherings are currently banned the 2020 RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been cancelled and a version of it has gone online instead, RHS Virtual Chelsea Gardens. Although we’re hopeless at growing anything, we love flowers. Flowers have inspired our crafting so many times from making sun catchers from petals, to using…

  • Summer Reading Challenge Silly Squad
    Family Life

    How to take part in the 2020 Summer Reading Challenge

    May 15, 2020 - By 

    The Summer Reading Challenge is always a highlight of our summer. We love the summer holidays but this year will obviously be totally different for everyone. Home learning gives shape to our days at the moment and I’m not quite sure what we’ll do come the summer holidays. I don’t think we’ll be going away anywhere which means 6 long weeks to fill, without the weekly routine of our timetable from school and online classes. Thankfully it looks like we will be able to rely on the Summer Reading Challenge to keep us motivated with our reading! The 2020 Summer…

  • Summer painted bee and ladybird rocks
    Crafts for kids - Painted rocks - Summer - World Bee Day

    Summer painted bee and ladybird rocks

    May 14, 2020 - By 

    With this lovely warm weather we are out and about a lot more. Being outside is good for the whole family and helps the kids to run off some of their endless energy. We’ve been decorating and hiding rocks for a while now and wanted to make some summer painted rocks. We used: Bag of smooth pebbles or rocks Selection of chalk pens Varnish to seal the painted rocks (we use Wilko Gloss Yacht Varnish) How to make painted bee and ladybird rocks: We always wash and dry our rocks before painting them, this makes sure there’s no dirt left…

  • Free Father's Day colouring sheet and printable from the gingerbread house
    Crafts for kids - Father's Day - free printables

    Free Father’s Day colouring sheet and printable

    May 13, 2020 - By 

    We are gearing up to celebrate Father’s Day next month. The children have always made homemade Father’s Day cards but this year we thought we would try something a bit different. Not that we don’t appreciate my husband all year round, but the children love to celebrate Father’s Day. Usually we will go out for a family meal but this year we will be celebrating at home. Free Father’s Day colouring sheet and printable Father’s Day is a great excuse to celebrate the father-figure in your life. Our free Father’s Day colouring sheet and printable is a 5-page printable for Dad,…

  • DIY fairy gardens
    Monday Happy List

    Monday Happy List: Life in Lockdown {Week 7}

    May 11, 2020 - By 

    I love to start the week by writing the Monday Happy List. It’s a chance for me to sit down and reflect on the things that made me happy in the previous week, as well as to record some of our family adventures. It’s usually a post I love to write but obviously life has changed considerably for us and everyone else in the UK over the last few weeks. Life is strange at the moment for everyone but I still want to try and record some of our happier moments. Monday Happy List {Week 291} Every week is beginning…

  • Slimelicious Soda Shop review
    Family Life - STEM activity - toy review

    So Slime DIY – Slimelicious Soda Shop review

    May 10, 2020 - By 

    We’ve had a lovely three-day weekend. We enjoyed walks with the puppy, homemade cake and playing. I have to say weekends are so much easier than trying to homeschool my youngest right now! Thankfully we were gifted a new product from the So Slimelicious DIY to enjoy at home. My daughter adores playing with slime. It’s really therapeutic for her to play with it and she loves to sit watching a film and plying with her slime. We’ve reviewed the So Slime DIY Slimelicious Case before and my daughter really enjoyed making her own slime. Slimelicious Mini Shop and Collectibles…

  • Creating a fairy garden on a budget
    Crafts for kids - Fairy garden crafts

    Creating a fairy garden on a budget

    May 10, 2020 - By 

    Over the last few weeks we’ve spotted little fairy houses popping up all over Ruislip. One of our neighbours set up two fairy houses round the base of a tree outside her house, then we saw some craft stick fairy doors round the corner, and another fairy house near the entrance to Ruislip Woods where we used to leave notes for the fairy. It’s been a while since my daughter wanted to make a fairy garden at home, and a naughty puppy meant we couldn’t really have one in the back garden. Luckily we had an empty planter in the…

  • Looking for the Battle of Britain House, Ruislip
    Family Life - Hillingdon - Local Review - London - Ruislip

    Looking for the Battle of Britain House, Ruislip

    May 9, 2020 - By 

    We’ve lived in Ruislip for a good few years now and were intrigued when we heard about the ruins of a house in the heart of Ruislip Woods, where agents of the Clandestine Operations Division were trained for secret operations in occupied France! Doesn’t that sound like an amazing story!? We’ve wanted to look for the ruins for years and finally found the time. I wrote a little about Ruislip Woods a few weeks ago. There are numerous paths through the different woods and we’ve had fun exploring them over the weeks. This is my favourite time of year and…