Rainy days and Tuesdays

Well down here in sunny Cornwall it didn't just rain, it poured today. My usual daily plan of action as a stay at home mum is to leave the house as much as possible - stop those walls from closing in at all costs!  This morning I took one good look at that miserable grey sky and decided it was a definite staying in day.
More for my own sanity than for Amos' education I chose a theme for the day - the farmyard. What a surprisingly great day we've had! We dug out all the toys relating to the farmyard and had a great time with little jigsaws Farmyard Tales Farm Animals Jigsaw Book (Jigsaw Books), tractors My First Tractor Board Book (My 1st Board Books) and books - check out The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales (Usbourne Farmyard Tales) or The World of Farm Animals: An Early Encyclopedia for Beginning Readers(great value). We watched 'Big Barn Farm' on cbeebies and even sang 'Old Macdonald'. We ended the day by getting the paints out, I drew the farm animals and Amos finger painted them.  A fantastic tip given to me for painting with toddlers is to buy a roll of wallpaper lining and paint on that, lots of room to slosh the paint around. You can buy it at any DIY store.
It was brilliant to have a topic, I highly recommend it and whatever you choose I can guarantee you've got more than enough toys to fill the day.....I was very surprised once I rooted deep!
Have you got any ideas for day's topics or themes? - I always need new ideas.

Picnic Perfect

You may have guessed it by now but I really have become a huge fan of that old English institution: the picnic.....despite previous disasters.  It's my dream to have one of those lovely wicker picnic hampers with all the cutlery and crockery beautifully strapped to the sides.
I don't know about you but I always had the image of picnics being quinessentially British what with it being such a feature at Glyndebourne. Now I've seen how the other side of the channel do it and I realise that we have a lot to learn from the French in this area. 
The French almost don't picnic, rather they uproot their dining table and put it into a field. They bedeck the picnic table with beautiful cloths, there are no soggy sandwiches to be seen anywhere, instead hunks of french bread are beautifully presented in baskets with cheese that appears to have just stepped out of the fridge. They crack open the wine and drink from glasses in the middle of a forest glade.... wow I was impressed.

There were no picnic tables in the vicinity for this family but undeterred they brought their own table and chairs - no squatting awkwardly on the grass for them.

We worked hard to attain the dizzy heights of eloquence of a French picnic and didn't do too badly. Please note the lovely serviettes adorning the table - courtesy of my ever stylish mum.