Simple things to fill winter days

I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and somehow never seemed to get around to posting it…anyway, it seems a shame to bin it, so here it is. I promise to write more soon.

It’s been a tiring few weeks at retro wife towers. The children have been really very poorly with horrid, horrid flu bugs which minimised our sleep and maximised the challenge of caring for children who needed totally different care and attention depending on their sickness status. The two children juggling act was in full swing as I thanked my lucky stars  that we  didn’t produce a bigger brood.

A three year old who hadn’t yet succumbed to the virus bouncing around a lethargic and sickly 6 year old was not a pleasant way to spend a week.

The poor three year then came down with the same virus as his big brother while the big brother was still struggling with tiredness and returning to school. That week was even more unpleasant.

Our eldest boy has really has born the brunt of the viruses this year. He has been awfully pale and lethargic during these illnesses which has made me worry so much and I have been well and truly bugging Mike, my mam and my friends with my constant worrying. But last week, he has finally returned to his old self; is less tired, has some colour in his cheeks and is answering back a little more than he should. All signs of a healthy child I would say!

The youngest isn’t quite back up to full speed yet and needs lots of help to get him through the last couple of hours before bedtime. Poor wee man.

Anyway, despite worrying about my little men, January and February have rolled on in their long drawn out manner and I tried to stay off the holidays to Lanzarote websites and keep busy around the house. A 24 hour, child-free, jaunt to celebrate a good friend’s birthday in Scotland was a wonderful treat and enjoyed muchly. As was a sun-filled fleeting weekend visit to Cornwall with Mike and the boys.

The builders finally rolled out of town just after Christmas, and we have a wonderful new attic conversion, a brand new upstairs bathroom and a larger toy room / guest room for the children/guests. The five weeks of upheaval, cold, dust and feeling very stressed are still fresh in my mind, but the work has been so worth it and will be even better when we have managed to decorate everywhere.

The decorating is a mammoth task, and after a busy day with the children, or a busy day at work for Mike, painting is often the last thing we want to do. We’re slowly working our way through the house, and it will get done, eventually, and it will be lovely.

All of our budget went on on paying our fabulous builders, and so we are looking at ways and ideas of doing things as cheaply as possible on the decorating and furnishing front – ooooo, I feel a whole new blog post coming on!

Anyway, decorating photographs at a later date…for now just a few bits and bobs we have been doing to pass these cold, winter days, waiting impatiently for springtime.

Playing with the copious amounts of Christmas presents

Lots of the children’s friends have Haba beads and the boys have always seemed quite interested in them. Anyway, I was delighted to spot this much cheaper version of them in Ikea just before Christmas and the boys seemed delighted to receive them in their stockings. You can buy this whole huge tub of them for £4.99 and the accompanying boards for something crazy like £1.99 a packet.

They seem to be too fiddly and small for our 3.5 year old to manage on his own. But the six year old has really enjoyed them, and rather sweetly and spontaneously made a love heart for his lovely friend Charlotte.

The other hit Christmas present was a marble run from the early learning centre. I’ve never been much of an early learning centre fan and very rarely go in, but I was in desperate need of some farm animals for my goddaughter’s Christmas present, so popped in and instead came out with this wonderful contraption. It cost £16, which I think is such a good price.

Roping the children into a bit of interior design

The new toy room walls are looking pretty sparse so I unearthed these great underwater themed painting sponges that I had bought a while back from Yellow Moon. The boys are obsessed with CBeebies Octonauts at the moment, so this crafty activity seemed right up their street. After the paint had dried we cracked out the googly eyes and glitter (more stocking fillers) and embellished their pictures. I’ve framed them in wonderfully cheap frames from Ikea and will eventually get around to making a nice gallery of their artistic efforts.

Visiting a fantastic castle

The boys love  a castle. They love the whole knights and swords and shields thing. They like moats and drawbridges and any other type of medieval gadgetry. A day out to a castle is pretty much a guaranteed hit with then. And so in the midst of too many days inside because of our delightful winter lurg we decided a trip to a castle was very much needed.

We usually visit the rather wonderful Nunney Castle which is a small and perfectly formed ruin situated rather unexpectedly in the middle of a teeny tiny gorgeous village near Frome. It has a moat and a drawbridge and is next to a river with ducks. Perfect boy fodder. We’ve probably slightly overdone Nunney Castle lately and so turned to English Heritage for inspiration. We were surprised and delighted to find this gorgeous thing, Old Wardour Castle,  just down the road in Wiltshire.

Unlike Nunney, there is a charge for seeing Old Wardour Castle, but we really didn’t begrudge paying the very reasonable £9.50 to see such an amazing place. The drive to it is stunning (as much of the driving in Wiltshire is) and after we’d left the A30 there was lots of twisting and turning single track lanes that we couldn’t quite believe led to something so grand and majestic.

It was a freezing cold, but sunny, day when we visited. Next time, we’re hoping for a hot and balmy summers day so that we can eat our sandwiches in the lovely grounds, rather than in the car!

Making swords & shields

After our visit to the castle, the eldest announced that his theme at school was knights and castles and that he would be building a castle at school. The youngest, who isn’t at school yet, was green with envy. The next day I got a call from the lady at the youngest’s gym class to say that they would be running a knights and castles themed gym session the next day (how weird and perfectly timed was that!)

As we hadn’t forked out on the expensive knight’s clobber that was for sale at Old Wardour Castle, Mike set about making this lovely cardboard sword and shield. I gave it a coat of paint and a few adornments and Sir Rohan was all set for his gym class.

New crochet project

And while I have spent time looking after my two lovely boys and keeping them busy, two of my lovely friends have produced a gorgeous boy each, and I have been busy mastering a different crochet technique to produce them each a blanket to keep them nice and snug in their pushchairs.

Well half term is quickly approaching, which I am *so* looking forward to. Hopefully the weather may become a little more spring like and I can try and get some colour back in all of our cheeks.