Architect in the House

Just had a visit from an architect as part of Shelter's 'Architect in the House' scheme.

http://www.architectinthehouse.org.uk/

A very pleasant chap spent an hour discussing various options (some of which were 'pie in the sky' budget wise!)

It looks like the way forward is to extend our kitchen slightly and have a skylight put in....our kitchen is so dingy I usually have the light on even on a sunny day like today. Also we can gain an extra room (currently we have a lounge diner which is also the only place for the piano) by installing a prefab type building (like a conservatory without glass) on the side of our end-terrace house.

I am rather excited about the prospect :-)

A children's book which comes to mind about a family building an extension is 'The Big Concrete Lorry' by Shirley Hughes. I love Shirley Hughes!

BAAF publications

A while ago I subscribed to email updates for new BAAF publications.

Today an email came through with this....

http://www.baaf.org.uk/bookshop/book_rufus

A Safe Place for Rufus looks like a good book for exploring adoption issues with young children.

Its about time too! I've never been keen on the 'Nutmeg' series, which although still available from BAAF, is a little dated I think.

Our youngest likes the Todd Parr book 'We Belong Together' but its very American :-)







If you click on the link above you'll see that the 2000th person to sign up for BAAF email publication alert wins a £20 BAAF book voucher.

Butterflies

An activity we have meant to do, but only got around to this year is 'hatching' butterflies. It was incredibly easy. Caterpillars arrived in a little pot and had to be left in the post (our of direct sunlight) until the chrysalis stage, then tranferred to net 'observatory'.

Great excitement when the butterflies emerged :-) They are Painted Ladies......beautiful!

We used a National Trust kit but I actually picked it up in Sainsburys. Says Age 7+ on the box, but much younger children would enjoy watching the butterflies too. If the sun comes out today we'll release ours into the garden.

Next week (19-27 May) is 'Save our Butterflies Week'. Half price membership of Buttefly Conservation until the end of May

http://butterfly-conservation.org/