The Start of Summer

On our first proper day of summer, when it looked like kids were already morphing into being bored and watching too much tv, I dragged them out on a field trip to the farm. Adam had to be surgically detached from his headphones and Minecraft world; Ellie was moaning loudly about wanting to go to the pool instead, and it was only Kate and Nicholas who were excited - so I should hope, it was Kate's idea!

Of course when we got there the big two had a good time. The piglets helped. Piglets always help, in my opinion! And Kate and Nicholas loved the farm.

After the farm we went to the library, which was an eye opener to me. I never take them to the library; partly because I try and keep ahead of them and have unread books available at home (there are at least 10-15 books upstairs they haven't read yet), and partly because finding and returning library books is such a giant hassle.

At their age I was like a kid in a sweet shop at the library. I went every Saturday morning on my bike, on my own, and spent my pocket money in the sweet shop on the way home, then read books and ate sweets all afternoon. Bliss.

My kids are not like me. Adam made a beeline for non-fiction, picked out one book about the Hubble telescope, and announced he was done. Ellie wandered the stacks for fifteen minutes and was unable to find anything (unable to find anything? IN A LIBRARY?) so we resorted to the little leaflet making suggestions for her age. Having persuaded her that she could indeed pick from the 5th-6th grade list, she picked out a book that sounded interesting... which of course was checked out. So the library was a bust. Clearly we have to do some more library trips to get these two acclimatised to choice!