366 #40

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40 weeks in, wow! 40!

We've got twelve weeks left and we'll be wrapping the project up; seems like only yesterday that we were starting.

You know the drill, join in with your favourite photograph of the week and show some comment love to everyone else in the community.

  1. Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
  2. Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
  3. If you can spare five minutes to comment on just a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!
ShowOff ShowCase



Country Kids: Porthkerry Park

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The azure sky and white-hot sun beckoned us out to play today, so we popped our welly-boots on and hot-tailed it down to Porthkerry Park for some fun and games. We'd tried to have fun with The Boy there last year when the new playpark has opened, but he was a little too young for it at the time. Now he's more physically confident, he adored the challenge.

After doing a fantastic impression of Spiderman on the climbing frame, we had a bear hunt through the woods looking for interesting shaped leaves for some art work, and ended up on the beach making pebble towers, plopping and skimming stones and riding fallen trees before squelching our way back through the mud to wrestle our boots off.

porthkerry park

Please excuse the rubbish quality on these images. Taken with my fantabulous dSLR but uploaded via wireless tethering on my phone due to Sky not getting their arses in gear and delivering our new router to us. I miss ADSL.

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coombe mill

Sponsored Video: Loving My Heart

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Anecdote time:

My boss is actually quite good at trying to keep us healthy in school. Admittedly it's probably a self-preservation issue; flu jabs and health checks mean the staff stay in school teaching and the quality of education is maintained. I don't blame her.

A few years ago, we all had cholesterol tests along with other bits and bobs. I say everyone; I didn't. Maybe because I'm slightly stubborn and was also slightly sceptical about the validity of blood-sugar  and cholesterol tests done at midday after lunch, especially when doctors' surgeries ask you to fast for them, or maybe because I'm stubborn and don't like being told what to do.

Anyhow, the two thinnest teachers came back in with shocked faces. Really shocked. Their cholesterol levels were both above 7.5. I gloated quietly and announced that mine (which had been tested the week before) was 4.3.

I know, I'm evil.

Despite my weight, I am fortunate to have a low cholesterol level. I am careful with the amount of fat that we have through dairy products and I try to keep our saturated fat intake to below 5grams. This helps keep my heart healthy. My downfall is that I don't do enough exercise, or hardly any at all. This is no good for a woman who is in her mid-thirties. Diet is important, but not enough on it's own. Exercise needs to be combined with it.

So how many of us have smears, mammograms and everything else concerned with women's health? We know to look out for the signs, right?

But the heart needs looking after too, and I don't just mean in a mushy way.

This is a sponsored post.

"What's The Time, Mr. Wolf?" (Book Review)

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Debi Gliori is a well known children's author whose books are a complete delight to read, and beautifully illustrated throughout. "What's The Time, Mr. Wolf?" is no exception, with hidden treasures throughout.

I like reading books (as an adult) which draw on the familiar, hint at comparisons and provide little giggles as I find they help to draw the reader in and say, "Hey, we know you get the reference and the joke too! We put it there, just for you, you know?" In this very clever book, Gliori does that for both children and adults.

Using the premis of the traditional playground game, it introduces the reader to Mr. Wolf's day, highlighting what he's doing at various times throughout it. On every page there is a clock (a mixture of digital and analogue, including a sundial are used throughout) and the text starts with 'It is …. o'clock'; this helps introduce children to the concept of passing time, how it looks written down, and how to read clocks (very similar to first reading books where sentence patterns are repeated).

More tradition appears throughout the book as the other characters in it are all from popular rhymes; The Three ears, Little Bo Peep, Three Blind Mice and Humpty Dumpty to name but a few. Every time they appear, they are doing something associated with the rhyme that they belong to. The Boy knows quite a few of them but I have tended to keep the more macabre Grimm's Tales away from him so far, however I got the reference and it made me chuckle. Saying that, there is nothing even vaguely gruesome in this book, just wholesome goodness.

Mr. Wolf's day doesn't start out very well but it ends a whole lot better in a riot of colour.

I really like this book because of the appeal to both children and adults. It's funny, non-patronishing, colourful and very cleverly drawn with visual references to tradition throughout. It's one of those books that I'd now buy for a friend's child because it's so enjoyable.

"What's The Time, Mr. Wolf?" is available from Bloomsbury Children's Books in both paperback (£6.29) and hardback (£9.89).

We were sent this book for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

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