Colouring is for kids too!

We've all got caught up in this colouring books for adults craze (I spoke about it on my other blog here and even shared a sheet of my own - that's the stage we've got to!), but lets not forget books for children as well...

Last Sunday when I was off wearing my Made By Mrs M hat at BUST Craftacular in Bethnal Green, Mr M took the little man next door to the V&A Museum of Childhood. They came back with this beauty.

You can see what the cover looked like before the little man set to work on it here. We're fans of Edward Bawden in this house, so it's rather exciting. The colouring book contains 32 pages of his lino cuts for colouring and it's just gorgeous. It even contains fold down sections and I may have been helping him out a little as well (I haven't taken much persuading - helping him to colour in is much more fun than doing an adults colouring book by myself anyway!). 

The Edward Bawden Colouring Book is available from the V&A for £5.99.

It got me looking out for other nice colouring things for little people and I found this rather fab Colour in London Wall Poster from the Tate Shop and some lovely Christmas cards by Joanne Hawker. 

Are there any you can recommend? Looking for something nicer than the books you find in toy shops!

Anniversary

We've just had our 11th wedding anniversary (I know I don't look old enough, cough) and as I've had my annual flick through the photos, I thought I'd share a few here. It was a really really cold day (we'd had snow the day before), but I'd wanted a winter wedding and that was what I got!

The day went really well, with hardly a hitch (aside from the last minute emergency best man replacement!). I think everyone had a good time - we certainly did, and I still think it would be nice to do it every year! Unfortunately this photo of me above is one of the only ones I'm happy with - either my eyes are (unintentionally) half closed, or I'm all shiny, or my teeth look awful (this was pre-train track braces and I really should've had them fixed before the wedding rather than after!), but here are just a few other pics to give you a feel of the day...

Heading into church with Dad

At the altar (we'd paid to have the church heated but by the time I got in it was like a deep freezer in there - my arms had a blue-ish tinge by the end!).

A festive red and green table theme.

The cake (the top tier was re-iced for the little man's christening cake 6 years later - still tasted good!).

I wasn't particularly happy with the photos - our provincial photographer didn't quite get what I wanted - I was after modern and as you can see I didn't get it! We also had to wait 2 years to get the final album, but there you go! 

Now to consider whether I should finally get that dress off to the dry cleaners... 

Embracing Autumn

Autumn is actually one of my favourite times of year. OK, summer is over (and it really is now we've been back from our nice sunny holiday for a couple of weeks!), it's only going to keep getting darker - for the next few weeks at least - but a combination of beautiful colours, evenings by the fire, and the expectation of Christmas around the corner, all add up to a really good season.

It's in the autumn that I feel I really appreciate where we live. Suburban London has some great parks and we have a lot of trees - these pictures were taken a week or so ago when we went out for an afternoon walk. My neighbour across the road from me has the best tree in her front garden - I'm not sure what it is - but the leaves turn an almost fluorescent orange. It's the view from my desk, and just a few have started to turn as I write this (it also has amazing bright pink blossom in the spring - a type of cherry maybe - she'd better not ever get rid of it!).

I like to take the opportunity to go out for walks while the weather is still relatively mild - we had a really warm week last week but the scarf is back out now (bonfire night was so mild I was almost too hot standing in the park in the dark waiting for the fireworks to start!). We discovered a beautiful, quiet (and very old) graveyard when we were out on our recent walk - there are still quite a few things I've yet to discover in the local area despite living here for 5 years.

Now if you're also a fan of autumn colour, and a walk, there are lots of great places in London and the South East to see it - which should be reaching it's best about now.

One of my favourites is Sheffield Park in Sussex (we used to go here a lot when I was a child and it always makes me think of my grandparents). Here are some pictures I took there when we visited a few years ago...

Other top spots include:

The Devils's Punchbowl, Surrey

Richmond Park

Winkworth Arboretum, Surrey

Bedgebury Pinetum, Kent

Hyde Park, London

Kew Gardens, London 

Do you have any autumn colour spots you can recommend near where you live?

The Sun Shone!

For those of you waiting eagerly (following last Sunday's post) to see if the sun shone on our holiday in Gran Canaria... it did. We arrived to rain but by the next morning the skies were blue and the sun was out!

Lots of beach action took place - we went back to the lovely Puerto de Mogan (check it out - it's super pretty) three times for walks around the harbour and trips to the beach - the bay is sheltered and the sea is shallow so I got to get a really nice swim in.

We also visited Anfi for the first time - a similarly lovely beach (with brilliant sand for sandcastle building) and warm, calm, shallow water for swimming.

Made it to Las Palmas this time too - the capital of the Canary Islands and a rather larger city than I was expecting - home to a really beautiful old town.

We stayed at the Salobre Golf resort for the second year running (neither of us play golf but the villas are lovely, it's really quiet and conveniently located just inland from Maspalomas) where we had our own, heated to bath temperature, pool to splash about in with the little man - plus visits from a friendly black cat!

So I'm now full of empanada, tortilla and wine and rather sad to be back into a grey November! Also time to get back onto the diet wagon before Christmas creeps up on me.... eek! 

Autumn Sunshine

As you're reading this I will have just got back from a week in Gran Canaria. It will have been warm and sunny (I'm keeping my fingers crossed here - at the time of writing, shortly before we're due to go, the forecast isn't great!).

We've had some nice, sunny, autumn breaks in the Canaries for the past few years, so to get me in the mood I thought I'd share some of the best bits from previous years. I will let you know if we managed to get some warm weather this time!