

My children have both loved an old book from my own childhood, called Acorns and Stew by Ruth Orbach, in which a little girl called Lenore builds houses for the ducks in her local park so that they needn't emigrate for the winter time.the colours are basic and bold and the story told in rhyme. At lunch we ate cherries together and wondered how to spend the afternoon.then literary inspiration struck and the hours suddenly passed very quickly. In the morning we staged elaborate dinosaur fights and contemplated whether it was acceptable to introduce plastic frogs into the game.then we practised cycling up and down the drive on Dinosaur's new pedal bike.a little later we set up a giant train track that stretched from one bedroom into another. With no nursery, no errands to run, no plans to see friends, and Zebra-girl out to tea this evening, Dinosaur-boy and I had a rare uninterrupted nine hours stretching ahead of us today.
