Like the Curate's egg

This holiday has been like the poor old Curate's egg - parts of it were excellent, others fairly rotten!

The Ladybird Club and I have been having fun making new outfits for their dolls (again using their own outgrown clothes)


and aprons for the two hard-working girls (that boy is such a skiver!)

Minnie-Mae has a cooking apron and Mimi likes to clean (she is waiting for her mop and duster to be made and is hoping for a bucket too)

The dolls then had a trip to see Mamma Mia (they didn't understand the naughty bits fortunately)and then went to Asda where they very demurely sat in the trolley



until they spotted that all-essential offer - 3 for £10!

(Minnie-Mae was apparently sleeping when we left the house. I'm sure that has nothing to do with a nearly 11 year old not wanting to take a mad rag doll out with her equally mad mother who would be bound to take mad photos at inappropriately mad times and locations)

When they had sobered up they decided to adopt some pets so the Ladybirds got busy


and then those cheeky dolls insisted that they be allowed to join the Ladybird Club too.


Finally we had to turn our hands to bookmaking using this very helpful publication and the little Lockets' literary genius-iosity.

(these books really are titchy - only about 3x2cm and I wish you could see the children's illustrations inside - very cute!)

Where the Wee Things Are by Fred Locket

One day I woke up and I got my clothes on and I went downstairs to get my breakfast and I said we are just going to play Mum so I went to the woods and in the wood we found a little puppy the puppy was lost and sad so we said you can live with us so the puppy said yes ok and so we went home

(hmm, think we need to work on Fred's punctuation, don't you?)

Moby Dink by Dorothy Locket

I am a widdle white whale.
My name is Moby Dink.
I am widdle enough to fit in a bucket.
I’m not going to talk about those mean old whale hunters
This is what happened when I sailed the seven seas in a bucket
I sailed all around the world meeting exotic whales and dolphins.
I also met my mother who had escaped from the evil whale hunters.
She found her own bucket and sailed home with me.
For tea we had some delicious whale hunters – Mwahaha ha haONLY JOKING!

Chicken Little by Daisy Locket

One day Mimi and her Ducky were going for an adventure.
Mum packed her and Ducky some food.
She put in chocolate mice, lemonade, milk and cheese and salami sandwiches.
Beatrix asked mum if she could go too.
Mum said “Of course you can”.
The girls and Ducky ran up stairs to their bedroom
and got what they needed then ran downstairs and out of the door.
They went through the garden and shut the garden gate.
They went to play in the woods.
Then they sat down on the patchy rug and started to eat.
When Ducky had finished eating he went for a swim.
While he was swimming he saw his old friend from school
“Hi Little” said Ducky “do you want to come and see my friends?”
When they got back to the girls they said Hello and introduced themselves.
They decided it was late so they went home
and Chicken Little came to live in the Chicken house.

The End

But by the time Mr Locket got home from work Mrs Locket was at her wits-end because the little Lockets had started arguing AGAIN.

The only solution was to retreat to the tent armed with my mobile (so I could text everyone to complain about how annoying my little darlings were being), a mug of wine (not for quantity but because all our wine glasses are broken) and a book.

I stayed there for some time and Mr Locket even brought out further refreshments.

But maybe my choice of reading matter was less than ideal. It certainly didn't make me feel better about my non-existant parenting skills!

And then THE REALLY GOOD BIT OF THIS WEEK was getting a lovely parcel from my lovely, loony friend Mrs Moogsmum this morning


how gorgeous is this wrapping paper and those stickers?


and look - not only did she include the pouch that I won for her 200th post giveaway but she also made me a matching-smatching notebook cover and bought me some Cath Kidston snitch-wipers!

I'm sorry the photo is so rubbish but my camera is really playing up at the moment and I'm not techno enough to work out why.

So I'm nearly half way through the holidays and I know I will really miss them when they all go back to school - especially as Dot is going up to comp, but phew! it's certainly hard work!