Quiet Times

All is quiet both in this blog and in our lives generally. Many of our activities have stopped because of the summer holidays (don't people realise that babies need entertaining too?) I would love to be able to report that Jessicat is doing lots of exciting new things, but instead, we are going through a period of consolidating existing skills. Still, we did manage to attend our first Rhymetime for about a month today, and Jess still enjoys singing and rhymes as much as ever.

Some of our books this week include:

Amazing Animals - Dr Seuss. I can see Dr Seuss books becoming even more popular now children are taught to read using phonics.
All Fall Down - Helen Oxenbury.
Play With Spot -Eric Hill.
That's Not My Tractor. Fiona Watts. We are slowly getting through the whole series, which Jessicat loves.
Playtime with Woof - Caroline Jayne Church. A new discovery, this, and another touchy-feely book, this time with a simple rhyme. Another series that Jessicat and I will want to complete.
Hippety-hop, Hippety-hay -collection of rhymes for children under 3, edited by Opal Dunn and Sally Anne Lambert. I have been looking for a collection of rhymes that I can share with Jessicat, as I can't wait to share my love of poetry with her. We both love nursery rhymes, but hopefully this book will enable us to expand our repetoire of poetry for very young children.

In the library this morning, Jess was rolling on the floor chewing bits of jigsaw as I was browsing, when I overheard a mother saying to her (approximately) 12 year old son:
"Only choose one book mind. And nothing too thick otherwise it will take us too long to get through." And we wonder why some kids today struggle with the basics so much.

I am reading John Tusa's "Art Matters" at the moment. Plenty of food for thought here, especially at the moment, as in Bristol the Old Vic is temporarily closed, Wildwalk and Imax have gone and even populist theatres like the Hippodrome struggle to sell out. Music wise, I'm looking for some new stuff to get into. I've been advised to try the Decemberists and Bellowhead, so my order has gone in, and I will report back soon.