Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Go Mum Go is on a Christmas Holiday 

Back with you very soon with more adventures and family fun 

Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year

The colours of Christmas

First there is champagne - what would the party season be without it ?

Then there's silver and blue - the wrapping paper I used for the decorative presents at the school Christmas fair.

The shades of the autumn leaves that crunch underfoot when we walk to school or to the park or to feed the ducks.

The white of my cat - he spends the cold days on our bed so he stays white too

The red stage lights at the Wedding Present gig we went to this week.

It's Panto season. Oh yes it is !!

Pantomime has history in our family and I remember taking my younger sisters to watch Christmas cat and the pudding pirates when I was at Uni when they were of primary school age. It was written by Christopher Lillicrap and was the perfect Christmas show which my Mum also enjoyed. Since then it's been a family tradition to go to a Christmas show every year. In the past we used to go to watch Christmas movies, including Tim Burton's The Night Before Christmas (excellent) and Jingle All the Way (not so much). One year we went to Sadler's Wells to watch Edward Scissorhands the ballet - that was absolutely stunning.

The Christmas movies I love include Elf (who doesn't), Love Actually (ok, I know, shuttup), Die Hard (yes of course it's a Christmas movie) and Miracle on 34th Street which I tried to watch with Brown Bear, but he's not that into it... yet. These are all on the telly most years so we've gone back to watching panto.

Last year I took Brown Bear and his best friend to watch Aladdin at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley. He had been to see Cinderella the year before with his school so he knew the format and was familiar with the audience participation too. The boys joined in with 'he's behind you,' 'oh no it isn't' and booed loudly at the baddie. It was a great night out with ice cream in the interval and plenty of familiar songs for them to enjoy. The scene with the flying carpet was particularly entrancing and the boys loved the show and we met Wishee Washee afterwards. I made a promise to myself that I'd make it an annual thing us to go to watch a Christmas show from now on.

So next week I'm taking Brown Bear to see Peter Pan starring Craig Revel Horwood - not that my boy knows who that is of course. He loves pirates, like any self-respecting young child does, so I think he's going to enjoy Captain Hook and Smee. He isn't familiar with the story of Peter Pan though, so I'm hoping he enjoys it. If nothing else he's going to love the ice cream in the interval and I'll be shouting along with him during the audience participation bits.

Oh I've just realised that Love Actually is on. Pass the tissue box - I may need to dab some tears.

Half term fun and ice skating at the Eden Project

Autumn half term is a much needed break for both children and adults in our house. The kids are exhausted from being back at school and the run up to Christmas is punctuated by Hallowe'en, bonfire night and for us Diwali. I have spent the last few weeks collecting leaves, pine cones and conkers with Blue Bear, he loves taking them into pre-school to show his friends.

The other thing that happens during this half term is we celebrate our wedding anniversary and this year we decided to go away for a few days and for the boys to stay with grandparents. In the past we've taken the boys to Coombe Mill - our favourite holiday destination - and spent a week in Cornwall, but this year we wanted to go it child-free. There are a few highlights that are worth knowing about if you are planning a UK break.

Lappa Valley: 

We visit Lappa every time we go to Cornwall, the boys just love it. By the boys I also mean Hubbie. It truly is the best family day out with steam, diesel and static trains (a cafe on sleepers is the latest addition). There is also a boating lake, crazy golf and a large playground and indoor play for the days when it's a bit too chilly to play outside. Not that anything stops our boys from wanting to go outside and play. There are seasonal events so this half term there is the Halloween Spooktacular and at we've also been at Christmas and seen Father Christmas there.

Eden Project: 

My first visit was when Eden first opened over 15 years ago and I was captivated by it then. I went back after a long time when we brought Brown Bear to Coombe Mill for the first time in July 2014. I had wanted to go back to Eden for years, but with it being so far from home I hadn't had the chance. Now I visit at least once a year if not more. That first year we took Brown Bear to Eden for Christmas and saw the best Father Christmas I think I've ever seen. He was so convincing I had to pinch myself.

My favourite thing to do in the colder months (apart from skiing) is ice skating and the rink at Eden is fantastic, set in a biome of its own outside the rainforest and mediterranean zones. I've taken Brown Bear skiing with me and he loved going round with Pedro Penguin. This visit was my first skate of the year and it's always the same - starts off with me looking like a foal finding it's feet and by the end I'm convinced I'm at an Olympic standard. I'm not. If you can make it to the end of the 40 minute session there is a snowfall that will leave visitors young and old with a magical feeling about the experience.

In my wildest dreams I imagine that I will study / volunteer at Eden and be a regular visitor here pretty much forever. I can hope can't I ?

Fishing villages: 

There are some beautiful places to visit and we have only been to a handful of them so far. The ones I'd recommend visiting with children are:

Mevagissy is a really pretty vilage which has a model railway that Brown Bear loved visiting and there is a traditional sweet shop that drew my eye as well. If you fancy seeing some more here is a list of the top ten fishing villages of which Mevagissy is one: http://www.cornwalls.co.uk/top_ten/fishing_villages.htm

Padstow is pretty well known and hardly qualifies as a village any more, so it's often busy in the summer months. We still love visiting for the great fish and chips and ice cream that makes the boys' tongues go blue. This visit we went to Rick Stein's seafood reastaurant for our anniversary which was a treat. Not something that we would do with the boys - well not at this age anyway.

Beaches: 

We love taking the boys to the beach and even in the Autumn there is plenty to see and do. In the Summer I took Brown Bear surfing at Polzeath beach. We both loved it and while you can still surf I'm not keen to get in the water when it's cold. Instead we like to walk and explore the rock pools. We've usually been lucky with sunshine even on the coldest days in Cornwall. Trebarwith Strand offers a lovely coastal walk to Tintagel and on the afternoon we visited the boys had a lovely time playing with boats and making footprints in the sand.

I can't imagine a time when we won't enjoy going to Cornwall as a family or as a couple. Not when there is so much fun to have and so many adventures yet to enjoy.

Disclosure: We received complimentary entry and ice skating from the lovely folks at the Eden Project.