Today we went out with Nanny and Grandad to the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry for the Under the Big Tree exhibition. It is specifically designed for under 8s and the children loved it. It is basically the world under a big tree, but giant as if you are the size of the bugs and animals that live there. There are a variety of tunnels and dens for the children to crawl through and explore, containing creatures that you might find under a tree (like mice, squirrels, caterpillars), different coloured and textured fabrics and fur, pine cones and other seed pods and pieces of wood. There is a craft area where the children made collages and drawings, and 6 brass leaf rubbings hidden around the gallery to collect.

Afterwards we had a coffee in the cafe there, then headed into the other galleries. The kids love the whole place, but the Elements gallery is a particular hit, particularly the shells you can touch, the musical instruments made out of natural materials and the minerals with the long and short wave UV light that you can shine on them to watch them glow.They also enjoyed building their own sculpture towers!

We had lunch in BBs then headed home to try out their new water colour paints

Rich has been in a meeting in London today and isn’t due home for hours. I was very pleased to settle both children myself Alfie was a star In fact, bedtime was so much smoother than usual as there was noone fighting over me, they both had me do everything. Alfie designated himself my helper as the next oldest after me Poor lad missed out on his books though as Holly took 45 minutes to settle and he’d fallen asleep before I got back to him!