"It's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself."

The Weather is really throwing a spanner in the works for us at the moment. Opeie and I are desperate to go camping and after our failed attempt a few weeks back when it thrashed it down on arrival, every time we've looked to go since the weather has been awful along the coast. This week gave us another 2 days with nowhere to be so we looked at the weather again and yet again Disappointment! We decided instead to head to London and do a spot of adventuring.

On the way to London during our last visit, we decided to visit Wendover woods to hunt for the Gruffalo hiding at the forestry commission site. Being such a long drive from Shropshire to London, stopping off to break up the journey really makes a difference. The night before starting our journey I googled 'attractions off of the m40' and then looked for museums and the perfect place to visit popped up.

I didn't let Opeie know where we were going as I thought it would be a really nice surprise after a 2-hour drive. When we parked up in Great Missenden, Opeie was excited about stretching his legs and  finding out where we were going. When we arrived at the museum we passed the shop window first and he noticed some Roald Dahl books, so when we rounded the corner and passed through the archway Opeie really started to get excited.

I've wanted to visit the Roald Dahl museum for quite some time and with me and Opeie 3/4 of the way through Charlie and the chocolate factory it seemed like a very fitting time to make that visit happen. We've been reading the book every day for the past week and Opeie is really getting into it, so you can imagine his excited little face when we rounded the corner and found doors made of giant Wonka bars, what a great start to the visit.

We had been bought The Enormous Crocodile from our friends over at Another Last Story a while back which we both loved and despite knowing the story Opeie still fell for the Croc disguised as a bench. Thankfully he was safe, though.

My Roald Dahl trivia knowledge was rubbish, I just knew that he wrote great books! so it was really interesting to learn about his life and how he came to become a writer of children's books. Opeie was fascinated to learn that he was a pilot during the war and being able to dress up like a pilot too really got my passionate new reader excited.

What really stuck out for Opeie about the visit though (apart from the Wonka bar doors) was Roald Dahl's little hut where he went for four hours a day to write. His homemade felt covered table, sleeping bag to slide his legs into, and cannister of coffee was too cute. It made me think that maybe I should transform our shed for blogging!

With lots of props from the movies and books to sit and read while you are there it really is the perfect Museum for excited little fans of literature. We didn't think much of the newer Fantastic Mr. Fox movie but the film prop was amazing to see.

The Museum is really interactive with lots of things to keep you and your little ones entertained. With 'create your own movie' sets and activities like writing your own stories using word tiles, It is a museum we are sure to be visiting again.

The Roald Dahl museum was a perfect distraction for our 3-hour drive and with only an hour left to go, it was spent excitedly talking about Roald Dahl and all his magical stories.

"When a fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle..."

After finishing Fantastic Mr Fox with Opeie a few nights back I figured that it was about time for the Gifts from the Pirates fox hunt update. The family game is still going strong and is now in its third year. It seems that everywhere we look still those sly yet adorable animals are staring right back at us. Here are the ones we have spotted recently...

“Mr. Twit was a twit. He was born a twit. And, now at the age of sixty, he was a bigger twit than ever.”

It's that time of year again, the excitement of 'world book day' has been filling our house. Every year Seth comes up with a long list of possible costume ideas but this year there was just one, he knew exactly who he wanted to be. In the two previous school years he had been 'The cat in the hat' (obviously) and last year if you remember the post he was 'The hungry Caterpillar'. When it's time to create a costume me and Mrs M are a great team. 

Yesterday I popped out  hunting for haberdashery supplies and a tweed looking jacket (which shockingly I found). Once Seth's measurements had been taken and the boys were in bed we got to work. Mrs M tackled the wig and I worked on the beard, we even managed to entertain our friend Chris too while working, we're a parenting super team!

After the beard and hair was finished we cut out a sardine, cheese and cornflakes from felt and stitched them in to his beard (I'm quite sure you've guessed who it is by now, the title was a bit of a give away haha).

Seth graced the school playground this morning looking like a vagabond and proud of it. I loved seeing his excited little face as his friends looked at him very confused. Seth's head teacher came over and was very impressed and I'm sure that when his friends saw his box of worm spaghetti to eat later in the day they all had smiles on their faces too.

Seth has already told us he has an idea for next year, the only clue we got was a question...
Do you think my friends will laugh at me if i came in dressed as a girl? Stay tuned to see how that question unfolds!

“Mr. Fox, sir, I won't do it. I can't say it. I won't chew it. Very well, sir. Step this way. We'll find another game to play.”

It's amazing how the smallest things that seem insignificant at the time can become part of your daily life with children. With Seth it was plastic forks, sounds crazy but when you're walking about there seem to be loads of those mini chip forks everywhere. Once Seth shouted "FORK" and then every time we spotted one after that we shouted "FORK". We still do it now occasionally.

With Opeie it all started when we read 'Fox in socks' by Dr. Seuss, as soon as i started reading it he was hooked. If we see foxes anywhere Opeie points them out and says "fox in Socks", So its now become something we look out for all the time.

Because of his new found obsession Ive been taking photos of foxes everywhere we go. They seem to be everywhere so this post is all about the foxes we've found during our journeys out and about.

Seth has been getting involved too which has been great. He found one of his favourite books 'fantastic Mr Fox' and also spotted some foxes biscuits which for some reason i had missed. I think its really nice to have these silly little things that we do as a family, it would seem crazy to other people but that's what makes things like this so special.

Our recent weekend away at Center Parcs was also very productive for our fox hunt, we spotted a pile of foxes in one of the gift shops and Opeie noticed one when he was colouring in a picture given to him by restaurant staff...

While driving about last week i even spotted this, turns out they all live on one road too...

I really hope that our Fox game continues, its certainly a fun addition to our journeys out and it keeps our own cunning little fox entertained wherever we go.