"There's so much more to a book than just the reading."

A few weeks back me and the awesomeness that is Emma from Another Last Story were talking about books and charity shops which we seem to do a lot when we get together as the two go perfectly hand in hand. Emma came up with the idea of a fun book related charity shop competition and after chatting about it a little, the day was upon us and it was time to put our plans in to motion. We met up on the morning of the great book off in Shrewsbury, where there are plenty of charity shops to mooch around. Before heading out and starting the competition though we popped in to the library with the boys to read a few books in hope that it would be a great start to an afternoon of children's literature.

The plan was to hit the charity shops armed with £5. We had a list of rules, one adult book, a selection of children's books and one gifted book to each other, but minutes before we kicked off the fun we decided to just go and buy books, spend a fiver and meet up to compare our spoils. Emma threw a huge spanner in the works early on when she declared 'No Shoplifting!' so as you can imagine the fun started on a down note. There was a bit of smack talk before we kicked off but then we went our separate ways. We had roughly 40 minutes before meeting for lunch so we split up and me and Opeie hit the shops hard. Our first find was a book about Nessie which fit in perfectly with Mrs M working away at Loch Ness this week, It was a great way to start the hunt.

We managed to grab some great bargains in what turned out to be the first leg of our book hunting adventure. The plan was to meet up at 12:00, i tried my luck with a text saying "how about 12:30" to which I received a rather blunt reply "12:00", that told us! We managed to grab Oliver Jeffers A way back home and a vintage nursery rhymes book that had seen better days but had a lot of character (I knew Emma would love it). We regrouped back at the library for lunch and added our friends Lucie and Martha to the fun. The smack talk continued and Lucie joined forces with Emma (because clearly she needed the help).

Rose found a quiet spot for lunch on Charles Darwin, meow.

With £1.50 left to spend it was time for round 2 and me and Opeie ventured to a different part of town where the charity shops are a little more classy. Opeie had set an extra task of finding a cool pop up book for us, which we did although it took us over our budget so we couldn't include it in the game. When I visit any charity shop I always have a few "Id love to find" books in mind. At the moment I keep hoping Ill stumble upon the Robert Sabuda pop up edition of The wonderful Wizard of Oz because I cant warrant paying the price it goes for online or anything by Florence Upton (I love those illustrations).

We spent our remaining money on an adults Roald Dahl book for Emma that I had never seen before as I knew she was a big fan. Me and Opeie had come home from a morning out last week to find presents waiting for us from Emma and Matthew, which was so kind of them, so we thought it was cute to stick with the Roald Dahl theme.

Part two flew by and we arranged to meet at Shrewsbury museum for what Emma called "an Opeie friendly hot chocolate" (Soya). As the kids sat and had what looked like a very sophisticated coffee date us adults filled the table with our findings and exchanged gifts. Emma had found us an atlas of Dinosaurs which went down a treat with Opeie and a copy of Mr Popper's penguins which me and Opeie are really looking forward to reading after we have finished James and the giant peach.

Sophisticated and friendly hot chocolate aside it did get to that point in the afternoon where the winner had to be announced so we turned to the referee's that had joined us mid competition. While going through our spoils we found that the other team already owned our gifted Oliver Jeffers book so it went to Lucie and Martha which may have swung Martha's vote when she announced we had won. Thankfully though our awesome children decided that 'everyone is the winner' and rightly so if you can pick up that many amazing books for £5 how can you not be a winner. 

Our charity shop adventure was so much fun and we are now thinking about making it a regular thing as it will be interesting to see what we find in different towns. It looks like Bridgnorth may be our next destination so if you are from the surrounding area be generous with your book donations. 

As we made our way back to the car everyone pointed out foxes for our next Gifts from the pirates fox hunt post too...

...and Emma pointed out 'There's a couple of Foxes over here!', Love these guys!

 Another Last Story have got plenty to say about our afternoon of fun and Emma certainly has a way with words, I love reading her posts, so check it out...

There's Nothing Like A Bit Of Healthy Competition

 

"Doing science, Doing science, making things and breaking things"

I have written many posts about how amazing charity shops are, sorry this is another one of those posts. last Friday i decided to go on a long walk for a bit of exercise, i try and do this as much as i can to aid my healthy eating. I'm never going to have that hot wedding body otherwise. I power walked a good few miles and then decided to head to an area where there's a few charity shops before i headed home. I always check charity shops for books as the boys plough through them like they are going out of fashion (which of course is great). I walked in to my favourite of the shops in that area and was so glad i had ventured that way. Seth is science mad and his head is like a sponge for information. A few days before a local school had donated a lot of books to the shop and luckily i had gone out for my walk with my backpack on.

  

I managed to get thirteen great science and information books and even found Lemony Snicket's a series of unfortunate events book three as I'm reading book one to Seth at the moment, Cat in the hat (the movie adaptation) and a cute illustrated children's book which i knew Mrs M would adore. How much for i bet your wondering? 16 books for £1.50, and that is why i love charity shops so much, more than enough books to keep the boys entertained over the holiday. Stay tuned for a summer of science experiments.

"Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us."

It doesn't happen all that often but every now and again you can find a gem when rummaging through the charity shops. Today i popped to the chemist in Ironbridge for a packet of wet wipes for my messy little boy. On the off chance i decided to pop in to the only charity shop on the high street, mainly to look through the books for Opeie as hes really starting to get into his books. I did find a Maisy book that he didn't have but the Gem was staring at me as i walked in amongst the naff board games and a pair of tatty roller skates.

I'm not a massive Transformers fan but Seth occasionally likes to watch the cartoon, what he does love though is masks and he doesn't really care what they are, the only specification is they cant be girly. In Seth's words today "i wish i had every mask in the world".

It was just me and Opeie that had gone to the shop so after we headed down to the park to Mrs M and Seth. Seth had gone on an adventure in the woods with auntie lotty so when he got back Mrs M told him that the Pirates had sent it express delivery to the park for being so good.  He was  a very excited little boy and it was by far the best £2 i had ever spent.