I always have a lot of questions about accommodati I always have a lot of questions about accommodation when we stay anywhere as a family so I thought I’d share this little tour of our room at @windjammerlanding which was a pretty perfect place to stay.

It’s the ‘Ocean View Two Bedroom’ which was like a little house, with an upstairs and downstairs, built into the hillside. Both rooms had outdoor space and their own shower rooms. Such a great option for a family.
A little photo dump from our holiday in St Lucia. A little photo dump from our holiday in St Lucia. We’ve been back a few days now but still miss the heat, the food, the pool, the constant sounds of wildlife and the lovely people. It was such a great holiday and I’m sure we’ll be back one day.
And just like that, Athena is 12! What a joy it is And just like that, Athena is 12! What a joy it is watching her grow and what a wonderful young woman she is becoming. We could not be more proud. Love you Pickle, have a great birthday.
We’ve just got back from two glorious weeks in S We’ve just got back from two glorious weeks in St Lucia staying at @windjammerlanding and it was just the holiday we needed. Two weeks of sunshine and relaxation in what must be one of the most beautiful islands in the world. 

We can’t wait to go back again in the future. Here’s just a little snippet of our trip.
AD - Press Tickets | We had such a nice day at @na AD - Press Tickets | We had such a nice day at @national_motor_museum despite the rain! The children loved the Little Beaulieu play area and we loved exploring the National Motor Museum and Top Gear exhibit before having a ride on the monorail! We went on an old open topped bus, explored the Beaulieu Manor House and loved the gardens. 
Beaulieu is always a great day out - whatever the weather. This summer they have a whole ‘Summer of Fun’ planned, with activities most days - parades, bird shows and hundreds of sculptures within the grounds too. If you’re looking for a day out this summer definitely think about heading to Beaulieu.
AD - Press Tickets | Tonight we took the kids to t AD - Press Tickets | Tonight we took the kids to their first concert - but it was so much more than just a concert! @abbavoyage is incredible. With CGI ABBA and a live band, it’s like being at an ABBA concert 40 years ago but with modern lighting, effects and sound. ABBA look and sound real, it’s a mind blowing experience.
The set includes all the songs you know and love as well as a few less familiar ones.
You can’t take photos during the show which actually made a refreshing change. A whole arena focused purely on the show and soaking up the moment. It’s definitely something the four of us will always remember.
Now, I’m off to sing Dancing Queen all the way home.
AD - Press Trip | We had such a great day at @phdo AD - Press Trip | We had such a great day at @phdockyard today. They have a fantastic Ultimate Explorer ticket that lets you visit all the attractions as many times as you like for 12 months - and after a day at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard we can see that you need more than one day to really do everything!

We explored HMS Warrior, HMS Victory and the Mary Rose Exhibition - which is incredible! We also saw where ships are built and restored and spent time in Action Stations where the kids climbed and did an assault course.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is such a fun, educational day out with something for all ages - we can’t wait to go on their harbour tours next time we visit!
AD | WIN!! Would you love to win a holiday? To cel AD | WIN!! Would you love to win a holiday? To celebrate #100YearOfARoads National Highways have launched their #ARoadsToSummer competition! It's all about celebrating summer holiday moments, time together, fun in the sun, days out and more.

So why not be in it to win it? To enter, all you have to do is send @nationalhways a DM on here with a photo or video of your favourite holiday moments. You can also comment on their Facebook or Twitter #ARoadsToSummer posts with your holiday photos. I've shared a few of our favourite photos to give you some inspiration.

The best six entries will each win a £500 @nationaltrust holidays voucher! SO what are you waiting for? Dig out your favourite holiday photos or take some new ones to share!

The #ARoadsToSummer competition runs from 24 July to 10 September 2023. Winners will be announced in September 2023.

Good luck!
Oh these two! Every day I feel lucky to have them. Oh these two! Every day I feel lucky to have them. As school draws to a close at lunchtime, I’m looking forward to a whole summer with them. My favourite people.

They’ve both had a great year at school this year. Troy’s first without his sister by his side and Athena’s first at secondary school. 

They both had great reports, always did their best and have made some really lovely new friends this year. I could not be more proud of them.

Now, let’s go and enjoy the next six weeks before school starts all over again!
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Favourite Posts, Opinion/Debate · March 5, 2015

World Book Day – Missing the point?

Today all over the country children went into school dressed up to celebrate World Book Day. I have watched this day unfold over social media for the last couple of years and have seen parents plan, with dedication, their children’s outfits.

World Book Day - Missing the point?

World Book Day celebrates the wonder of reading, books and authors with usually a week or so of events for the week around World Book Day and then a day of dressing up and fun for children everywhere. World Book Day was created by UNESCO and is a worldwide celebration of books and reading which is marked in over 100 countries all over the world. To put it bluntly, it’s quite a big thing.

At a time when children across the UK often spend a chunk of their day watching TV and movies it is great to get them interested in books, to read a bedtime story and to turn the TV off for a while. For me this celebration is something that I can imagine embracing with LP and Little Man as years go by, planning their outfits and grabbing the opportunity to read new books and find out about new authors.

But, today, across social media I saw a huge divide in World Book Day costumes. There were a few parents who had spent time creating costumes that their children would love, of characters that their children had read about and enjoyed, characters that the children wanted to be and characters that the children proudly dressed up as this morning – holding the relevant book and having their picture taken out the front of their houses before heading off to school for World Book Day fun.

Then there were the other children. The majority who were in a superhero costume or yet another Elsa dress. The ones dressed as characters that they had only seen on the big screen, ones where they knew the cartoons they’d seen religiously, ones they had learnt the songs from with the help of the TV and ones that they’d only read about in books that had were published after the movies were a success – or ones that were once comic books that the children are not even aware of.

One day in a whole year is dedicated to the wonder of books and reading and I cannot be alone in feeling saddened that children are going to school dressed as characters from movies and not characters from the books they love. They could dress up as Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter, a Dr Seuss character, the Gruffalo, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, any of the Mr Men & Little Miss characters or any of the other wonderful characters that were created in the minds of great authors and immortalised in the pages of a book.

World Book Day is just that. A day. But a day celebrated by a big part of the world and one that I would love to see kids understanding, embracing and celebrating by reading a new book – not by going home and watching a movie.

World Book Day - Missing the point?

In: Favourite Posts, Opinion/Debate

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Comments

  1. Kate @ Family Fever says

    March 5, 2015 at 6:46 pm

    Well said. I found it really sad this morning that none of Jacob’s friends had heard of his character – The Tin Soldier. Gemma dressed as Puss in Boots – another classic in my mind. I much prefer the ‘real’ costumes to the Elsa dresses!

    Reply
  2. Kim Carberry says

    March 5, 2015 at 6:59 pm

    I totally agree….I’ve just had a discussion with my youngest about how she is not dressing up as Elsa out of Frozen. (They’re dressing up tomorrow at my girls school)
    I read earlier that young girls were dressing up as Zoella the YouTuber because she had a book out. Ugh!

    Reply
  3. Jenny Eaves says

    March 5, 2015 at 7:36 pm

    Completely agree! O doesn’t go to nursery today, so didn’t dress up, but there are so many characters from books that he loves, which he could dress up as. We’ll definitely be dressing up in the future! 🙂 x

    Reply
  4. Melanie sears says

    March 5, 2015 at 7:40 pm

    I thoroughly agree with you. My 4 year old daughter went as the butterfly from monkey puzzle. She had a homemade/stitched by hand costume that took longer to make than what she wore it and she was very proud and excited to wear. She was the only one in her class with homemade and only a handful from a book not film/TV .

    Reply
  5. Beth Twinderelmo says

    March 5, 2015 at 8:02 pm

    Charlies school is having it TOMORROW – you know when it’s not even World Book Day?! I give up!!!

    Reply
  6. Hurrah For Gin says

    March 5, 2015 at 8:41 pm

    *whispers* F went as a teenage mutant hero turtle.
    A combination of time, money (mostly time) the school telling us 2 days before!!
    We read ALL the time though so it’s not a reflection on that, plus 4 year olds are hard – they all just want to be Elsa or Batman and it’s hard to negotiate 😉 x

    Reply
  7. Laura says

    March 5, 2015 at 8:53 pm

    I agree! Books are wonderful and too few people embrace them. It should be about the books your children love and not the tv shows they watch. Although I have to say I’m not sure how good I am going to be at the whole costume making thing when our time comes!

    Reply
  8. EmilyandIndiana says

    March 5, 2015 at 9:01 pm

    thank goodness it’s not just me and my pregnancy hormones that got SO angry at all the posts today. It is so sad that children didn’t want to go dressed as a book character, I would have loved this as a kid! If it’s still going when indiana is bigger she will be doing it the way it’s supposed to.. Even if it means creating something haha xx

    Reply
  9. Sarah says

    March 5, 2015 at 9:05 pm

    I totally agree too. I didn’t dress Toby up for nursery, although I’ll be happy to when he’s a bit older. It’ll definitely be a character from a book though and not someone from a Disney film!

    Reply
  10. A Cornish Mum says

    March 5, 2015 at 10:58 pm

    Our sons’ school did a snuggle down day where they all came in their pj’s dressing gowns and brought their favourite books and a teddy in with them, which I thought was brilliant.
    They run a buddy system where all the juniors buddy up with and look after an infant child all year, and today they all snuggled into a corner somewhere and read to their little buddies! Lovely idea…even if my eldest insisted on taking a minecraft book *groans*
    Stevie x

    Reply
  11. Becca Staples says

    March 6, 2015 at 10:34 am

    So glad you’ve posted on this, it was something that was annoying me yesterday too!! Whats happened to tradition?? I saw alot of Elsa and Anna’s posted on my facebook feed and my eye rolling became to much! Give me a gruffalo, a stick man, a witch on a broom or even a cinderella (if one needs to be a princess!!) I feel your pain

    Reply
  12. Nell@PigeonPairandMe.com says

    March 6, 2015 at 10:45 am

    It’s a tricky one. Last year my son went as Cat in the Hat, but most boys in his year were superheroes. He was too little to feel ‘different’ (still in the school nursery at that stage), but as he gets older, I suspect he might want to join in with the rest of the boys and dress as a fighting superhero….I feel a bit sad about it, but luckily his school postponed WBD till the summer so I don’t have to worry about it for a while.

    Reply
  13. Laura Warner says

    March 6, 2015 at 6:18 pm

    I couldn’t agree more. What a great post. Oscar went in dressed as Where’s Wally. He looked very cute xx

    Reply
    • Donna Wishart says

      March 6, 2015 at 6:24 pm

      I saw, he looks fantastic! x

      Reply
  14. Alan Dapre says

    March 7, 2015 at 3:20 pm

    I read your blog post with great interest. I am a children’s author and love it when children really get into the language of books, exploring characters and plots with enthusiasm.

    Like you, I am bemused by the fact that some parents are happy to stick their child in a ready-made costume related to a film or TV character. That said, I have worked in TV and appreciate that there is a cross-over between books and movies.

    TV or Film tie-ins will be created to maximise sales and generate exposure. My daughter has an Elsa dress and several ‘Frozen’ themed books. Not great literature but the books do engage(ish) and might be a doorway into encouraging ‘free reading’.

    My hope is that World Book Day celebrates Book characters from all periods, where parents show children the books that made them smile and laugh and cry. I share countless ‘favourite’ picture books with my daughter. World Book Day is there to encourage a bond with the written word.

    Though perhaps we are being too sensitive by ruling out inspiration from Movies and TV? A hankering for the traditional titles may not be what motivates the wee ones these days.

    Maybe parents just need to relax a little and go with the flow – then jump on the back of whatever it is that motivates their child – so that after a child has read ‘Frozen’ and gone to school dressed up as Elsa or Olaf the she or he is encouraged to read a really engaging book at home. Just a thought.

    Reply
    • Monica Gilbert says

      February 12, 2016 at 11:05 pm

      Thank you. I really appreciate how balanced your views are. There is no wrong way to get interested in books.

      Reply
  15. Laura says

    March 8, 2015 at 4:00 pm

    I couldn’t agree more with this post. This was my first world book day (my son is only 2 and started pre-school last year). He went as the Gruffalo – a really easy costume considering I picked up a reduced Gruffalo hoody in the Debenhams sale a few weeks ago! Most of the other kids went as things from Toy Story or Frozen and although I can understand the logic of putting them in what are probably their easiest and favourite costumes, it does seem to be missing the point of world BOOK day a little. Especially when there are so many lovely characters out there which are easily achievable. I read another blog post today about kids dressing up as Zoella! Barmy!

    Reply
  16. Monica Gilbert says

    February 12, 2016 at 11:03 pm

    Just stumbled across this and am appalled at how judgmental this post (and especially the comments) were. It’s nice to see how many perfect mummies have the time, energy, money, and talent to make costumes for their book loving darlings. And how horrible the mothers who send them in store bought costumes are.
    While I understand the point you’re trying to make (the focus should be on books), the fact is that these characters do have books associated with them. My daughter has book adaptations of Frozen, Sofia the First, original Disney Christmas stories set after the movies, Batman, and the Avengers, along with classic children’s books and some fun new ones. If she decides she wants to be Elsa or Batman, I’m not making an issue about it. Because she’s read and enjoyed books featuring those characters (in fact, she knows these characters primarily through the books, not the movies or TV shows). So don’t assume the child has not read something just because they’re in a mass produced costume. That’s snobbery of the highest order that doesn’t fit with the wonderfully helpful and supportive blog posts I’m used to seeing here.
    This year, I think my 3 year old daughter wants to be Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’d love her to have a handmade costume, but I don’t know if it will happen. I work full time (8-6) at a day nursery, so I don’t have the time to spend at the sewing machine. And I have recently broken my elbow, so I’m physically not able to even if I wanted. It’s nice to know there could be mothers judging me for not meeting outrageously high Pinterest standards on a day that should be FUN FOR THE CHILDREN! That is how World Book Day is missing the point, and it is sad to see how many are falling into that trap.

    Reply

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Hi everyone! I'm Donna. Mummy. Blogger. Social Media Manager. Traveller. Lover of stars, rainbows and gin. Firm believer that tea and cake can fix most things.

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