Before embarking on your adventure to read this blog post, you must first determine your own strengths and weaknesses. You have in your possession a sword and a backpack containing provisions (food and drink) for the read. Use the Adventure Sheet to determine your skill, stamina and luck. If you encounter any spelling errors you may slay the author. If you want to escape at any time you will have to Test your Luck, but you may get flicked on the ear as you run away into the forest. Now read on brave adventurer. Turn to Ali Baker’s website to read the rest of my guest blog post on how I introduced my son to Fightning Fantasy books…

My son was overjoyed to finally find a mermaid’s purse the other day on our first visit to a small stretch of shingle beach along East Cowes esplanade, on our lovely Isle of Wight. He has eyes like a hawk, and spotted it amongst shiny black bladderwrack. Inspired by my first find of a mermaid’s purse years ago, I used it as inspiration for a page in our seaside children’s book Jack and Boo’s Bucket of Treasures:

I spot sea glass
for my bucket
sandblasted
in storms
a lost jewel
from a mermaid’s
purse.

Mermaid’s purses are the egg cases of skates, dogfish and rays. I think the one my son found is from a common British shark, known as the lesser spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicula) or commonly referred to as a dogfish. Egg cases are laid by female dogfishes in shallow waters and the tendrils help them to attach to seaweed. After they hatch, the egg cases are often washed up on the coast for small children to find. The Shark Trust’s Eggcase website is keen that you go to their website and record any mermaid’s purses you find, as numbers of rays and skate have declined in recent years. There’s loads of information on egg cases and if you find one on a beach they have a great identification page to help you classify it.

So, what are you waiting for? Get out on the beach and start hunting for mermaid’s purses! But if you find a mermaid’s handbag, please don’t look inside as the contents are a closely guarded secret. Happy treasure hunting…

I’ve spent an intolerable percentage of being a parent sitting in soft play centres. We only had hard play when I was a child. Hard being the type of fall you had when you fell out of the tree you were climbing or the wall you were balancing on. Today children can play “safely” in a world made of padded scaffolding, banging into millions of other children running in the opposite direction, screaming loudly while tired, sweating parents chase around after them banging into areas so low you have to walk like a chimp to navigate them. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there are soft play birthday parties now where your child can run about and get sweaty with all their school or nursery mates before sitting down to a vile burger and chips and a lovingly bought Tesco birthday cake. I’m sick of them, but I know my children get lots of enjoyment from them so, for the immediate future at least, I’m going to be seething – er I mean sitting – in more of them.

Most parents of young children will be into the swing of the summer holiday by now, and I am getting a little tired of it already, as keeping the children entertained while trying to work from home is a nightmare. My two angels have already fallen from grace and are causing havoc down here on earth.

As some light relief, I thought I’d list a few of the things that my children do that annoy me (but I love them anyway!):

1) When they insist that black is white. For example, my 3yo insisted a red grapefruit in the fruit bowl was an orange, and pleaded for me to cut it open, so she could try it. I was convinced she wouldn’t  like it, as I thought it would be too sour. To my surprise though, she did like it! This just shows even if you think a child won’t like something, one day they may like it and it’s worth persevering so they try new tastes, experiences, etc.

2) When they ask for something (usually a drink or food) the moment you have sat down. To help alleviate this problem we have found that giving them some independence seems to help, so they can get their own drink. Although this can then result in another annoyance…

3) When they leave the fridge door wide open. We have seriously considered buying fridge locks to combat this, but so far haven’t bothered, as we think that any kind of lock mechanism is frustrating to use on a daily basis. Plus, I’d quite likely accidentally rip the door of its hinges, grumpy and desperate to get some milk for a morning cup of tea.

4) When they don’t bother clearing up their toys. I guess I never did as a child so what do I expect? As a possible solution I’ve tried to either turn tidying into a game or make a “deal” that if they clear up a bit they will get something else. Works, sometimes.

I’m sure there are loads more, but I want to conclude by saying the most annoying person in the house is still me.

Spent a sunny down on Yaverland beach, in Isle of Wight with the kids fossil hunting, but mostly playing on the beach. We found fossilied wood with iron pyrite inside but no dinosaurs today. We don’t really know what we’re looking for at the moment as I’m not too hot on geology, but I’m picking it up. right now I could have easily found a dinosaur bone and not realised it judging from these photos of finds on the uk fossils network website.We try not to do too much damage, simply hunting for rocks on the foreshore rather than breaking huge chunks off the cliff as many people seem to do. Still, a fun challenge for family and children, but do some homework before so you know where to look and what to even look for!

Pity the day was spoilt slightly by a nuisance that seems to plague every beach, street, footpath and stretch of grass in the uk – dog poo! With all the dog owners not clearing up their foul lumps, in a few million years from now, people will find fossilised poo as common as…well muck. To be fair I did see several dog walkers with little bags of the stinking stuff, so shame on you others – how would you like it if I let my children do the same? Sermon over.

I didn’t fall asleep tonight while reading to my daughter, but I yawned loads.  It really is catching, and she did fall asleep eventually after reading the following picture book selection, which includes several old 70s gems…

Dinosaurs and all that rubbish by Michael Foreman – a classic Puffin book published in 1972 about dinosaurs who come to life to teach a selfish man a lesson about looking after the planet.

The Magic Wallpaper by Frank Francis – published in 1970. Animals in a boy’s wallpaper come to life.

Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins – an absolute classic. A lesson in, show don’t tell.

Monster! by Angela McAllister and Charlotte Middleton. Very, very funny. No jokes as such, but a great switch in the middle that always made my little boy laugh when he got what was going on. My daughter also loved it, but I’m not sure she really gets it yet. Brilliant.

Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd. Rhyming doggy antics.

Mrs Pirate by Nick Sharratt. Simple, but fun.

Today was glorious. Spent some of the day on Ventnor beach IOW with family and children. Kids buried my feet in the sand and pretended my toes were worms making earthquakes under the sand. My daughter got carried away and almost pulled my big toe off – ouch! I help the kids build a sandcastle and watched other competitive dad’s build ever bigger, stronger, firmer sandcastles. Ours was more of a ruined English Heritage castle and then it got completely levelled when my youngest stamped on it. Was almost hit twice by a frisbee, but a Minghella ice cream while we watched the waves made a perfect day.

Over the Easter weekend the children and I found some felled trees on the edge of a wood, which made a fantastic “natural” playground for the children to climb, crawl and jump on. Before too long I was up and balancing on the logs with them. We played a game of making our way along without touching the ground, only using the tree trunks and branches. The children were entertained for almost 2 hours! They usually get bored in a playground fairly quickly. They reported back that they liked the “way they are all different”, the “challenge”, and especially when some of the smaller cut trees moved they loved the added “danger and excitement!” So what are you waiting for? Go find some fallen trees to balance on…but, please don’t cut any down though If you are in town then garden walls make a good challenge…enjoy!