At's a....TIN OF BEANS!

On Sunday we all went to the local school Fete. It is a fun event, with the usual mix of bouncy castles, coconut shies, bombolas, hot dogs, burgers, etc.

We always head for the tombolas - buy a ticket and the number ends in a 0 or a 5 you win a prize. My eldest daughter used to love these (I think her favourite one was when we were visiting Paignton Zoo and she spent around £25 to win 2 small cuddly toys), so we always hit them hard in her memory. We spent a fair amount (but as it all goes to the school we don't really care) and did very well, winning a range of prizes from tins of beans to a body-scrub and lotion set that my younger daughter had wanted to win right from the start. We then had a bit of a swapping session with some of my daughter's friends - they had won things that they did not really want so we exchanged them for things we had one, such as a nail polishing kit and a drawing set. Everyone ended up happy.

Youngest son also won a coconut, hitting it with his first throw. He was very pleased with himself for doing that as everyone else was missing by miles!

Then we hit the burger stall and sat around eating for a while before heading for home. It made a great afternoon, the weather being OK, warm and windy.

Mentioning the coconut shy reminded me of Saturday! We went for a family stroll along the beach and stopped for ice creams. As we finished we went down to the shoreline and started throwing stones into the sea. At some point I made one skip and the kids were all "Hey, how did you do that?" Then I suddenly realised that I have never taught them how to skip stones! Horrified at my terrible parenting I quickly gave them lessons, assuring them that it took me years to learn. My inability to skip stones can now be put down to my dyspraxia, though, as within minutes all 3 kids were sending pebbles skipping across the waves, my youngest managing 5 bounces with one of his stones.

Sunday dinner included sweet potato, which we all love. On Sunday, though, we had a GIANT one, so big it did all 5 of us! It is sold under the name of Spudzilla ("spud" being slang for potato over here). It was huge and had the big advantage that it was much quicker peeling one big one that a load of little ones. I got to wondering how big sweet potatoes are elsewhere - are they normally like Spudzilla? Are what we think of as "normal" (about fist-sized) runts that no-one else wants? Enquiring minds want to know!

Hope you all had a great weekend and are having a good Monday!