Halfway through Half Term

We normally decamp to my Mum's for October half term, but as the puppy isn't still out of her vaccination quarantine we'd have been severely limited as to what we could have done there.  Plus, Mum doesn't have an enclosed back garden.  So, stay at home and see what York has to offer.

February half term is usually Viking Week, with shed loads of viking-related stuff going on around the City.  October half term dovetails nicely with Halloween, so the libraries have been doing Spooky Storytimes; ditto the Castle Museum with its gruesome stories for older children taking place in one of the cells of the old prison.  The kids have been to Castle quite a few times already, but the Victorian Street is always a winner.

Today we made some illuminated letters in the Yorkshire Museum and spent a long time playing with the magnetic mosaic boards in their learning rooms.  ("Mum, look! we've made a roman mosaic of Perry the Platypus!").  We're heading back there tomorrow for Astronomy Day - modelling stars and planets, a tour of the observatory in the Museum Gardens and getting hands on with the observatory telescope; unfortunately, it's going to be a cloudy day - we had been planning to take them to the evening session where they can look through the telescope at the heavens, but probably not worth it now.

Also planned for the weekend is the obligatory visit to the NRM - ever popular with the kids but the museum is so vast I need Doug to help me keep an eye on them.  Oh, and Jacob and Doug are going to see Tintin at some point, which means I'll have to take Sam to see something more appropriate for him - The Smurfs, probably.  I wonder if I can fob him off with a trip to Morrisons?  it seems to work in the advert.....