Monday 30th October 2006

Went to the Imperial War Museum at the weekend. Free admission and my rail season ticket meant the whole trip only cost us £15, including coffee whilst we were out. The museum is excellent and we all really enjoyed it. The girls had been watching the BBC TV program about wartime evacuation and the museum has an exhibition dedicated to this. They even have a full size wartime semi to wander around. In addition to this, and the world war I and II exhibitions there are also a couple of very interesting, moving if not harrowing exhibitions dedicated to the Holocaust and War crimes. These exhibits are not recommened for those under 14 though. Well worth the trip. (www.iwm.org.uk)

The girls are still off school today. Teacher training day. Took SJ to work so I could have the car. The girls asked to go to the Crazy Barn (.arrived too early at 9.45 so not open yet). Took the opportunity to peruse the farm shop (Kelsey Fram, Bexley). I like to look around at all the locally grown products. Can’t complete with Tesco on price though.

Barn open. Very busy. Girls played for 2 hours whilst I read the times from skin to skin. Had a coffee there too which the machine made too weak. Shame.

Came home for lunch and did online banking while girls played. Checked moneysavingexpert of course. Agreed to look after our neighbours children whilst their mum went to the Doctor.

The four kids played well so I managed some research into European Centerparcs for next Easter. We went to Centerparc in Belgium last year, they're all over Europe. We saved over £500 on the same trip to a UK Centerparc, including the Eurotunnel fare (and we had our own sauna in our villa!). Go to www.centerparcs.com, and make sure you don't get re-directed back to the UK site or else you will get ripped off. cp.com and cp.co.uk are two separate companies. I really recommend the De Vossermeren Centerparc in Belgium. We're going to try one in Holland next year. That was my money saving tip for this week ;o)