toomuchchocolate

A few of the more local, smaller parks have tennis or basketball courts. Harold Moody Park in Nunhead has basketball. Telegraph Hill Park has tennis courts. I've definitely seen others.

Has anyone booked a party bus? I'm looking for recommendations for an all-in party bus for 7 year olds, that will park up outside my house, and do all the work (so i all i have to do is enjoy the party!).

Edmund Waller Primary School fair is on Saturday 30th June, 12-4pm. Everyone is welcome.

Bunker 51 by the Thames Barrier. We had my son's party there in July and it was great fun.

I am a bit tired of how much money my son is now wasting on match Attax...today he bought two packs and he had all of them already. He has loads of swapsies...but has all swapped out with his friends at his school. So i'm thinking....are there any parents out there who would be up for a meet up with their kid and match attax to see if we can widen the kids circle of swapees? How about if everyone could pay ?1 to (charity) to come to the meet. Parents all supervise and then hopefully all the kids go home with a few Match Attax that they didn't have before. We all lessen the duplicated Match Attax and the kids all gain ones they were missing (hopefully). Anyone think this is a good idea? If there's a few people then I will organise a place to meet.

My son has decided he'd like to have a two- wheel scooter (since we;re finally upgrading from the mini micro!) I refuse to pay ?85+ for a Maxi Micro Scooter purely because of the brand. Can anyone recommend any of the other cheaper brand two-wheel scooters? I'm looking at The Razor Spark Kick Scooter, currently ?36 on Amazon, but I also like the look of the Oxelo Mid 5 Scooter from Decathlon, which has front wheel suspension, although it's ?50. Does anyone have experience of either brands, or other brands that you would recommend as being sturdy, long lasting, etc. He'd also quite like to start doing stunts on it! All advice much appreciated. Thanks

Can you help transport refugees aid to Luton? If there is someone with a van (transit size should be plenty big enough) who is willing and able to transport our collection of items for the refugees on Lesvos up to Luton please make urgent contact. We need to get our collection to Luton this week (ASAP) so that it can go with in a container to Lesvos on Saturday. Please contact me urgently if you can help? Thank you

We put up plastic sheeting around the stairs to protect upstairs while work was undertaken downstairs. We also put them up outside every bedroom door. They helped keep the dust out, but the dust sticks to the plastic, so a lot still blows in every time you go through the plastic. I found hanging a fabric sheet up on the inside of the doorframe helped catch more of the dust. Ultimately though, the dust will be everywhere and since it sticks to the walls, you either need to hoover the walls (I realise that sounds a bit excessive) or just keep hoovering as it drops off every day for months! Definitely cover soft furnishings...we also had to buy a new sofa following the building works. And now we're thinking of doing the side return too. Thank you for reminding me about the dust!

We had them too. We ripped out all of the old carpets. They come from under the floorboards! We had the house chemically treated last year, at the same time as the carpet/clothes moths - the chemicals can get under the floorboards. It seems to have worked, although we also laid new synthetic carpet upstairs which i don't think they will enjoy so much. We used P&J Pest Control (I think that's what they're called!)

Go to Emmanuelle Marshall in Forest Hill/Sydenham. Dorothy is fab with the children. She will happily measure your children's feet and will distract the unwilling ones very well. Then she will find all the shoes she has in your child's size. She will find the ones that fit correctly and then let you choose, or not, anything you/your child likes. I can not recommend her highly enough. (My daughter was a nightmare with having her feet measured when little and vomited in shops because she would get in such a tiz about it - Dorothy changed all that). The shoes are reasonably priced too.

....so far....still holding. Is this a new record low?

Yes I would be interested if its in the morning and I can bring baby and older sibling. Preschool and nap time rule afternoons out for us at the moment. I think the other music group is the one at Buchan tra on a Wednesday morning. I've not been but heard it is most excellent!

Lovely banners. Lots of people sell party supplies through etsy.com. I found some great stuff on there, though did have to trawl through a lot of tat too! Good luck.

That's terrible. I hope your baby is ok. I had no idea they could wriggle out...use mine all the time for my 6 month old. Here's a link to the recall notice... http://www.recall.bumbousa.com/

Great post Fuschia, really lovely. Saila - i'm going to try that tonight as my 5 month old is waking twice per night and i'm exhausted. Even though it's not a lot of wakings my son was sleeping through from 9 weeks, so i had high expectations...quickly dashed!

I've used dunstans for both of mine and found it immensely helpful. I'm still finding it useful second time around with my now almost 5 month old.

We travelled from new cross gate to shadwell on the air conditioned east London line then changed to the DLR to custom house. The journey wasn't too crowded at all. Leaving excel was quite busy but still only took about 10 mins to escape.

Burgess park fountains were on today. My son had a great time playing in them in between applications of factor 50. Be aware that the children's play area offers absolutely no shade during play...a real shame since it's a great play space. (the BBQ area is, however, in the shade of trees!!)

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I had intended to stick with my single buggy for my almost 3 year old (hopinghecwoud soon start walking everywhere) and put the baby in a sling....well this years weather put pay to that! A couple of disastrous attempts at going out meant tht After about 6 weeks of barely leaving the hOuse I bought a phil and teds vibe. I'm glad I did as life is much easier with the double.

Check out ohdeedoh.com. It's fab for ideas of how to make lovely kids rooms. I love it and am a bit addicted ...and found it really hard to decide how to decorate my little ones rooms as it has so many good ideas.

Not sure I would have been quite so polite. Well done you for confronting her.

Thanks renata. To be honest it's not just the water feature in that new play area that makes it horrid... The lack of fence means it is a dog toilet for many dogs and the area around and under the saucer swing is a mud bath (99% of the time so far this year) despite the rubber matting. I've also seen a fair amount of broken glass round the climbing frame. I'm sure the new children's centre will provide a more comprehensive service than the existing club, but they must leave the same amount of outside space, as the children's centres I've been to seem to have very small, if any, outside play space.

Thanks renata. I'm sure it will take more than a few weeks to knock down the last pow hut and build a new centre. I only hope the footprint of the new building won't be any bigger as it would be a shame to lose the good sized outdoor space the club currently has for the outdoor toys. I heard it will close in the next 3 months. It's a central gov decision. Oh, and the ladies who currently run it will be out of jobs as the centre will mean they cannot work part time!