Sam and I have found out about a fantastic service that is run in our area which lets you borrow toys for free! There is a big white van that visits a different local location every day and people who are members can go along to the most convenient place for them and borrow 2 different toys at a time.

We found the van visiting our local park today and were very impressed. As it is the summer holidays the van team have been making more of an event of their visits and we were very excited to see one of the Library ladies there doing a story time and singing some songs. Sam got a free ‘BBC breathing spaces’ t-shirt as well as a chance to meet ‘Slimer’ the African land snail.

Unfortunately I didn’t have a way of taking home the lovely activity wall that Sam is playing with here, but I did get some good toys for Sam to have a go with which we are both very much looking forward to.

Sam and I have been enjoying our newly found local library quite a bit this week and were delighted to find that Sam had a personal invitation to meet with the Mayor of Croydon on Saturday. Sam has been taking part in the national ‘Book crawl‘ initiative and as we had read through 4 books from our new found library he was entitled to a certificate which the Mayor himself wanted to come and present to him.

Also attending Sam’s certificate presentation was the Bookstart bear himself who was quite a draw for some of the other children who also happened to be in the library that day. We had some ‘rhyme time’ fun before the certificates where we all joined in some of our childhood songs and Sam got a rattle to shake while Rich helped him join in with some of the actions. Impressively the mayor did join in for some of the songs too and even sat down on the floor with the rest of us kids 🙂

Yesterday afternoon Sam and I decided to test out his new sun hat at the local park where we decided to stop for half an hour and enjoy the lovely sunshine. We chose to sit near the building that used to be a library – but sadly is now empty. After spending some time looking at the lovely old building and wishing that it still contained a library we decided to head back home after doing a circuit of the park.

On our way back I noticed a sign to a ‘public library’ which lead us to where this old library must have been rehomed! Very excitedly we went in to have a good look around and spent a little time admiring the nice spacious layout. We sadly had to go home for Sam’s feed but decided to make a return visit this morning for their Tuesday ‘Rhyme time’.

Well – the Rhyme time was good fun and very popular, lot’s and lot’s of other small children came along and Sam had a good look at them all crawling around or walking about (I hope he is taking good notice!). Some of the songs I already knew but most of them I’ll have to learn, though I think if we make this a regular weekly event that won’t be too hard 🙂 I’m very happy to have found our local library at last and I’m looking forward to the day when Sam gets as excited about visiting it as I do.