This week is brought to you by the colour orange

We still had sunshine until yesterday but we've got April showers now - the garden needs it but it does make it harder to know what to do with small children. It makes me very grateful for the last month or so of great weather where we could easily go and spend the whole day in a park.

What to do with children when it's raining... apart from sitting at home and moaning.

Well we went to get more hay fever supplies (yes even in the rain) and popped into one of the pound shops to get some snacks. That was a great time for small children who don't go to the supermarket or big shops often as they were interested in EVERYTHING.

"Mummy what's this?" in stereo. Hair gel, window cleaner, a citronella torch (this was of great interest to Isaac - I don't know if it was because it looked like a mediaeval weapon or the thought of it sending bugs away because it was smelly), toothpaste, mouthwash, wipes, all the boring stuff got inspected and asked about and lots of 'but why?' questions as to why people would buy such exotic things.

And then we turned a corner and saw the toys. My heart sank. Row upon row of cheap plastic stuff - hey it's the pound shop it's not going to be fair trade and wood but even so... My strategy was to go for the 'you can have one thing' option. They had a great time picking things up (water pistol, another water pistol, a rubbery insect thing) but actually they weren't that interested in most of it, it just didn't register. In the end all toys were put back and paint was bought - it looked fun in the packet but when we got home they worked out that cheap paint really isn't worth it but it was kind of fun seeing just how hard they had to rub it to make the colour come off onto the brush and then go onto the paper.

The biggest hit were the hair clips, colourful socks (all too big for them or we'd have had more fun) and the net skirts. We came home with various hair clips which both of them wore for about 10 minutes and then took out as they were too uncomfortable and a net skirt each - Isaac wanted pink and we had a long discussion about the one in the shop with the bad stitching on it and why he'd like the other one more even though it wasn't the first one picked up (we nearly had to take the wonky one as it was the only one we could find before I did some rooting around) and Isabel wanted an orange one. She then wore it all afternoon and declared she was a princess.

A few packets of snacks added to the basket and it was all a reasonably cheap outing - cheaper than a month's worth of hay fever supplies anyway!

Isaac spent about 3 hours yesterday and a good couple of hours the day before playing with a balloon - I have to hand it to Pizza Express their balloons are good! He did lots of blowing it up and then letting it down again. Blowing it up and then letting it go and chasing it around the room. Some balloon singing where he squeezed the neck of the balloon as the air came out. And so on and so on. Eventually the balloon developed a hole but it was a huge hit.

An idle but of snipping of the lid of a breadstick tube ended up with a paper plate mask session when our friend Kerry came over yesterday. It was slightly sinister to see small children with big masks on but fun.

The Duplo has been put away for a while upstairs but with the bad weather I brought the tub down again and both of them have had a great time playing with it over the last couple of days. I do hate having to pick it all up but am grateful it's still Duplo and not tiny Lego pieces... yet.