Tuesday 19 June 2012

Fantastic fishy family fun!

Pembrokeshire Fish WeekFrom rockpooling to river walks, children are sure to have fantastically fishy family day out at the Pembrokeshire Fish Week festival!
Between June 23rd and July 1st, there are dance workshops, angling lessons, cookery classes, and much more all over the county – for children of all ages.

The fishy frolics start at Milford Haven marina on Saturday 23rd June - the opening day of Fish Week. Explore the heritage tug ‘The Brocklebank’ and the ‘Earl of Pembroke’ tall ship, watch street theatre performances of the Fishermen and Mermaid, and listen to tales of the sea in the storytellers’ grotto.

For keen young cooks, there’s a fantastic children’s fish cookery marquee, sponsored by Valero, where they can make their own delicious fresh fishy dishes with expert advice as part of a great family day out.

Come and enjoy art and craft drop-in workshops, pavement painting, and circus skills, or learn about the coast and sustainable fishing, and dip into touch tanks!

And look out for the Children’s Decathlon - complete 10 activities around the dockside and enter the prize draw for a VIP Family Ticket to Folly Farm!

If your kids love dancing, then don’t miss the new Dance Festival on Sunday, 24th June, also at Milford Haven Marina.

D12 will include contemporary, hip hop, belly dance and free running, featuring performances by professional dancers and companies and the work of various dance groups. Why not join in one of the free workshops, led by professional dance artists and teachers?

Also on 24th June is ‘Music and Mayhem’ at Tenby Harbour, a great day of beachside entertainment.

Enjoy street theatre, graffiti workshops, face painting and stilt walking, and be entertained by Matt the Magic man, plus Battlefield Live. Or join in with the assault course, volleyball and surf simulator on the beach!

Friday 8 June 2012

Olympic diver calls for superhero effort for water safety!

Nick Robinson Baker launches Top Trunks
Nick Robinson Baker launches Top Trunks
People across the UK are being urged to dress like a superhero for a day to save lives. The gesture backs Water Safety Awareness Week, which is taking place June 16 – 24.

The call comes after British Olympic diver Nick Robinson Baker launched the countdown to the drowning prevention awareness campaign last week.

Nick, 24, who became a lifesaver when he rescued fellow diver Monique Gladding from the water at a World Cup meeting in Russia last year, is spearheading Water Safety Awareness Week, by the Royal Lifesaving Society UK (RLSS UK).

Water Safety Awareness Week climaxes on Friday 22 June, when everyone is being asked to take part in Top Trunks by wearing their swimming kit over the top of their clothes for the day and posting photos of themselves online.

Nick explains: “The idea is that on Friday 22 June as many people as possible wear their swimming trunks and costumes over their normal clothes and go about their normal lives. It will be a really visual prompt to people to find out more about Water Safety Awareness Week.

“All we ask is that people email photos of themselves in their Top Trunks outfits to watersafetyawarenessweek@rlss.org.uk and that they pay a minimum of £1 to RLSS UK via JustGiving by searching on the Royal Life Saving Society UK.

“As I found out, you’ll never know when you may need to save someone’s life, and this will be a really fun way to encourage people to learn how they and their loved ones can be safe in, on, or near water.”

The launch of Water Safety Awareness Week follows a spike in drownings across the UK and Ireland in recent weeks.

RLSS UK - the national water safety and drowning prevention charity - hopes its national campaign will help to reduce the annual number of accidental deaths from drowning in the UK. Latest available figures, from the National Water Safety Forum, show that there were 420 accidental deaths from drowning in 2010 – one nearly every 17 hours.

Di Standley, chief executive of national charity RLSS UK, said: “We hope that the idea of Top Trunks will catch on and become more popular each year. It’s a light-hearted way of getting across a serious message. Even if just one life is saved as a result of Water Safety Awareness Week, then it will be a success.”

One person who will be following Top Trunks with interest is Leamington Spa charity worker Sally Crowther, 32, whose father drowned in Crete in 2004.

She said: "It was horrible. Unfortunately we'll never know what really happened but perhaps he decided to go for an early morning swim on his own and just couldn't cope with the tide.

"My dad drowning is one of the worst things that my family and I have ever gone through and I would never want anyone else to go through the same thing.

"I think that Water Safety Awareness Week is not just important, it's essential. Open water needs to be respected and understood. Please don't let what happened to my dad also happen to you."

Money raised from Water Safety Awareness Week will help RLSS UK to deliver water safety packs for school children, free community lifesaving sessions and the charity’s ‘Don’t drink and drown’ campaign.

Find out more about Top Trunks and follow the Week on Twitter at #WSAW2012.

Five top water safety tips from RLSSS UK

1. Teach your children to swim and if they or you don’t swim, go for lessons

2. Accompany any children in your care in the water, staying within your depth. It’s more fun and you can keep them close and safe

3. Never swim alone.

4. Only swim at lifeguarded beaches and lakes

5. Look out for lifesaving classes at your local swimming pool

Prospero & Platty Stories

Resurrect the art of listening

Is your child bombarded with fast and furious fantasy figures thrust upon them because you are caught up in the busy whizz of modern day keep-up-with-the-Jones’ living?

Do their eyes glaze over in front of a wide variety of different sized screens, shooting myriad colours and warring wacky weirdo characters at them in frenetic scenes?

It’s time to relax, breathe, sit comfortably together and, appreciate childhood as it’s meant to be: a calm and enjoyable discovery, a first flush blossoming of the imagination, an enjoyable contentedness and veneration of life.

Why not make for yourself a daily sanctuary of half an hour in which you can enjoy each other’s company; an unshakeable routine in which you know your child is listening to you because you are calm and contented and looking forward to the joint discovery of what adventure Prospero and Platty have got up to today on arrival of their morning post.

The Prospero and Platty adventures are specifically written for parents and children to read together. They are gently descriptive and are based in the real world, not a vast virtual vortex of vroom. They encourage sharing and problem solving, not fear of alien foes and fortresses. They are pleasant and endearing, not hard hitting and horrid. They are also original, and not a revamped stale tale. Finally, there are no pictures, so the emphasis is on the listening side of the experience and allowing the imagination to work with words alone.

Have a sneaky peak for yourself at http://amzn.to/LYyY56 and then decide whether to create that special routine to be endearingly remembered.

David Wilson has lived in the county of Surrey in England for most of his life and greatly enjoys the countryside with his beloved wife, three kids, two cats and menagerie of other animals. The Puzzle Box is his first book and the first in a series of adventures starring two protagonists which David has adapted from stories told to him by his father as a youngster. His target audience is parents reading to children and the books are therefore a gentle and descriptive read, similar in style to Enid Blyton. He writes under the pen name of John Sinclair, his given middle names.

Star alongside Fifi and the Flowertots in your own Personalised Adventure!

Help Fifi, the forgetful Flowertot, find Violet’s missing present in time for her party. See your child’s delight as they magically visit Flowertot Garden and meet Fifi and all the Flowertot gang in this fun and exciting adventure.

With just a few clicks your child’s name and customised character magically appears in the words and pictures of their own personalised Fifi and the Flowertots story at www.penwizard.co.uk

Personalised books are a perfect gift and a great way of getting your kids involved and excited about reading as they hear and read their name and see themselves on the pages of the book in the Fifi and the Flowertot illustrations.

Create a character to look like your child by choosing their hair colour and style along with skin tone and eye colour, add their first name and surname - there’s even an option to leave a personal message on the first inside page to create a truly special gift.

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With delivery within 5 working days, this makes the perfect last minute personalised gift for any Fifi and the Flowertots fan. Books are available from www.penwizard.co.uk and don’t forget FREE P&P with code 654235 entered at your basket.

Personalisation:
- First name & Surname
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- Skin tone
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Book Specification
- Full colour gloss cover
- 24 Full colour pages
- Perfect bound paperback
- Size: 21 x 28 cm

www.penwizard.co.uk