It's snowing in Derbyshire.

Well, sort of anyway. In a sort of fake-snow-worthy-of-a-70s-film-set sort of way.
I finished making Joshua's pirate bean bag. Having filled it in the corridor (I figured the tiny white balls would be less likely to spread so far) I thought it would be a good idea to hoover up before Joshua himself got up from his nap. I was distracted from doing so though, and in no time I heard him shuffling down the corridor in a sleepy sort of way. In retrospect, I'm glad I hadn't hoovered the mess up, because we ended up having half an hour of riotous fun.
It turns out that they're pretty staticy (my computer doesn't like that word - I mean they stick to you!). What's more if your roll about in them, they feel really cool. In no time at all, we went from sitting in a small pile of them:
To playing ridiculous games, including the aforementioned 'it's snowing', resulting in the length of the corridor being covered! (The end of the red carpet is the end of our bit of corridor!)
Of course, the game had to come to an end eventually, but I can nevertheless recommend it most highly! You can tell how much I was enjoying it, because I don't seem to have taken Joshua's dummy off him, which is most unusual!
And if you're wondering, it's actually raining here. I'm quite pleased really, partly because I've been indoors working at the computer much of the day, and partly because it'll help the parsnips and carrots along a little!

And in other news, I'm thrilled to see that I've smashed through the double figure barrier in 'followers'. :o)

Beaten by a draft excluder.

Yes, that does read 'by' and not 'with'.
Joshua's loving the game 'Shhh, don't wake dad' at the moment. It was given to him for Christmas by one of the girls. He's now beginning to get the hang of the rules (though still ignores them...). However, at the outset, it was a case of talking him through the entire game. It's mercifully quite a quick game though. I have to point out that I did win the first game (yes, I was playing fair!). However it was downhill from there. The second game was won by Joshua, who only just beat me to the finishing line (which in this game is a fridge). It got worse though. He decided that Mole and Teddy needed to join in the action. So I was taking charge of making sure Mole didn't cheat, and Joshua was keeping an eye on Teddy. Mole is a draught (draft) excluder, Teddy is ... uh ... a teddy. Of course, we had to spin the spinner for them, but they did help move their pieces around the board. The inevitable happened though. Mole won. I could see it coming too, and was almost overcome by the temptation to cheat to enable one of the non-stuffed-toy players to win, but managed to resist and instead accept defeat at the hands (?!) of Mole.
Ah the joys and burden of responsibility!

Staying in bed.

Now, it's probably not what you think, from the title (though I have to confess I've had two lie-ins this week - didn't get up until 7.15 two days running!).
The question actually is, 'how long can you play 'house' in a bed with a two-year-old before it begins to wear a little thin?' (the game - not the bed or the two-year-old...). I managed a good few minutes this morning, and in the process discovered a number of very important things.
1) Duvets don't make very good roofing material: they don't quite stretch far enough from the head to the foot of the bed; they don't tie to the bed very easily, and they're too heavy to stay up in the middle.
2) Large flat sheets don't quite stretch far enough either - they're too wide and not quite long enough to tie.
3) Feather pillows are rubbish when it comes to needing 'props' in the centre of the bed to hold the roof up. What you need are some reasonably new pillows that will stand on their end and retain their shape.
4) The perfect roof is made using a fitted sheet pulled tight (very tight!) over the head and foot of the bed, with 'props' as mentioned above to hold it up. Linked to this, the ideal bed is ...
5) a bed with a reasonably high headboard and footboard. Our headboard reaches about a foot above the mattress, while the footboard is about 7 or 8 inches. This is enough to provide sufficient space, assuming the use of props.
6) The aforementioned fitted sheet, if your bed is anything like ours, will occasionally ping off the footboard (obvious, when you take into account the laws of physics, and the relative heights of the head and foot) but this is a far-from-catastrophic roof collapse. Fixable in seconds (and good fun to roll around 'trapped' under for a while - all adds to the amusement value).
7) You can consume an astonishing number of (pretend) cups of tea and coffee in a very short space of time. I think we were up to about eight before the final roof collapse.
8) If you're sharing a pillow in the 'sleeping' section of the 'house', you're liable to get headbutted fairly frequently, with varying degrees of ensuing pain.
9) If you want an excuse to leave the 'house' for a bit, tell your playmate that you're going to water the 'garden' outside, and wander around the room making splashy noises and tipping an imaginary watering can up. (Be careful though - I made the basic error of watering a patch he'd apparently already done)
10) The two-year-old wants the game to go on for longer than I can muster energy for.
Other points that may be worth mentioning:
11) If you're the sort of person who likes their sheets ironed (personally, I'm not fussed) you may want to play this game before the ironing.
12) Probably not an ideal game to play if you're at the start of the 'potty training' stage. (No, we didn't have any accidents, I just think it's a game to save for when they're 'trained')
13) Having written a 12 point guide on this subject, I could probably be considered something of an authority...