A Giraffe named Oswald: the infinite uses of Teabags

Our middle child, Necky Becky, came home from school this week with a wonderful creation. The children were working on art projects using discarded materials. The purpose was to teach them responsibility for the environment and introduce the concepts of conserving resources, economy and recycling. All this combined with developing their imagination and creativity.

Necky Becky decided to make a hand-puppet. She constructed him from a sock, teabags which had been used and dried out, and the rooty bits from the ends of spring onions. His name is Oswald.

Well done Necky Becky! I think he looks fantastic, and she's used some unconventional materials in an innovative way. She's also fulfilled the brief, except in one thing - that was one of my favourite walking socks, and it was not discarded!

Giraught-stoppers and Start-ups

Relieved as I am to bid farewell to the world of accounting, I will be a little sad to leave our current home, Neckmoor Cottage. We've had such happy times in this little dwelling. All three of our children were born here and there are so many memories.

Looking at it on the positive side, we're not actually selling the cottage - we're keeping it to rent out as part of the business. It will be a moorland holiday haven for clients of Giraffe World Tours.

As a building, it can feel rather chilly. The Neckmoors are notoriously windy, and even with cosy log fires to supplement the central heating, the gales find their way gustingly into the rooms and make one reach for the extra-high-necked woolly sweaters. (I shouldn't really be writing this bit, should I? It may put off any prospective tourist-tenants who happen to read it!)

Our eldest daughter, Nexi, made some very decorative giraught-stoppers for the doors. (She's in her first year at Design College, and don't we know it!) The giraught-stoppers looked splendid, all smooth and silky with gold embroidery and lots of fancy beads, but they would have kept the draughts out a lot more effectively if they'd been made from simple furry fabric which absorbed the cold air!

However, I'm sure Nexi will be a very successful designer and her creative ideas will make her lots of money when she's older.

It is funny how business ideas are born. We'd all been getting our necks in a twist trying to think of the perfect business, when it suddenly happened because of a chance remark.

Maureen loves visiting new places of all kinds; woods, hills, rivers, little villages, bustling towns - she delights in them all. I'd joked, "We could do with a special tours company to meet all your needs!"

There was our business idea! And tomorrow afternoon we're booked in for our first 'Start-ups' session at the Busynecks Development Agency in Raffsburgh ...