I woke up with a stinking cold this morning but with a long lie, two slices of toast and jam, a bit of fresh air and a couple of paracetamol and it wasn't so bad after all.

My friend shelly kindly relieved me of one of the three boys for an adventure in the woods with one of her kids (divide and conquer is my current parenting mantra) and I took the littlest and the eldest out on a wander round our town searching for charity shop finds.

We didn't find any Beast Quest books (his current obsession) in any of the four charity shops but the library had three so we snapped them up.

On our travels we came across the Art Caravan, had a look around, filled in a questionnaire and marked our 'place' on the giant Aberdeenshire map. Nice to know that my oldest son thinks our town is the "best place on earth, except from the scools".

In the afternoon we swopped kids and I went back out to the library, this time with the middle one (and the littlest) while my lovely husband and the eldest climbed Bennachie with their head torches.

It's strangely warm here today, but apparently that'll all change next week....