Swallows and Amazons, kid's spy adventures and more

I wrote this post before today's tragic news of the bombing in Manchester at a concert in the Arena. I find myself asking the question why can't our children go on an adventure without the threat of violence? What message are we supposed to hear over the grieving and weeping of parents and young people? Let's fight back by continuing to adventure.

Number 1 son and I have just finished watching ‘Swallows and Amazons’. A brilliant story of adventure and intrigue based in a time of innocence as a family take a holiday in the Lake District. During much of the film we were on the edge of our seats with the story of the children’s make-believe adventures running alongside a real situation……I’ll stop now, no spoilers here. We both loved the film and in particular the spy aspect of the tale gripped my son leading to a Cold War discussion that I wasn’t expecting to have with an eight year old.

It aroused interest in the ‘Bag of Spy Adventures’ once again as in the film they’d used some Morse-code to contact each other (a Morse-code kit is in the bag) and if they’d had one of my lovely bags I’m sure they could’ve put all the other contents to good use too, the listening pen for over-hearing conversations, the invisible ink pen for writing secret messages that can only be seen with a special light and the spy glasses no self-respecting spy should be without!

I highly recommend the film and of course the bag, isn’t it wonderful to fuel our children’s imaginations?