While Little J was out of town, I thought I might try something which is usually reserved for Mummies and Grandmas – baking. Little M loves to bake. Both her grans bake with her on a regular basis, so does Little J. I’ve never baked with her at all. This could go one of two ways. Perfect, like Delia Smith, or something akin to a scene from Gremlins, where the kitchen is totally wrecked and someone has called the fire brigade. Thankfully, for the most part, it went swimmingly.

I tried out the recipe the night before, just to see that it worked and so that I wasn’t flapping around if it all went wrong when I did it for real. It was nice and easy. Oh, and when Little J got home, she was treated to a nice piece of Malteser Tray Bake and a cup of tea. I got many brownie points.

Now, before we get into the recipe, Little M is 2 and 4 months, so she didn’t get to do anything near the cooker, but she did get to mix it all up at the end. Use your judgement and if your little one isn’t big enough to be dealing with very hot food, you can do the first part yourself.

Ingredients

• 100g butter
• 200g milk chocolate
• 3 tbsp golden syrup
• 225g digestive biscuits (finely crushed)
• 225g maltesers

Method

1. Melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup together. Make sure the butter is completely melted.
2. Add the crushed biscuit and maltesers.
3. Mix everything together quickly.
4. Pour into a lined Swiss Roll tin or small roasting tin.
5. Spread the mixture to fill the whole surface of the tin.
6. Stick in the fridge until set.
7. Cut into bite sized pieces.

If all goes well, it should look a little like this:

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Today, my wife and I took our daughter out to somewhere she really LOVES. Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum. If you live in Glasgow, this is an excellent place to visit with your little ones! Little M loves coming here because it’s really big and has loads of places to run around!

She particularly enjoys the dinosaur exhibit. It’s rigged up to a couple of motion sensors, so when you get close, it roars and his head moves around. Not quite Jurassic Park, but when you’re 2, it’s close enough. There are loads of things at Kelvingrove for little kids and big kids alike. There’s even stuff for grownups too. Today, for example, like every Sunday at Kelvingrove, there’s an organ recital. There are chairs set up in the main atrium, but if you’re like Little M, you don’t want to give a solid commitment to any one seat, so we went upstairs and watched from there. The sound fills the entire building, and she was totally entranced. For a little while, at least.

We left the recital and moved around the museum a bit more. I remember going as a kid, and in the 80s, ‘interactive’ wasn’t really a word they used in Glasgow’s museums. It’s a lot better these days with touchscreens and projected videos. You can also crawl under some exhibits, but as it always was, you can never touch an exhibit. I’m not surprised, because with up to 1,000,000 visitors to Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum every year, they would start to look a bit tatty.

Getting there is very easy. There’s a bus stop right outside. Kelvinhall & Partick Subway stations & Partick train station are also only around 10 minutes walk away. If you want to park, be prepared to do a few laps of the car park before you find a space. It can be incredibly busy, but parking is cheap at only £1 for 4 hours.

All of Glasgow’s museums are free to visit, but given that I no longer live within the Glasgow City Boundary and don’t contribute to their council tax, I always stick a couple of quid in one of the donation boxes. If you’re coming from outside Glasgow, I suggest you do too.

It’s a great day out and there’s something there for the whole family.

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So, if you’ve been in or around Glasgow over the past few days, you’ll have noticed that it’s been a little dreich. Thankfully, this fair city of mine has plenty of things to do during those days when only ducks venture out. Glasgow has a wide network of council-run sports facilities, and through my work I have a membership to the Glasgow Club. A benefit of being a member is that I get to access all their facilities at no extra cost – including any of the swimming pools.

So, today I took my daughter to Scotstoun Leisure Centre and took advantage of my Glasgow Club membership. Being under 5, she gets in for free and I get in as part of my membership. No money to hand over! Even better! As a Scot, there’s nothing I like better than getting in essentially for free! My wife and I are both members, and we bring our daughter to the pool here quite often. At the weekend, as you’d expect, it’s a little busier, and today we had to wait for the next session to start before we went in.

The main pool was VERY cold. So much so that she went a little blue, so it was time to head to the kiddie’s pool. MUCH warmer. In fact, I could have stayed in there all day. I probably would have if there had been a swim-up bar, but hey-ho, you can’t have it all. Maybe something to add in time for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games..

All-in-all, the visit was fun – as it always is – and we’ll be back again soon. Whether its raining or not.

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