Making a start...

I'm now in my 30s, so I can admit with no loss of face that my mother did a pretty good job of introducing me to the area that has consumed much of my adult life. I'm a self confessed heritage geek, I love museums and galleries, and can think of no nicer way to spend the weekend than pottering around a National Trust house. I really believe that it is never too early to introduce babies to the arts and culture and I've always wanted to share with my children the things that I loved so much growing up. Many photographs of my two or three year old self feature me sporting a home-made headress or clutching my favourite teddy bear with stately home (not mine!), dinosaur or sarcophagus in the background.

I'm currently on maternity leave with my first baby, a five month old beautiful little girl, hereafter known as culturebaby. Following a rather worrying episode at the weekend where I struggled to read something out loud, and repeated occasions where nouns are replaced with 'thingy', or worse, wild gesticulation, I thought that writing a blog may jump start my rather squishy mummy-brain into a semblance of order. This blog will hopefully also be a record for my little lady of some of the cultural exploration we did together in her first few years; what she seemed to really like, what she didn't, and it will hopefully prove to be an interesting record of what's out there that works well for kids.

Don't worry, it's not all we do. Some of our favourite things in the week are swimming, walking and hanging out with friends. It's just a snapshot of part of our journey...