Entertaining Groups Of Children, Travel, Parties, Restaurants and Pubs

 

Multi-pack coloured pencils

For a children's birthday party in a restaurant which does not supply crayons, or at home, or travelling with several children, or if you run a restaurant or events, including a kiddie corner at weddings, you can buy a multi-pack of sets of crayons. One pack of twelve crayons will do for a group of four children sharing for fifteen minutes before a meal, less to clear up. Or a set of four coloured pencils for each child. 

A multipack of 144 boxes for a school or restaurant costs about £30. A pack of 144 from Shuttle Art on Amazon costs a penny under £18. 

Wedding Kiddie Corner

 I went to a wedding in Singapore which had a kiddie corner. The bride worked in a pre-school. She had invited the children to her wedding. Naturally thought of keeping them entertained. It was also one of those huge weddings which went on all day. First family in the morning, extended family, including the mothers with small children. Afternoons, adult friends, but their children welcome, and some of the family children were still around.

If you are organizing a wedding or event where all the adults are given gifts, such as bags of almonds, not suitable for under threes), single use cameras, manicure sets, xmas/festive crackers with gifts (or fill your own set of DIY crackers) consider giving the children crayons, and a placemat the draw on. 

After you have given the children coloured pencils, what will they draw on?

DIY Child's Placemat

You can print off an A4 placemat, vertical or turned sideways, with the name of the event, or the venue, or the child's name. 

Add a picture of your child's favourite character or party theme at the top. Dinosaurs, unicorn, Princess, whatever. Or make a border or frame from repeated smileys or symbols. 

Add a flag of the destination country, or home country and holiday country, for a holiday. Or a wedding couple from different countries. Or add religious symbols for a baptism or Barmitzvah or other occasion, having checked that this would be acceptable and welcome. 

Divide the paper into a grid of four.

For entertainment stuck at home or in a hotel overseas on a rainy, snowy, stormy day, invest in coloured watercolour pencils. A huge department store with a large stationery section, or a big stationers, or an art and craft shop, is likely to have good value small sets of watercolour pencils.

 If you have a stick of paper glue, and only discarded paper which is printed on one side. glue together the two pieces of paper with the printed sides facing each other on the inside. If the print does not show through too much, you now have a thicker card on which the child can draw.

DIY Paper Booklet From Discarded Paper

For a diy pad, take a discarded envelope from your wastebin. Fold it in four or more. slit or cut the edges. Staple the pages together to make a child size booklet, or a dolls house book.

For just one child, a book with paints attached is good. Check whether the brush is included. If not, buy one, or bring one from home.

Useful Coloured Pencil Supplies For Travel & Parties

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shuttle-Art-Assorted-Break-resistant-Pre-sharpened/dp/B0D1KDNPV7/ref=sr_1_3_sspa

20 boxes of six coloured pencils, with four sharpeners.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FYFCBHZ8/ref=sspa_dk_detail_right_aax_0?psc=1&aref=mQfOD7OsxL&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9kZXRhaWxfcmlnaHRfc2hhcmVk

Restaurant Activity Books - and DIY Dinner Table Activity

Without a pen and paper, you might 

1Make a hand puppet.

2 Turn a paper napkin into origami fortune teller. 

Use Pen and Paper (Napkin) To Entertain

Draw two horizontal lines and two vertical lines across them to make a grid for noughts and crosses.  If you have an Ipad with a pen, draw a grid and play noughts and crosses, draw in the noughts and crosses. 

Play dots and boxes.

Instead of snakes and ladders, play spaghetti and tomatoes. 

Finger Puppets

Failing that, draw on your finger tips, a smiley face. If you have a water colour pencil with non toxic paint.

Here's the Church/Barn. Photo by Angela Lansbury

Or draw the people at dinner, eg father with moustache or glasses, or hat, or tie, mother with dress or saree, child with dress from Disney, baby large head, high chair, with big eyes, vertical oblong drink and straw. Stick figures. 

Play - Here's the Church / barn

When I was a child, at school I learned to play with fingers - 

Here's the church, here's the steeple, 

Open the gates and here are the people. 

Here's the church/barn. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Other version say doors instead of gates. 

Another version ends with another rhyming couplet, 

Here is the parson going upstairs, 

Here is the parson saying his prayers. 

If parson is an unfamiliar word, try person.

For those who are another religion or not religious, use the barn version.

Here Is The Barn

Here i is old the barn, let's open it wide,

Let’s all look inside where animals hide. 

Left are the horses, and right are the cows, 

They’re eating dinner and drinking right now. 

They’ll sleep here till night turns into day light. 

When we open doors, they’ll all trot away. 

Out in the pasture, they’ll eat grass and hay. 

Cows will moo loudly, glad horses will neigh.

Try reciting favourite nursery rhymes. Old ones. Or recent favourite songs.  the mouse ran up the clock. 

Mary had a little lamb. 

Incey wincey spider. 

The wheels on the bus. 

I changed the words to, 

The cup on the saucer went round and round, 

The cup on the saucer went up and down

It made a dreadful swueaky sound

Much too  long.

The spoon in the cup went round and round ...

The jug on the table went round and round

It got lost and was never found

Somebody must have put it down

On another table or on the ground.

The cake on the table (salt, pepper, bread, olives, pizza, ice cream, coffee, juice, milk, sweets)

Make up tea or dinner related words.

I've just invented this for a doll

Our child's daughter had a dolly

And First Dolly's friend was Molly

When our child went out to tea

She took photos so dollies could see.

If you are American you have a First Lady. If you are Chinese you have a number one son. Easy to create rhymes with first and second, or number one and so on.

Teach the child how to link both hands with fingers pointing downwards, raise the little fingers, then rotate wrists towards you so the fingers stick up to be people.

If you can't get a drawing and activity pad, here are some games to play.

1MAKE A KIDDIE FAVOURITS MENU

Create a menu of a list of your favourite food.

(In advance copy the children's menu from the restaurant you are visiting or any other one visited previously. Crop to get pictures in the left hand column and print the list or pictures. If necessary, draw lines in pencil, and/or copy the words for the child / children to copy.

Or ask the child their favourite food. 

Eg Fish fingers, with chips. Ice cream.

With or without tomato ketchup?

Which colours? Save photos from one meal to make pictures for your menu on the next visit.

Save pictures to show the waiters and waitresses in restaurants overseas!

If you are creating your own menu from scratch, you can make a border of your child's favourite characters, Princess, Unicorn, teddy bear's picnic, doll, dolls house. 

How about a dolly at the restaurant. Of your child's name and the restaurant. 

Suggested food

Nibbles

Olives

Crisps

Nuts

Starter

Soup - tomato

Soup - vegetable

Soup - chicken

Main Course

Child's Menu

Vegetables

Peas

Sweetcorn

Corn on the cob

Salad - green

Salad - green and tomato

Lentils

Dessert

Fruit -

apple

oranges

grapes

banana 

Pear

Peach

Plum

Fruit salad

Ice cream - vanilla

strawberry

chocolate

mixed

nut

Sorbet

Raspberry

lemon

Cake

chocolate

cream

Drinks

Water

Sparkling water

Fruit juice 

Strawberry

Mango

Mixed juice

Chocolate drink

Ice cream sundae

String & Cat's Cradle

At one family reunion in a pub with children of all ages, we gave each child a book, whose title they had given us in advance. However, on the day, before lunch, instead of reading the books, the children all played games with the string we had been in a hurry to wrap the gifts, because we were in a hurry and couldn't find ribbon. The oldest girl, around 11 years old, showed the younger ones what to do with the string.

You can buy paint kit books, paint with water, which include paints, a brush and a workbook with outlines to fill in. (Purists suggest instead encouraging children to create their own pictures. But some of the sets include blank sheets as well.

You can also buy stencil sets with large cut outs so children cur practise drawing straight lines and circles and even wavy lines. Google water colouring books on amazon, ebay and in general. You will find items just over five or six pounds and under ten pounds.

Useful Websites

https://www.wikihow.com/Fold-a-Fortune-Teller

https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Church-With-Your-Fingers (Includes barn words in comments.)

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kids-Restaurant-Activity-Book-Screen-Free/dp/B0DZNTHYVY/ref

https://www.farmhouseinns.co.uk/kids-menu

https://www.brewersfayre.co.uk/en-gb/kids-menu/brewers_fayre_kids_menu_priceless.pdf

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1870682905/kids-restaurant-menu-template-activity

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/145656020026?_skw=paint+with+water+book (Brush needed. If you need a brush, pop into a cheap pharmacy and look for a cosmetics brush or set of cosmetics brushes for several children. The book activities include a list of food and grid for noughts and crosses.)

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Reviews and Crayons of Wolfox Savoy Restaurant and Wetherspoons

How To Remember The Restaurant name, Wolfox

How do you remember the name of the Wolfox Savoy restaurant? The name Wolfox is a combination of wolf and fox. But which comes first? Is it wolf fox, or fox wolf which has the initials alphabetically? Shorten the name to one word by using the letter f only once and you get Wolfox. 

Good and Bad Reviews of Wolfox

Reviews from other people about the Wolfox Savoy restaurant were mixed. We ignored the negatives, and the positives. We liked the look and location and wanted to try the food for ourselves. Remembering that we might be ordering different food, at a different day or time, in less or more of a hurry, with diners who were more or less fussy.

Good and Bad Review of Restaurants

Speed of Service

Wolfox - No Crayons, Pencils, Paper

For us the main drawback was no free paper and crayon for kids. Our fault that we forgot to remind each other to always carry something to entertain our grand-daughter, aged four. The only nearby shop had only a plain, lined paper book. She was happy enough drawing letters of the alphabet.

You might think that's a good thing. An oasis away from tiny children, who might be making noise and running around.

On the other hand, providing crayons and paper keeps children sitting at the table, stops them running around.

Wetherspoons

Our family had visited Wetherspoons pub earlier in the day which provided drawing paper and crayons

If only the parents had saved a crayon or two. But would that be theft? 

Are the crayons re-used? Do you want your small children sharing germs on crayons used by others? The company ought to put their names on the crayons so even if you take them, you are carrying their advertising, so  that taking the items is expected?  

Although you might not take the coloured pencils. the activity paper has the Wetherspoons logo. If you have written on it they cannot give it to anybody else, so it is ok to take it.

Parents Props from Souvenir Shops

The souvenir shops had lots of pictures and dolls with heads of royalty and UK and London symbols, but no games or notebooks and pens or card games for children. You could buy items aimed at smokers of cigarettes - or anything else, somebody explained to me. (I am not a drug taker. My expertise is only food and drink.

So, when all else fails, buy a large notebook and pen. 

Where To Buy Kiddie Entertainment

The mother and daughter left the Wolfox restaurant before ordering, looking for some kiddie entertainment to buy. Luckily the mother had already told us what they wanted to order.

Kiddie Food Options at Wolfox

Kiddie food options were the tea time circular spiral pastry. Chips. Olives - mind the stones!

For kiddie entertainment look in the big bookshops. Or toyshops such as Hamleys in Regent Street, walking down south from Piccadilly Circus station. On our last visit we did not see nor buy any small gifts. Our grand-daughter spied a Pepper Pig Dolls House, at vast expense, a two figure sum, more suitable for her upcoming birthday than a souvenir of the day, or entertainment over tea or dinner in a restaurant.

Wolfox

https://www.wolfox.coffee/buyonline

Wetherspoons

https://wetherspoonmenuprices.co.uk/children/

https://globetotting.com/best-bookshops-in-london-for-kids/

Hamleys Paddington tea set in mini suitcase from Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rainbow-Designs-Paddingtons-Toy-Tea/

https://www.hamleys.com/

https://www.foyles.co.uk/category/childrens

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Talking-Tables-Questions-Travelling-

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Wolfox Savoy Restaurant In the Strand, London

Prosecco with strawberry slice. Great start. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I loved the decor.

Outside of Wolfox with outdoor table. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Ground floor of Wolfox Restaurant with indoor tree. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

You have a choice of seating. in the busy downstairs café, watching the world go by, near an attractive artificial tree. 

Upstairs Dining

Or on the mezzanine balcony floor overhead for more relaxed dining.

Indoor mural at Wolfox restaurant. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The meal included three food items I absolutely loved which made up for those which were so-so. And two great drinks.

Delightful Drinks

Starting with the drinks. The tap water was served in an elegant modern silver coloured jug. The glassware was a delight. The water glasses were wide at the base, unusual, special. 

My Prosecco was good. Best of all it was served with a slice of strawberry on the room which made the drink look special and the drinker feel special. I must have had Prosecco a dozen times at a dozen restaurants. Every time I was disappointed that no effort was made to decorate the glass, although everybody ordering cocktails got something special. Excellent. Full marks. Applause. We all, four of us, were impressed.

Fabulous Food

We went without starters and instead made do with nibbles. We were not keen on the large tough green olives with stones. However - 

1 Nibbles - We loved the fried strings of vegetables.

2 Beef cheek with mashed potato was soft, tasty, wonderful.

 (Other main courses were: a steak, fine for the price. Stuffed Chicken, spirals wrapped in bacon, with a good green salad with a few small red tomatoes, okay. Polenta fingers, so so. Chips, ok. 

3 The cheesecake was excellent, creamy.

4 The sorbet, raspberry, also met with everybody's approval.

After our meal we went downstairs to look around.

The Café Downstairs

The set tea looked gorgeous. So did the pastries sold individually.

Unisex Toilets

The unisex toilets on the ground floor are disconcerting. Ladies and gents through the same door. Inside washbasins, and cubicles and one wider cubicle with a basin for wheelchairs and other disabilities. 

Down the curved staircase at the back of the ground floor is the basement's open plan relaxing private dining area with an oval table, and another area of small tables also used for general restaurant eating in winter.

Who are the owners of Wolfox Savoy?

I was told that a couple of people started a coffee business in Brighton. But only one person is on the information under people which popped up from a page on the website of Companies House. Do I care. Not really. They are not there. If you want the boss to make compliments or complaints, look for the agreeable lady who is managing the restaurant.

Wolfox Coffee

Regarding the coffee, online you can buy capsules and other coffees on line from their website. I could not see how many coffee capsules are in the box.

The London restaurant is your sole opportunity currently, 2026, to find food. Wolfox has an amusing fox face upright hybrid cartoon character on their website. 

The relaxing almost Italic murals are the legacy from them having taken over a restaurant which was previously Japanese.

The word Savoy in the name reflects their surroundings. They are near the Savoy hotel, but management of the two companies is entirely separate. not related at all.

One might think it is wrong to call the place Savoy. But the word savoy means fir tree.

Where Is Wolfox Savoy Restaurant?

Beside the Savoy Hotel, not related, and Simpson's in the Strand,  in good company.

Getting To Wolf Fox Restaurant

From Mill Hill Broadway (not Mill Hill East) we took the overground train, much more comfortable than the underground, from Mill Hill Broadway (flight of 7 steps and 9 steps both sides of the car bus garage parking which you have to cross, towards Blackfriars, but got off at City Thameslink for reduced walking. Then the 126 bus outside the station. After you get off the bus, keep walking in the same direction, passing the Savoy hotel, and Simpson's. A uniformed lady politely explained that the restaurant was nearby beyond. Just after the Paddington Bear musical entrance, so a convenient place to eat before or afterwards. 

Big Magnifiers With Lights - advantages and disadvantages, compared to small pocket magnifiers for travel

My previous post dealt with smaller magnifiers, less powerful, for travelling, restaurants.

However, if you want more mafnification, go for a ten times the size magnification. For example, in a heavier circular item with a large black handle, costing £12.99 from meepro limited.

 This was not what I needed, because I already have one.

Heavier circular magnifier with small circular higher magnification section. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

My previous post was about small and light magnifiers for travel, pocket size, or page size, but only three times magnification. 

What about working? Big circular magnifiers are easy to find on your desk when working from home. However, I find the circular magnifiers a nuisance as they don't reach the corners of a page and you have to keep moving them. Also they are bulky on a shelf. And if the greater magnification is a smaller coin size circle that distorts and has to be moved from word to word. But if you don't already have one, this might suit you. 

Magnifiers With Lights

Some of the circular and oblong magnifiers come with lights. Remember to order three batteries at the same time if the batteries are needed but not supplied. Then you can get to use it straight away.

From Mee Pro Ltd, on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magnifying-Illuminated-Handheld-Lighted-Magnifier

See my previous post for the smaller, cheaper, travel magnifiers.

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A lightweight magnifier for menus and maps

A page magnifier. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

When do you need a magnifier?

Restaurant Menus

You need a magnifier on holiday or business to read a restaurant menu, small print in dim light, sometimes candle light. Checking the ingredients if you are allergic to shellfish or nuts. You could use the light in your phone. Or ask for another candle. But it would be handy to have a small magnifier.

You need to read small print in a supermarket. What are the ingredients? 

Reading your camera instructions.

In the hotel reading the laundry bag list. Essential information, prices, items they won't accept, time they will return items - will it be in time for your farewell dinner, or before you check out next day!

When travelling to your destination, you might need to read the printed train route maps. 

Before you leave, you might want to read the page of small print regarding the travel contract, terms of business. Or a contract you are signing.

Full Page Magnifiers

 I just ordered a full size page reader. It magnifies only three times.  Light, thin plastic.

A real magnifying glass, of thick heavy glass, should give you five or ten times magnification.

Buying Spare Reading Glasses

You can buy off the rack reading glasses at  sizes 1 and 2 and sometimes three sixes and half sizes, from many pharmacies and supermarkets. Online you can buy several pairs cheaply.  All identical, in case you lose them, or keep one on the desk and one in a rucksack and one in the car.

Borrowing A Friend's Spectacles In A Restaurant

On one occasion, I offered to read the menu to somebody else with my glasses. I did not have a spare pair of glasses. Then we realised he could use my glasses to read the menu, after I had used them. 

As a long term prospect this is not very practical. Firstly, my eyes are different. So I cannot buy off the peg glasses. One eye would be struggling. It would be an effort with lots of head turning and leaning in and out and maybe getting a headache. Bur for two minutes to read a menu to order a drink or main course, or sandwich, borrowing someone else's reading glasses for five minutes saves the day.

So you could borrow somebody else's glasses. (You might not risk lending them, or have the cheek to ask a stranger, unless they were seated, and knew you, e g a business contact. You want to be sure there is no risk of them running off with your fancy frames.)

Since I have varifocals, the other person has to wiggle their head to get from distance to reading. But good to know this option.

Meanwhile, I have ordered the large page magnifier. 

If the times three magnification is useful, I will invest in the teeny pocket size, credit card size ones, less bulky, I can keep one in my jacket pocket for reading the train mags.

Alternatively Reprint Maps Showing Larger Text & Number

The other things we have done with train maps. 

Conference stand maps are also often so small it is hard to see the stand numbers. No room to write the name of the country exhobiting. We photograph the map, to make it bigger. We photograph the tiny map using the plus three magnification in edit mode which zooms in. Then print the map off in a larger size. 

You want to do this a night or two before a conference. A large matt paper map is one on which you can write the names of people you want to visit, or have visited. If you are on good terms with the conference organizers, and their office is near reception, they might repirnt the map on the back of the A5 or smaller catalogue into a large A4 size.

Pocket Size Magnifier Features

Are all the pocket size products the same?

Some have an edge in black, which is useful, otherwise the see through item disappears on your desk. If you have a variety of coloured edging that is fun. But do they send you random colours, three of one colour but you don't know whether you will get black or red. Or one of each colour so you get three colours, one red, one black, one another colour. Some sellers say that a sleeve is included. Others show what looks like a centimetre measure along the edge, another plus.

Amazon And Ebay Prices For Pocket Magnifiers

I expect to get the large size magnifiers shortly. I ordered from Amazon, because they were cheaper than on Ebay. Only about three pounds including postage. But the tiny size cost more. Odd that. I don't know whether it is economies of scale, that they sell more of the bigger ones. Or they reduce the price of the bigger ones because they sell fewer. 

Some of them offer one, with a reduction per item if you offer two, or three for the price of two. 

Some seem to cost more but delivery is free. The cheaper ones charge you for delivery, so the one which looks dearer is better value.

Some offer only once piece. Others offer three. But I have already lost the one I had years ago, probably still in a jacket pocket, or the pocket of a handbag. So to have three, one in my coat, one in the bag I use most often, a third on my desk or to give to my husband or y grand-daughter. Or as a Xmas table gift, or a gift when I turn up at a party and unexpectedly find it is a birthday party.

My husband said, you don't know if they will work, so just choose the cheapest. I had so many on my screen that I was muddled. So I added what looked like the cheapest to my onscreen shopping basket. Then I could see the total including the postage in the right hand column. I could also click on remove, or pay only this seller. A feature which I get in Ebay. Temu has great prices, but often wants me to make a minimum order of fifteen pounds, so when I am in a hurry I go back to ebay.

I have Amazon prime, which gives quick delivery. It is an expense, but convenient if you order a lot. Eg ski clothes or sunglasses for a holiday. You might run off the cost against tax as a business expense if you occasionally or frequently urgently need to order items in a hurry such as stocks for a shop, or fire extinguishers for a new tenant in a property, or plumbing parts for builders or light bulbs.

I shall add more details tomorrow updating this post and starting another over the weekend - when maybe the item will arrive.

Useful Websites

Here are some ebay links for three times magnification at under five pounds..

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/166487533040?

 Once you log onto that one, other offers are likely to pop up so you can check the postage to the country where you are currently.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=magnifiers%20pocket%20siz

A page size magnifier at five times magnification. On Amazon I could read the reviews, which were mixed. One person said you needed two hands to hold it. Another said it enlarges only minimally.

at a penny off ten pounds

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magnifying-Lightweight-Magnifier

A ten times the size magnification, in a heavier circular item with a large black handle, costing £12.99 from meepro limited.

 This was not what I needed, because I already have one.

Heavier circular magnifier with small circular higher magnification section. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Update Sat April 18.

Set of 6 A5 page size magnifiers arrived.

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Some easy useful Spanish words for breakfast

 Words which are handy for breakfast.

desayuno - breakfast (I think of break fast, destroy, say, you, know, say uno)

Fruitas - fruit(s)

Agua - watet

Apel - apple

Cafe - coffee

Confitura - conserve / jam / preserve

De - of

Dos - Two

Gracias - thank you

Limones - lemons

Miel - honey

Naranja - orange

Peras - pears

Pizza - pizza

Platanos - bananas

Platos - plates

Por favor - please

Te (with an accent) - tea

Tostado - toast

Uno - one

Vino - wine

Y - and