The Tale of Two Brothers

When Ferdy was about three he became rather consumed by the Beatrix Potter books. He had received all the original tales for his third birthday, and we also got him the audiobooks. I soon regretted this. Despite the lovely stories and sophisticated vocabulary, some of them are slightly tiresome to read, especially when you have to read four books an hour. And when they were lost on a rather high shelf, I was in no rush to take them down.

It was therefore with a little trepidation that, when Ferdy requested a Beatrix Potter day, I sought out the books again.

The Tale of Jeremy Fisher

He was quite excited to realise that he could actually read some of them himself, and read us half of The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher and all of The Story of Miss Moppet. What a relief that he can now read...

Then it was off to Calke Abbey (with the Beatrix Potter audiobook for our journey) for Mr. Ptolemy Tortoise (Ferdy) and Peter Rabbit (Gil) to seek out their friends.

We found Squirrel Nutkin's tree (top left), they ran away from Mummy McGregor in her vegetable garden (top right), located and fished for minnows in Mr Jeremy Fisher's pond (bottom right) and even discovered Peter Rabbit's father's secret network of tunnels (bottom left).

We also saw an array of butterflies including some common blues mating, and although we were a little tempted to copy Mr. Jeremy Fisher and make butterfly sandwiches for lunch, we decided that there are no longer enough insects to do things like that. And that we already had cheese sandwiches.

Watching butterflies

Both boys remained in character for most of the day, and later on, when I was saying goodnight to Ferdy and he told me lovingly that my top was like butterflies and my arms were as soft as rabbits (?!), I felt that we really had immersed ourselves in the world of Beatrix Potter.