Sunshine, new galleries and surprises

We're big fans of art galleries in this family and my little girl and I often go to the central one in Leeds for some 'culture'. I've used inverted commas because our visits normally take the following form: coffee and cake in the cafe followed by running round the permanent exhibition shouting 'tiger!', 'horseys!', 'cat!' and 'deer!' at the paintings and 'mummy', 'daddy' and 'grandma' at the scantily clad statues, emaciated Anthony Gormley sculptures and the statue of Queen Anne respectively. We then spend a long time drawing and moving round the pencils and pens in the activity room. I don't generally get to look at the art for very long. We went to see the recent Henry Moore exhibition a few times but the sculptures were just too inviting for little climbers and we were never able to linger. Despite this, going to galleries with my daughter is one of my favourite things to do: the amount of space available for running round and the visual stimulation everywhere plus the sheer number of people to look at make them ideal destinations for us. Plus they are generally free of charge, which is always nice! We're still at the stage where old ladies look and smile at us as we charge around - hopefully that won't change for a while yet! I guess she will hopefully not be doing the whole 'tiger' thing age 14...

The Hepworth has just opened in Wakefield and I've been wanting to go along and check it out. I mentioned to my little girl that we were going to go to an art gallery and she got very excited shouting 'art gallery - see a tiger!' which made me kind of nervous as to what her reaction would be with the absence of large stripey cats (a friend had already alerted me to this beforehand!). Luckily she wasn't too disappointed at the tiger no-show (we still saw some cows and horses, thankfully) and we had a great afternoon there. It's really geared up for little kids: we went to a story and singing session, smeared hummus all over the cafe, ran round the exhibition like penguins and played hard in the playground. Totally randomly we bumped into my Great Aunt (she lives round the corner so perhaps not so unexpected) and my Uncle (who lives in Newcastle so a real coincidence!). Lovely surprise, not least because I'd been trying to get hold of my Great Aunt to see if she wanted to meet us there.

I found this dress in my favourite local charity shop for £7. It's by Kimchi and Blue which is a brand I see in Urban Outfitters and it's very cute with puffed sleeves, a pleated front and a Peter Pan collar (is 31 too old to wear Peter Pan collars? They do seem kind of, well, 'young'. Oh well, I'm not going to get hung up on the whole 'dressing your age' thing just yet!). I really like little floral dresses: they're so simple to put on with leggings/tights and little pumps and comfortable for charging round art galleries too. I love the print on this one: you probably can't see too well in the photos but it's kind of a dusky pink and cream flower on a black background. I really don't love leggings at all, but I seem to wear them all the time with my dresses as it seems wrong to wear opaque tights in June (isn't there a rule about only wearing tights in months that have an 'r' in them? Or have I made this up!) and yet it's hardly ever warm enough here to wear a short dress with bare legs. Oh and to make the day even better, I have been smelling beautifully of roses thanks to my lovely friend sending me Paul Smith Rose perfume for my birthday. Love, love, love.

Kimchi and Blue dress: £7, the Wellfair shop, Moortown

denim shirt: Gap

leggings: I simply don't have the foggiest

ballet shoes: New Look

belt: ancient

locket: Urban Outfitters

watch: Triwa, present from my husband for my birthday!

bag: Marrakech souk (la-di-da!)