Dr Dog's Hospital

In our house the arrival of a cardboard box equals an opportunity to get creative; a large cardboard box has even more potential. So today I set up an invitation to create for the children - a big box, some card, some tape and scissors, and our box of fancy scrap paper.

I felt like making a dolls' house but when my daughter came home, nose in a book, she was quite clear on the box's destiny. She decided we would make it into a hospital for the main character of the story she was reading - Babette Cole's Dr Dog.

And that's how we came to make our box into a hospital for children. I was instructed to make it as white as possible - because that's how hospitals are, apparently. My job was to cover as much of it as I could in white paper. Meanwhile Daisy wanted the hospital to have an operating theatre, necessitating a curtain - so she concertina-folded a piece of paper, we punched holes in the top, threaded through some cotton and then secured the ends of the cotton to the walls with a little sticky tape. Then we made beds for the ward, and a playroom for those children who were well enough to be up and about, or who were waiting to see the doctor.

I love how Doctor Dog got a surgical mask, and how Daisy put everyone in the hospital to bed before she went up to hers - even the rabbit family, whose children just needed eye tests. They were all happy to stay overnight so they could collect the bunnies' glasses in the morning; what a hospitable hospital.

Beach hut envy

[Southwold by Louise Braithwaite printed by Mad Lou Publishing Ltd]

Since admiring Southwold's cheerily painted beach huts last week, we've been yearning for one of our own. They are extremely difficult to buy - to be eligible you have to be related to the king of Suffolk, or something - so instead of pursuing that particular dream we are attempting to build ourselves a beach hut at home. Fortunately, Buddy and Daisy seem happy to realise this dream in miniature. At least for the moment.

We began our building project with the stickle brick beach hut pictured below. All Southwold beach huts have romantic, cool or quirky names - we came across The Chequered Flag, The Bucket & Spade and Topsy Turvy. The children called this one Rubber Duck.

Unfortunately, this hut didn't survive; it was too small for the dolls' house cooker, table and chairs and kept falling apart when Daisy tried to furnish it.

Our second effort has been more successful; I found a cardboard box that had beach hut written all over it. Actually, it had toypost.co.uk written on it - but its proportions were perfect.

With a doorway and window frames cut out and a pitched roof secured with sticky tape, the hut was ready to be painted. Daisy informed me that it had to be yellow and red. And it had to have stripes. I spent a few minutes marking out some for her but in the end she ignored them - there was a change in the design vision, apparently. Faint lines were still visible through the paint however, and gave a lovely, authentic wood panelling effect.

With the painting complete - the front face orange where the yellow and red got mixed, Daisy noted - the beach hut was finished. Except for one thing...

'It needs a name!' she announced, and was adamant we should use the box's original text as a sign. Fortunately I'd salvaged this when we cut away the doorway.

And so this is how we came to have a beach hut with the name toypost.co.uk. Now, if that's not quirky, I don't know what is - I hope you're not too envious.