World renowned advertising photographer Richard Bradbury, in association with Great Ormond Street Hospital, is once again searching for candidates for the iconic Children Of London publication for 2011.

Last year’s book was launched with an exhibition at The Mosaic Rooms in Kensington on 6th December. Hollywood actor, Kevin McNally from Pirates Of The Caribbean was the M.C. and during the evening presented a cheque to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The Book comes in its own presentation box with 200 pages and a hard back cover. It is an emormous publication measuring 13 x 17 inches and contains over 150 images of London’s children. To order your copy please click on ‘Order A Book’

Tug of War, Cupcakes and Champagne – angels & urchins celebrates 10 years with a gorgeous tea party to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity

angels & urchins raises £20,000 for Great Ormond Street Hospital to celebrate their 10th anniversary.  The focus of celebrations was a traditional tea party for 200 children and their parents, along with editors, Annie Reid and Emily Turner.

Editors Annie Reid and Emily Turner ©Sandi Friend

The venue was the Hyde Park Tennis Club in a marquee beautifully decorated with flowers by Annie Daniels. Miniature tables were set for the most perfect afternoon tea with colourful plates piled high with cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, fruit sticks, miniature cup cakes and chocolate crispies, all prepared by children’s party catering company Porgie’s Pudding and Pies.  The adults were treated to canapé sized scones and champagne, while they took their chance at the Tree of Promises, bought raffle tickets and put in their bids for the Silent Art Auction.

Editors Annie and Emily cut an angels & urchins cake and were presented with personalised angels & urchins bracelets from the rest of the team.  And as Annie Reid put it, “Bringing everyone important to angels & urchins together for such a fabulous occasion and for such a wonderful cause is like a dream come true.”

After tea, games took centre stage, led by party experts Sharky & George. The children’s favourite game seemed to be Rocket Balloons where mini balloons were filled with water and catapulted into the air into the crowd of children who tried to catch them.  Luckily it was a sunny afternoon as everyone got pretty wet!  A Punch and Judy show kept the little ones entertained while older children enjoyed the giant tug of war, face painting and seemingly never-ending supply of candyfloss.

The Silent Art Auction raised £5,000 and was made up of original artworks from the magazine’s favourite illustrators including Helen Craig, David McKee, David Melling, Neal Layton, Chris Riddell and Axel Sheffler.   Highlights of the raffle included a Mark Warner holiday, one night at The Grove Hotel, a £500 voucher from children’s clothing boutique I Love Gorgeous and one week at the Mum and Baby bootcamp in Tuscany!

On leaving, adult and children were presented with angels & urchins-branded cotton goodie bags filled with lovely things from the many generous sponsors.

Katie Simmons, Senior Fundraising Manager, Great Ormond Street Hospital said, “We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who attended on the day and supported Great Ormond Street Children’s Charity. The money raised will help to fund life-saving research and equipment and to redevelop the hospital, so we can help even more of our sickest children. Thank you.”

I was there with my children, and can vouch for how fantastic the tea was. And here’s to another 10 year (at least!) of angels & urchins.

You read a lot about guerilla marketing and tricksy advertising campaigns. I can’t work out if I loathe or love Fitness First’s bus stop weighing scales, below, though do know that my handbag, boots and probably even my clothes would have headed south before I sat on it.

But I am a fan of some delightful cars bedecked in fake grass driving around our neighbourhood streets advertising an astroturf business. And I like them even though I’m not a fan of environment unfriendly fake grass. At BlogCamp, a blog event I attended earlier this year (fantastically useful, held in various locations around the UK, and FREE! And at the one I went to, delegates – ooh, get me – even got Ben & Jerry’s ice cream) I learnt a great tip from Muirrean from Bangs and a Bun. “Ruthless”, in her own words, about “Getting that extra reader”, Muirrean leaves her business cards everywhere she goes, from Starbucks to train carriages.

So last week I was more than keen to attend Scott Dunn‘s pop-up creche event to be beguiled by talks of pureed organic food and kid-friendly Brazilian holidays offered by their Family Friendly Hotels. The pop-up creche was hosted in a beautiful house only four streets away from my home, and while eating divine cupcakes and canapes I chatted to Scott Dunn staff about the resorts that might suit my family. It was like Location, Location, Location on holiday with real food. A team of nannies was on hand to take care of the children (I took my baby and two-year-old), and they had a great time playing in the garden while I got my nails done (yes, a ‘beauty nanny’ for the mother’s was there too).

Scott Dunn - letting you have your cake and eat it

Hot tips include British Airway’s new flights, from November, to Mexico’s Cancun, and Puglia’s new Borgo Egnazia, already setting the likes of Conde Nast Traveller’s Hot List on fire. Pine Cliffs in the Algarve is one of the company’s family bestsellers, and having been I was able to give feedback to the Scott Dunn team (note: lots of space, great kids’ club, children’s menu could be better quality).

Italy's new Borgo Egnazia is creating a buzz in Puglia

So lucky old me to get the holiday feeling even on a wet and windy day in south west London.

I love a good book, and think that posters make genius presents for children. So I was thrilled to discover a company which beautifully combines the two. Spineless Classics puts every word of a book on a single sheet of paper, then silhouettes a relevant image to create a lovely piece of art. Up close (and possibly using a magnifying glass, depending on if you’re reading Pride & Prejudice or something shorter such as Black Beauty), you can read every word.

Prices start at £39.99 for an unframed (£180 framed) Treasure Island up to £139.99 for the King James Bible. Both would make great presents for a godson (though check how large said godson’s walls are if considering the latter, this is a very large work of art). All but the King James Bible fit standard Ikea frames, though you can buy them framed.

It’s a genius idea using genius works of fact and fiction, and I reckon would give the recipient a lifetime of enjoyment. I’d like to say that I was the first to cotton on to these, but they have already featured on This Morning. The Romeo & Juliet poster was recommended as an ideal wedding gift, though let’s hope the happy couple have a happier ending than Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers. Safer, perhaps, to stick to Jane Austen’s Emma.

We haven’t yet been skiing as a family, have no plans to go skiing as a family, but would love to go skiing as a family. Last month we managed the next best thing, only a 25-minute train ride out of London, where we live. And I have to say, who needs the Alps? Or to quantify, who needs to get on an aeroplane and spend a fortune on a sport that the children might not enjoy?

Now, if I was offered a ski trip, including nannies, instructors, a chalet with wall to wall heated boot poles and staff to dish up vin chaud and tartiflette, I’d do an Eddy the Eagle to get it. But I’ve four children aged six and under, and a ski trip would be ruinously expensive and a bit of a waste of time, given that around a third of the family would probably hate getting cold. So what to do?

I decided we’d have to fake it till we could make it. Not that I wasn’t worried because I have horrible early memories of a synthetic ski slope in Edinburgh. I couldn’t get my skies to go where I wanted them, and every time I fell over was grazed by the scrubbing brush-like bristles the slopes were made from. So I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Snow Centre Hemel Hempstead. I mean, no disrespect to its denizens, but it’s not exactly Gstaad. I took my two older boys, aged four and six, and after the thrills of a tube ride wore off half-way in to the very short train journey, wondered if I’d end up with icy tears on the slopes.

The snow centre is a six-minute taxi ride from the station. We arrived, were kitted out with salopettes, crash helmets and thick jackets and got very, very hot and not a little bothered before hitting the slopes (if you’ve ever tried to get gloves on a child you’ll know why). And on the slope there isn’t a scrubbing brush bristle in sight, just lots of real and very lovely snow, created within the large Snow Centre. It was indistinguishable from the real deal en piste (oh yes, we was skiing you know), much of which on the lower slopes is man-made anyway. The cold was the coldest the boys had ever experienced, and within seconds they were chucking snowballs at each other. And me. Thank goodness for my helmet. Instead of skiing or boarding, we were here to try out the new Cresta Run. My rationale being that sitting on a sledge or in a tube was something anyone could do, and far less stressful than taking two boys skiing on my own, even in an indoor snowdome.

Good old Blighty. The Cresta Run is  a UK exclusive, with a 67m fresh snow slope  that you can enjoy using three different kinds of sled. For the brave (which didn’t include adrenaline-phobic me) is the Airboard (13yrs to adults). Think British Winter Olympic Skeleton winner, Amy Williams, and imagine snow body-boarding, lying front down, head first on an inflatable sledge. I know, I should have tried it, but, ahem, someone had to help my boys tug their junior versions up the slope.

Zipfy (5yrs to adults) Voted #1 Best Selling Snow Sledge by Amazon (and you can’t argue with that. Can you?), these light-weight, luge-like mini sledges have a joystick to control direction and speed. Not that my nearly five-year-old (shh, don’t tell health & safety) managed to control either his speed or his direction, but seemed to love crashing into the squishy barriers at the end and doing footballer’s rolls all over the snow.

Ringos (4yrs to adults). My favourite, and, in fact, the only one I tried, was this classic inflatable ring. It spins! It goes really fast! You can’t really fall off! Enormous fun.

It was fab. We’ll be back. And might even try skiing or boarding  next time. If you fancy it, here are the details.

Cresta Run Session Times

Friday 4pm – 11pm
Saturday 9am – 1pm & 7pm – 8pm
Sunday 9am – 1pm & 7pm – 8pm

Cresta Run Pricing

Ringos

£9.50     30mins  child

£12.50   30mins  adult

£35         30mins  family (2 adults + 2children)

Zipfy Sledge

£9.50     30mins  child

£12.50   30mins  adult

£35         30mins  family (2 adults + 2children)

The Airboard

£12         30mins  child

£15         30mins  adult

£40         30mins  family (2 adults + 2 children)

Age restrictions apply for some of the activities:

- Airboard (16yrs to adults)

- Zipfy (5yrs+ to adults)

- Ringos (4yrs to adults)

For more information or to book, visit www.thesnowcentre.com or call 0845 258 9000.

Click here and watch us on YouTube. And a small tip. If you go during the real ski season the place is packed with wannabe skiers having lessons. Go out of season, bizarre as it might feel in the height of summer, and you’ll have the place almost to yourself. And you wouldn’t be able to say that about Gstaad, whatever the season.