of year-round events, check out www.visitdublin.com SHOPPING Avoca 11–13 Suffolk Street, Dublin 2 is a ‘yummy mummy’ haven and has beautiful clothes for all ages but especially lovely things for children. Tel: 00 353 1 677 4215; www.avoca.ieBrown Thomas

Kinda funny-looking? Maybe, but surely that's all part of the charm of this eye-catching and gum-soothing trio of teethers. From the makers of the classic Sophie la Girafe and made from 100% natural rubber and food grade paint, they are gorgeously squidgy and have a built-in sque...

from Buckingham Palace, is likely to put a smile on their face, for a child, to be greeted by a bowler-hatted doorman and then to unearth a personalised welcome pack containing their favourite snacks and a toy box filled with games, books and DVDs

. Grace was particularly impressed with Harvey Nicols, where she tried on her first Gucci coat – a snip at xxxxx – while Joe, not surprisingly, showed more excitement in the toy shop with its cute rows of kissing camels.On our last evening, we took a post

, we looked like the only family who had been to Orlando without visiting Mickey, judging by the number of the Disney shopping bags everyone was carrying. With Joe cuddling his cuddly Shamu toy, it sort of felt fitting that in the killer whale

-bonding time with his grandfather when they set off together on an expedition to find a toy shop and came back armed with an enormous tub of unspeakably gooey stuff (it’s an unspoken grandparent prerogative that they can buy stuff that parents might not