"A lot of coloring-in pencils have been donated, crayons and paper, " Tamara tells me before Angela interrupts to introduce a man who has just arrived with the offer of a self-contained flat beneath his home.

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Bring packaged snacks, wet wipes, Ziploc bags, a change of clothes, disposable rain ponchos, sunscreen, bug repellent, water bottles, a small first-aid kit, small toys, coloring books and glow-in-the-dark sticks and necklaces (which the parks sell at dusk but they charge a fortune).

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The new efforts go far beyond coloring books at check-in and teddy bears at turndown.

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But this northernmost German state came back into the news when Thilo Weichert, the state's privacy commissioner, raised an issue of such complexity that it will make the first Schleswig-Holstein question look like a dot-to-dot coloring book in comparison.

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This little gem was designed to hold a cheroot (a small cigar) in one of three so-called coloring bowls, shaped to accommodate cigars of different diameters.

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Sometimes we find no-one, and our daughter sits in the audience with a coloring book or video game to occupy her.

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