Living in St Albans we're incredibly luck to have Willows Activity Farm right on our doorstep. It's close enough that plenty of kids from the children's school go regularly. We tend to keep it as somewhere that we go on a special occasion or as a big treat though. Keeping it as a magical place to go for the kids and when they do go they always absolutely love it. It has been a while though since our last visit and since then Willows have become home to CBeebies' Peter Rabbit, so this was the first time that Little Miss C and Master C had been to the Peter Rabbit Adventure Playground or ... read more
100 Family Adventures – The Meek Family
We're huge fans of getting the kids out of the house into the great outdoors and having fun out there. Fresh air is always good for them, and there is so much to do outside to challenge them and teach them too. I've always assumed we were pretty good at this but since reading 100 Family Adventures I've realised that there's actually so much more for us to do as the children get a bit older. The Meek Family are teacher parents Tim and Kerry and their two daughters Amy (11) and Ella (9) and they hit the news when they announced that they were taking a year out of formal education in 2014 - ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 17 – Castle Drogo and the journey home
After our journey down to Cornwall we were pretty sure that the journey back wasn't going to be fast, but I don't think we realised just how long it was going to take. We said our sad farewell to Fiona and everyone else at Coombe Mill and headed east with an aim of stopping off at the National Trust's Castle Drogo. We'd seen signs for the castle on our journey down, but had run out of time then to be able to visit. Now, the thing that's slightly unique about Castle Drogo at the moment is the fact that they're in the middle of a huge piece of conservation work there whilst staying ... read more
Summer 2014: Days 3 & 4 – A weekend without Daddy
It's been a bit of a funny old weekend in that most of it didn't feel like a weekend at all. Mr C's been away in the Netherlands at a wedding, and without him about it's kind of made the days merge into last week a bit, and it certainly hasn't given me the break that I so need by the end of a busy week, especially when we're in the school holidays. The first alarm went off at 2.50am on Saturday morning for Mr C to get up for a 6am flight to Amsterdam and combining that with a couple of wake-ups from Master C - who was struggling with the heat - it meant that Saturday started feeling ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 2 – Old friends and new experiences
In the middle of the usual morning rush of trying to get up and through the shower before the kids awoke (which I failed at thanks to Little Miss C's 6.30am wake up!) I'm pretty sure I heard Chris Evans say something about thunderstorms and torrential rain in London today. There was other stuff going on so I asked Mr C. Nope, he had no recollection of hearing it, so I just kind of forgot about the weather forecast. Bit of a big mistake it seems when you're having a day out with the kids. An old university friend of mine is currently over from China with his wife and one year old son, so ... read more
Kids go free with CBeebies Magazine #CBeebiesMagKidsGoFree
There's no denying it any longer - the summer holidays are here and across the country parents are desperately trying to come up with ways to entertain their little ones without blowing the household budget in the process. School holidays are perfect for days out, but it's not a cheap thing to do. Entry ticket prices can seem very high and then you also need to contemplate the costs of getting there, plus refreshments whilst there (unless you're thrifty enough to bring a picnic). Help is at hand though as CBeebies magazine have teamed up with Merlin Entertainments for a summer long campaign ... read more
Taking a step back
This week was supposed to be a nice little "holiday" between Mr C leaving one job and starting a new one. We acknowledged that there were likely to be some little jobs left to finish off in our new loft conversion, but the reality is that we've actually been running round like headless chickens all week trying to make decisions, but things and get everything sorted. Today we've made quite an effort to make the day a bit calmer and fun. A spot of baking - mainly prompted by the need to use up some bananas that were going very brown in the fruit bowl - a pub lunch and a wander ... read more