An Evening Stroll

We had to move out of our house for a few days this week whilst the builders relaid our downstairs floor. So, in search of some peace and quiet, we headed to a little Airbnb property in Fiskerton, just outside of Southwell.

I love this area of Nottinghamshire, Southwell itself is a wonderful town with plenty of cafes, shops, the minster and of course the Bramley apple, with a fabulous heritage walk that takes you close to the original Bramley tree.

Our little home for the week was in a small village, with a great little pub and plenty of walks close by. We headed out after dinner in search of the last few rays of the sunshine which had proved so illusive all day.

Marching down the lane, the children headed towards the fields, over the fields and across the train tracks, we later got talking to the signal box operator and he told us this one will be closing in October, which is rather sad.

Through the long grass we headed, picking up some dandelion clocks on the way, a favourite pastime of the children and it never gets old. As the children and their Daddy ran through the grass it made me think about how much we need to get outside more, especially since we'd spent last weekend packing up the house ready for the builders.

With the sun shining down on us, walking down country lanes past white painted houses, it felt a bit like we were in France. We'd taken some bubbles, so we stopped in the lane and blew them, the children chasing them all too excitedly as they floated down the road.

Do you like to go out for an evening stroll? With summer on the way it will certainly make it easier.

Shipley Country Park

Last weekend saw some gorgeous weather, it was a bit drizzly on Sunday morning so we headed to Ikea for an early morning trip and a hot dog for lunch and then popped over to Shipley Country Park for a walk around and some fresh air.

Shipley is a vast space with lots of park areas and plenty of space to run around, it is also a haven for horse riders.

Next time we go we will take a longer walk round to see if we can see the old American Adventure site, so sad this is no more.

An Autumn Walk at Rufford Abbey

My son school has a two week half term break in October and as for the first few days of it there was such terrible weather, once it cleared up on the Wednesday, we decided to head out in the morning to Rufford Abbey.

We have been there many times before, it is the perfect place to let of steam and whether its summer or winter it's a favourite for us.

Firstly, there was something we had expected to see, a community archaeology project were digging up part of the grass. This looked interesting, so we made the little detour to check it out, the volunteers had dug up old tiles, brick work and some pottery. If you look closely you can see a paw print on the tile in this picture.

The main reason I took the children to Rufford was because I wanted them to run and play in the leaves and I knew there would be plenty there. We looked at the leaves in the light to see their veins, so it was educational too.

A rather friendly goose trying to eat my wellies and some obligatory leaf finding.

The house looked beautiful eerily beautiful against the dark sky and surrounded by beautiful burning trees, autumn really is a beautiful season. There were some halloween treats about, including a witch in a tree, we also played on the park and dug in the sand.

After the park we went and found some more leaves to play in, we spent ages kicking and chucking leaves and then sadly it started to rain. But we got to see some wonderful colours and had a fabulous time. We didn't have to pay for any of the fun we had, well, expect a hot chocolate for me and a snack each for the kids.

So if you are looking for something to do this half term and are local to Nottingham I can highly recommend Rufford Abbey, they have a halloween trail during half term so perfect for getting into the halloween spirit

A Visit to Peveril Castle

Whilst in the Peak District the other week we also visited Peveril Castle, well the ruins of the castle anyway.

High upon a hill overlooking Castleton the steep hill was well worth a climb for the stunning views that we got.

The hills also meant the children could spend some time rolling down them, we pretty much had the castle grounds to ourselves so we took the time to embrace a great childhood activity.

Climbing the very, very steep hill to the castle...

Looking out over the beautiful peak district...

Reading about the castle and the gorgeous view...

Rolling down the hill and looking out over the hills...

The beautiful castle ruins...

We had a fabulous time at the top of the hill looking out over the beautiful peak district, the colours were gorgeous and we were so high up.

We had a lovely time at Peveril, it's a wonderful view from up there and Castleton is a beautiful little village with lots of pubs, shops and cafes.

We will definitely be back to this beautiful part of the world, helpfully for a weekend.

Linking up to Country Kids on Coombe Mill

The Beautiful Longshaw Estate in the Peak District

Monday was an inset day at my son's school, so we headed off to the beautiful Peak District for a day out, having adventures and making memories.

First stop was the Longshaw Estate, a beautiful National Trust site that was full of things to do and see for us and the children.

Used during the first world war as an auxiliary hospital, the main building is a beautiful property that is steeped in history, I can only imagine the peace and tranquillity this offered for those soldiers recovering from the trauma of the front line.

One of the main features of the estate are the bogs and the aptly named boggarts, small goblin-like creatures that live in the bogs, ok so we know they aren’t real but for my son this was an exciting prospect which lead to a few hours of fruitless searching!

With several trails around the estate we opted for the Hairy Wood Ant trail, on this trail you are in for a treat as you search for one of Britain’s biggest ants! It is about a mile walk, although with some serious detours for boggart hunting we probably did more like 2 miles.

The boggart trail is really great for kids, it gets their imagination racing and hopefully this will be a memory the children have when they grow older, first stop boggart view for a spot of balancing and boggart spotting.

Then onto boggart burrow, walking under the huge and stunning rhodendrons was a real treat for us all, the branches were just so beautiful, we didn’t spot a boggart but we did find some tracks and scratches.

The stunning lake and unbelievably lush green grass was beautiful, we walked across the fields to find some sheep and some big rocks to climb, making sure to spot the wildlife and pretty wildflowers.

Further round the trail we found boggart hole, a couple of falls and mucky bottoms later we finally spotted the ants, the size of them kinda made me squeal! Not really a huge ant fan but these were pretty impressive, we could see them climbing up the tree in a line and carrying leaves and bits of debris, I even managed to capture two ‘fighting’ as my son said, I prefer to think they are giving each other a kiss.

After this it was spot the ant hill, my son and husband went off in search of more rock and came across a few ant hills and then as we walked further round and knew what we were looking for we found more, all in all about 20. There is plenty of space to play games, hide and seek is our current favourite and the view from the side of the hill was stunning!

It really is a great estate, back at the house there is boggart rise with lots of little doors carved into some trees, I made the children knock before opening to see if there was anything there, we had taken little torches for the children so they could do some proper investigating, these came in handy on a few occasions.

Finally we went into the den building area, an area put aside for you to build dens, this is really big at the moment and we have been to a few places that have branches and an area you can build in.

We continued on into the Peak District and visited Peveril castle in Castleton, but as this post has gone on longer than I’d expected i'll talk more about that next time...

Linking up with Country Kids on Coombe Mill

The Great Outdoors

I saw this great blogger challenge with Centre Parks on the Tots 100 website and decided to give it a go, after all we love getting outside. Especially now the weather is warmer, it means we can take a picnic with some of our favourite foods and spot the wildlife too.

Lot's of baby geese and lots, and I do mean lots of dandelion clocks, if you follow my blog you'll know this is currently the obsession of my 3 year old daughter.

Scooting past the boats...

Walking through the woods...

 Sitting by the lake, talking about the ducks and giving each other a hug...

Finally getting to feed the geese...

The obsessed over dandelion clocks...

My son having a turn at blowing the dandelion clocks, it wasn't until I looked at this picture afterwards that I realised how funny it actually was :)

We drew our inspiration for these pictures from the following tip 'take some springtime selfies of you and your family enjoying yourselves on a walk in your local park'.

Southwell Ploughing Match and Country Show

Today we visited Southwell Ploughing Match and Show, an annual event which we had not had the pleasure of going to before. But with about four generations in tow we decided to make it a family day out.

The show had everything from farm equipment to craft tents and rather large vegetables as well as best in shows and horse events.

We arrived at 10.45am and didn't leave until 4.50pm so t was a full day and for only £7.50 each adult it was money well spent.

First of all we found lots of tractors to see and climb in to.

 Who knew combine harvesters were so big?

 This tyre was huuuge!

We had always wondered how they harvested corn, now we know.

We loved this beauty, totally gorgeous.

Amazed at the size of these parsnips, the carrots were pretty amazing too. We all would have loved to try some of the fruit and veg on those tables ;)

We are definitely going to make some of these paper plates with leaves and other autumnal bits on.

These gorgeous vegetable animals were made by 11 and 12 years old, my son wants to make some now so we will be out in the garden looking for leaves and feathers later this week.

This gorgeous old steam engine was a wood plane and wonderful (and scary) to watch them cutting wood with it.

This old hay baler was wonderful to watch and we got to see the finished product and look at the corn too.

Looking at the ear of corn with grandpa.

Looking at the corn

This was a really lovely day and I can't wait until next year, we will definitely be going back.

We are linking up to Country Kids over on Coombe Mill Blog