What a summer!  I don’t know about you but I’m exhausted (in the best kind of way!).  It’s been full on and intense and challenging and brilliant fun all at the same time.  The girls go back to school in two days time so we’ve been spending time looking at our Summer Bucket List this morning and…

We are very lucky to have several National Trust properties within about an hour of where we live, which is partly why we decided to invest in an annual pass – there are so many places nearby that we want to explore that it seemed silly not to really.  The closest one to us (literally…

I have written several times before about how much we love Trentham Gardens – it seems that no matter how many times we visit there is always somewhere new to explore and something new to discover.  We spent the afternoon there one sunny Saturday near the beginning of the summer holidays, making the most of the…

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul” ~ John Muir One of our favourite local places to visit is Cannock Chase, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.  It stretches far and wide, from Milford at it’s northern tip, Cannock in the South, it’s eastern edge falling just shy of Rugeley,…

May has seemed like a really busy month and yet it feels like we haven’t really ‘done’ very much.  Looking back through my diary and my camera roll it’s mainly been commitments at the girls’ school, work-related stuff and birthdays that have been keeping us occupied.  As a result I realised that we’ve not actually had any adventures out and…

Every year for the last few years, since the girls have been old enough to properly appreciate it really, we’ve headed off on a family adventure in search of bluebells.  It’s become a bit of a tradition as it’s usually around the time of my birthday that they’re all in bloom (though this year they’re a…

As I sit here typing this it’s the middle of the Easter holidays and we’ve not long arrived home from a week-long holiday in Cornwall.  The husband is on his way back from taking the teenager home (*sob* – we’ve loved having her for the week and wish she could stay for longer) and I’m taking a break…

Trentham Gardens is one of our favourite local places to visit and we usually go at least once in each season – it’s beautiful there year-round, with the ever-changing landscape and garden displays and there is plenty to keep family members of all generations entertained. Summertime shows off glorious bursts of colour (the wildflower meadows are my…

One Sunday at the start of February we made the hour-long journey further north to spend the afternoon at Rode Hall in Cheshire. Our previous visit to Rode Hall was in May last year.  My birthday is at the beginning of May and I like to make a visit somewhere to see the bluebells as they’re usually in bloom…