National Trust Mottisfont

After our petrol head day at Beaulieu  we opted for a lower key day with a hike and a National Trust property. (There is a video at the end of the post). We followed part of the Monarch's Way from our accommodation over to Mottisfont. 

My mum and I enjoyed seeing the churches on the route but my son was not at all impressed:

After a 3 mile walk we were very relieved to reach the estate:

It wouldn't be a National Trust property in the school holiday without some sort of trail. On this occasion it was scarecrows. My son had had enough of trails so we didn't join in:

I spotted that there was an adventure playground so after a bite to eat we headed over to find it. There were some lovely carved pieces of wood to show us where it was:

It was all made from wood and there were opportunities to balance, climb and jump:

For a rest we explored the rest of the gardens. The gardeners had cunningly set up leaf bins to encourage children to collect them up! We didn't manage to bag one of the child sized wheelbarrows but my son did his part:

Of course we had to look around the house as well. It is built on the old abbey and the cellar is part of the original buildings. The inside of the house is currently celebrating the life of sons of Maud Russell who lived in the house after 1934. There was also a chance to play the harpsichord and grand piano that they had played:

We had a final wander around the gardens including the Font that the house is named for, the rose garden (sadly we missed most of the roses) and a chance to do a Hobbit impression at the foot of a venerable oak tree:

All in all a good use of our membership. Here is a little video of the play area and music:

Avebury Stone Circle

On our way to our holiday accommodation we realised that we were going to be very close to Avebury Stone Circle. So of course we had to make a stop on the way. My son had never been but for all the adults it was a return visit. We had all forgotten what size the stones were:

The National Trust had a couple of exhibitions about the history of the stones and some hands on ways of showing how the stones may have been erected:

We didn't visit the manor house but we did try out the temporary cafe which is in use whilst they recover from last winter's big freeze:

#WordlessWednesday 3-10-18

#CountryKids Wray Castle, National Trust

My son was asked which National Trust property he would like to be taken to by his aunt and uncle. It was no surprise to me that he chose Wray Castle:

We weren't the only ones who knew that this is the best place to visit with children on a wet, autumn Lakes day and it was very busy with a full car park. Luckily we managed to get in alright. There are plenty of things to occupy children indoors including building blocks in the Peter Rabbit rooms:

We also managed a short table tennis game before checking out the Steam Gondola room:

One of the most popular rooms (and now upstairs) was the castle blocks room. Lots of children building, balancing and having fun with the foam building blocks:

#CountryKids All England Stone Skimming Championships

After Parkrun yesterday my son decided he wanted to enter the All England Stone Skimming Championships which were being held in the same park. There was quite a queue to sign up as the competition was open to all ages with no qualification. At £3 for an adult and £1 for an under 11 it was a well priced event too. Our first task was to choose from the selection of skimmers that the South Cumbria Rivers Trust had supplied:

Its all to do with the size of your hand and how they fit when you are preparing to throw them! Then we had to wait to take our turn at skimming and first of all we watched some of the seasoned experts; such as Ron Long The Old Tosser who has written an excellent post explaining how to skim stones.

Next up was Gareth Twamley who with his first stone broke the local record with an awesome 88m!!

The slightly choppy waters (and occasional straying waterfowl) weren't the ideal conditions for stone skimming:

Reasons to be cheerful: Easter family fun and a cat! #R2BC

I am so glad we still have this week off for Easter as time is simply flying! Thanks for joining in last week and I hope that more of you are back from school holidays to join in this week. Don't forget to visit the other linkers and leave a comment... Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:

1) Coco

We adopted a cat called Coco last Thursday he is an adorable 9 month old kitten who has stolen all our hearts. He is fitting right in at home and hopefully he will soon feel like this is where he belongs. I have never had a cat before and it so far is a pleasure to have one (especially as its my daughter's job to clean out the litter tray!):

2) Proud Mum

On Saturday we all wet to Parkrun with my wider family. My daughter was the official photographer and took so many fabulous shots. My son ran his best time for 18 months and really is coming back into form again:

3) Family

We really enjoyed having our extended family around last weekend. Things like the park are so much more fun with others to share it with:

4) Family days out at National Trust

I have already blogged about how we have already made use of renewed National Trust membership. We are lucky to have some fantastic properties near us like Allan Bank:

and Sizergh Castle:

#CountryKids at Allan Bank National Trust in Grasmere

Having renewed our National Trust membership yesterday (and getting a voucher for free Easter hunts!) we picked up the grandparents and headed for Grasmere and Allan Bank. You have to  find somewhere to park in the village (get there early) and then walk up the drive to reach the house:

We found the first clue for the Easter hunt before we had even reached the house:

Once we had collected our back we headed straight out to find the next one:

#CountryKids Easter Fun at Sizergh Castle

Today my son and I headed over to Sizergh Castle. We wanted to do the Easter trail around the grounds and even though it was damp we weren't the only ones following the signs:

I think it was the best one we have done there yet and there was plenty to spot and clues to solve including this chap on the pond:

The route took us passed the Stumpery which is looking resplendent with Spring growth:

#CountryKids Exploring Waterhead and Galava Roman Fort

A friend has come up to Keswick for the Convention so we arranged to meet at Ambleside today for lunch. The easiest place to do this was at Hayes Garden World where we had lunch on the terrace with Mr Tod for company:

We then parked up at Waterhead (lucky that it didn't take long to get spaces!) and the children wanted to paddle in Windermere:

Of course we hadn't come prepared so they just waded in and got their bottom halves wet:

#CountryKids Tarn Hows and Glen Mary

Today my son and I headed up to Tarn Hows to complete our virtual race for Help for Heroes in honour of Captain Seath. The Tarn has a circular route around it that we would need to complete two laps of for the challenge. I hadn't been up to the Tarn before and in fact ended up parking at Glen Mary car park. From there we took the bridle way and road up the hill to the proper Tarn Hows car park. It was good warm up:

It was a relief to reach the Tarn Hows proper car park:

We checked over the map so that my son knew where we were going, he is far too fast to run alongside me! The miles without stiles route was a circular one around the Tarn so we basically just had to decide whether to go clockwise to anticlockwise. He chose the latter and shot off… I took it more steadily and paused to take photos as I went:

#CountryKids at Wray Castle and Claife Viewing Station

Whilst doing our Easter trails last week we also had time to appreciate some of the rest of the things on offer at the National Trust properties we visited. The first of these was Wray Castle which is my son's favourite National Trust property. They do well at providing things for all ages so I could I appreciate this photo frame that allows for shots of Windermere:

Inside the castle there are always old favourites plus new things to find. The bark rubbing didn't appeal to my son but would have entertained other children:

The castle has links with Beatrix Potter who stayed there with her family, this means that there are plenty of excuses to link up with her characters:

Reasons to be Cheerful a Happy Easter #R2BC

I don't know about you but I really love the Easter weekend. Whether its the double bank holiday, the chocolate or celebrating Jesus there are plenty of reasons to smile at Easter. Hopefully people will have time to share their happy posts with others this week despite it being school holidays (well for many of us it is!). Here are my Easter reasons to be cheerful:
1) Fond farewells
Something I never expected working as a supply teacher/teaching assistant was to be given a farewell bouquet of flowers! I was therefore very touched after a half term in one school to be given these in front of the entire school:

2) Proud mum

My son volunteered for the first time at our local parkrun. He was assistant run director to start us all off and then sorted all 207 finish tokens at the end (2nd highest ever turnout!). Glad to say he really enjoyed it and wants to do it again:

3) Easter fun

#CountryKids Easter hunt up Stickle Ghyll

We just hadn't had enough of hunting chocolate bunnies after Saturday and Sunday so we consulted the National Trust website and headed north. It was a toss up between Allan Bank in Grasmere or Sticklebarn in the Langdale Valley. As it was already early afternoon I decided to go for Langdale as I thought that Grasmere would be very busy with nowhere to park. It turned out that there wasn't much space at Sticklebarn either but luckily just enough for us. This was a slightly different trail as it turned out to be more of a walk with a quiz rather than a hunt. It was also the most picturesque of the ones we have done this weekend:

We have been to the pub several times as part of my 10 k races but had never really explored up the valley and seen the waterfalls that they are using for hydropower:

It wasn't the easiest of walks so luckily we were both wearing trainers and are fairly fit:

The instructions were to start the trail when you got to the bridge. This was the first indication that we were headed in the right direction (although with only one route it would be hard to get lost!):

My son couldn't resist a bit of mini mountaineering by climbing on the boulders alongside the manmade footpath:

We finally reached the bridge and I read out the first clue:

Once he had worked it out and we had filled in the answer plus the missing letter grid we carried on up the valley:

This is the style that needs replacing and they need to raise the funds to do so:

A walk in the Lakes wouldn't be the same without at least one stream to either step or leap across. I took the sedate stride route whereas my son took the risky route:

It was at this point my son worked out that I had been stringing him along and that we didn't need to walk any further to find answers! All the questions were general knowledge based on the Lake District. Once he had filled in the final clue he refused to go any further:

At least we had made it far enough up to enjoy the views back down:

He then raced it back down to the start to claim his bunny. I took my time as I am not too keen on rocky, steep paths.... It was then threatening to rain so we retired to the pub for refreshments and entertainment:

The pub had a lot of these Victorian i-pads and we had fun playing noughts and crosses, hangman and squares:

We had an interesting drive back down the valley as a farmer was herding some of his Herdwicks along the road with his faithful sheepdog:

And this lovely pair were claiming right of way alongside Elterwater common:

It was a beautiful end to the day on Windermere and I'm glad we spent some of it out enjoying tghe fells: