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:

Reasons to be Cheerful: School's Out for Summer! #R2BC

Thanks everyone for joining in last week as always I loved reading all the posts. Hopefully everyone is enjoying the weather even if it is a way too hot! Here are my reasons to be cheerful this week:

1) School's out for summer

The children and I all finished the school term on Friday. So nice to have 6 weeks of no school runs and only alarms for special days out! I do have to go in for one day during the time but that's not much in the scheme of things. We have so much to look forward to.

2) Seeing family and friends

One of the great things about living in a tourist spot is that people tend to pass through and stop to say hello! So far this week an old friend from my young free and single days took us all out for lunch as he headed home from Keswick.

#WordlessWednesday whoops..

#CountryKids at National Trust Allan Bank in Grasmere

We hadn't been to the Allan Bank at Grasmere since the week it opened to the pubic in 2012. So when an acquaintance wanted to meet somewhere child friendly near Langdale I immediately suggested it as a rendezvous. Several members of my family decided to copy us too so that we had 3 generations visiting the place. 

After finding a car park space at the right end of the village we walked up the lane to the property as there is only limited disabled parking on site. My children couldn't resist climbing the rock formation to the side of the drive:

It was interesting to see how much had changed in the last 2 and a bit years! As it was gutted by fire in 2011 it has been a slow job to restore any of the rooms:

fire damaged door panels

A Day Out to Grasmere

I posted on Twitter a couple of days ago that I was looking for ideas as to where to take my children next after our day at Sizergh Castle to make use of our National Trust membership.  One of my Twitter friends just happens to do the official NT tweets for Grasmere and she suggested the newly opened Allan Bank. The thought of free arts activities for the children and free coffee for me was a real draw! So just before lunch time today we packed a picnic and headed off to Grasmere...


Due to being distracted by back seat drivers I took a wrong turn at Ambleside so we took the scenic route to Grasmere via Langdale up and over a very narrow, twisty and steep road - great fun! With it being Easter the village was busy but we managed to find a place in car park for £5 for 4 hours. A stroll through the village showed lots of touristy temptations in the form of shops until we reached the National Trust information centre and shop to meet my friend. She gave us directions to find the house (with it being newly opened it isn't on the official maps yet).


The house is up a long winding drive with access only for cars with disabled badges. It is visible from quite a distance due to its position on the hill. You can see why the original owners chose to build it there back in the early 1800s.