My blog year in review: Part 1

It's been an amazing year for my blog which I started back in 2008. This was definitely the year that the blog switched from being purely personal to including reviews and actually started earning me some much needed income.  So much has happened over the last 364 days that I'm breaking this review over 2 days to make it more manageable. 


Part one is the first half of the year from January to June and how I saw it from my blog:


January


This was the month for resolutions and new challenges. These included:

1. 100 Books in a Year - hoping that if I add all the books I read to the children at bedtime I'll have completed this!
2. Fitness Friday - this was a great supportive blog hop that unfortunately dwindled as the year went on but it did help me do really well getting in shape at the start of the year. Lots more work to do! As part of this I became an ambassador for Change4Life
3. I also pledged to work on becoming self sufficient. I haven't 100% succeeded in this but things have improved
4. This was the month I joined Reasons to be Cheerful for the first time. A great blog hop that helps to focus on the positive not dwell on the negative.

The high point of the month was appearing on BBC Radio Cumbria. Amazing where blogging can lead you! The low point of the month and indeed the whole year was the loss of my Granny at the age of 98. A much missed lady she will never be forgotten:

February

I have really tried to use this year to showcase my photographs. Not only through The Gallery and Silent Sunday posts but through stand alone posts such as this one from Bowness. I carried on my great relationship with Treasure Trails Cumbria with their fabulous murder mystery walks.

Karin started a Flashback Friday hop which I really enjoyed taking part in. This was the month I started reviewing iPhone apps with a debut from Peppa Pig. I did also manage a rant about the National Health Service. After signing up to the Become a Mumpreneur course I was quite happy to promote it.

#TheGallery: Green

A lovely challenge from Tara this week to come up with photographs meeting the theme of Green. As the weather has been stunning over the last few days I've been out enjoying the Cumbrian countryside here is a collage of my favourite ones fitting the bill:

From top to bottom and left to right this is what you can see:

• My children enjoying the amazing seesaw in the middle of Holker Hall gardens.
• Them resting on the lovers' seat on the lawn.
• My daughter hugging the Holker lime tree.
• Lambs near Sizergh castle.
• Tulips in Sizergh castle gardens.
• Woodland adjacent to Sizergh castle.
• Brigsteer woods.
• Bluebells in Brigsteer woods.

I hope you have enjoyed them. If you want to see more then from Wednesday click on the camera logo to see this week's linky.

#SilentSunday 24th April 2011

Family Fun: Holker Hall and Gardens, Cumbria

After 8 months of living up in Kendal I finally got to take my children to visit Holker Hall and gardens at Cark-in-Cartmel. I'd seen their marketing about an Easter Egg hunt so thought it was an ideal opportunity to get my children to agree to go to a garden (not their favourite idea of a fun destination!).


We had a rather wiggly drive from the A590 through various Cumbrian towns and villages. Its a very picturesque drive and luckily my children don't suffer from car sickness. The route is well signposted with brown signs and yellow ones for the current event. We easily found a space in the car park and were able to spread our picnic blanket on the adjacent bank. Plenty of other families were making use of either the picnic tables or their own rugs.


Suitably fortified we got our entry tickets (£7.50 for me, £4 for my daughter and my son was free) and two Easter egg trails plus pencils. When we arrived at the entrance to the gardens a member of staff kindly pointed us in the right direction to find the first clue! My children were very keen and sped off at a rate of knots to find the required letter:

I was more keen on trying to photograph the gorgeous flowers that filled the gardens with colour:

Using a combination of clues and the garden map we headed out of the formal garden and into the wild flower meadow in search of the standing stones. The gravel labyrinth around the stones was great fun for us all to follow and the children quite happily kept going to the middle. In fact all along the route and in the rest of the garden there was plenty to grab the attention of the whole family and entertain us all:

In fact after collecting the children's chocolate winnings from the ticket office they ran back to the garden for more! They both said they want to come back again as they enjoyed it so much. Unfortunately we didn't have time to see the whole garden in one go as the children were in need of some refreshment from the Courtyard Cafe. Of course this does mean that we will have to come back soon...


There was just enough time for a quick sample of the adventure playground which is nicely shaded and has some picnic benches. This area is accessible without any payment and would be a lovely place to spend a morning or afternoon. In the school room there were Easter craft activities for an extra cost but we skipped these on this occasion. 


All in all a fab family day out of you've still got some holiday budget left! If you get there over the Easter weekend then the hunt is on until Monday. The next event is a big screening of the Royal Wedding on the 29th for £2 a car (there is a marquee for a more upmarket viewing of the event).