Mother's Day - Day 3

Like many people for whom today was Mother's Day it was incredibly surreal. With social isolation and distancing I wasn't able to give my mum her card even though she only lives 1 mile from our house:

To cheer me up I joined the global trend of putting a rainbow in your window as a symbol of hope. There is also a virtual Easter egg hunt. Just hope the paint comes off as easily as folks say: 

In order to raise a few smiles I spent the entire day dressed as an elf! It did make folks laugh on the video chats I had... Of course going out for a Mother's Day lunch was off the cards. I made myself a ploughman's and sat out on the lawn for a picnic. My son also tried to teach me how to play Magic the Gathering:

Reasons to be Cheerful Week 30 The Sneezing edition #R2BC

Having spent much of the last week with a stinking cold (thanks kids!) its harder to be cheerful but I have managed to find a few rays of sunshine:

1) Sunny Sunday in the Park

Having been house bound and mostly horizontal on Saturday it was fabulous to be out and about on Sunday. After church the lovely sunshine lured us to spend a few hours down at Abbott Hall park. Whilst the children played I soaked up the sun and enjoyed the local paper with a coffee:

Then we took the longer route home along the canal path and river bank:

2) Last of the sunflowers

It's fellow flowers are now just food for birds and homes for spiders:

3) Picnic teas in the park

There won't be many more of these but whilst they last we are making the most of them:

And yesterday's one by Windermere was wonderful too.

4) Fabulous Roses

Spotted a wonderful bush full of roses whilst walking into town yesterday. Just so beautiful:

5) Moving Up

My daughter is in year 5 so our first chance to start looking at secondary schools! Scary to think she is nearly at that secondary age but we started by looking around the school I work at on its Open Evening. We all loved the musical performances that were put on. Each department had also put out hands on stuff for students to try. Wish we had had more time to see it all (will have to wait for next year!). It was good to see our historical reenacting kit being used in the history department:

And in the PE department my daughter made the most of a mini trampolining lesson:

Perpetual Picnics

This is something I mentioned in a previous post about going to Legoland and I thought I would expand on it!

• So what is a perpetual picnic and when do you need one? 
  It is a picnic that lasts all day and you don't need to sit down to eat it! So ideal for trips to theme parks etc. when you don't have time to stop or you are spending 30 minutes plus in a queue for a ride.
  
• What sort of things are good for a perpetual picnic?
  
  Anything that you can eat holding in your hands without needing a plate and won't melt or make a big mess:
  
  crudities and dip
  cherry tomatoes
  bread sticks
  crisps
  small sandwiches
  mini sausage rolls
  mini pork pies
  mini egg bites (basically anything bite sized from your supermarket!)
  melon slices
  strawberries
  pre-segmented mandarins etc.
  dried fruit
  fairy cakes
  small non-chocolate biscuits
  
• what about drinks?
  
  small cartons of juice
  bottles of water
  any re-sealable soft drinks
  flask of tea / coffee
  
• anything that is no good?
  
  things that melt in your hand
  if it needs more than a couple of bites its probably too big

So pack up your cool bags and go out and enjoy days out with the kids. Taking a perpetual picnic saves time and money that you can then use on something more exciting ;-)