Reasons to be Cheerful: Family, Friends and Fun #R2BC

Now we are in November I have handed the hostess mantle back to the founder Michelle. We will be in good hands until I am in charge again for December! Its been a pretty good week for me from the tail end of half term and then some glorious weather. Here are some of the things that had made me cheerful:
1) Catching up with friends
One of my school friends was up north with her family for the holidays and we enjoyed spending time with them and showing them our castle:

One of my single parent friends is also in the area for a break and we met up for coffee and cake at Yard 46. 

2) Time with my girl

We had a delightful day trip to Lancaster to spend birthday money and try out a vegetarian restaurant:

Such a pleasure to spend a laid back day with her. Then last night we were at the Brewery as a puppetry project she worked on had a showing for the parents. She had done an amazing job!

3) Time with my boy

#CountryKids at South Lakes Safari Zoo

My parents treated us to a trip to the South Lakes Safari Zoo as an early birthday treat for my son. At the moment it is £5 per adult with children free so its great value. It was our first trip under the new management and my parents hadn't seen many of the changes from the last couple of years. The sky was almost a perfect blue for a backdrop to a Cumbrian savannah:

There was a Halloween themed trail but we didn't have a go just enjoyed the decorations:

It wasn't long before my son found the first of the animal statues that children can climb on to:

#CountryKids at Lakeland Wildlife Oasis

With it being nice at the weekend my mum and I decide we needed to all get out and make the most of it. The hard thing was getting everyone to agree so in the end we headed to the Lakeland Wildlife Oasis which isn't too far away on the A6. We hadn't been since before my son started school so it had been a while!

When we arrived it was just about time for the meet the bugs talk so we headed to the inside exhibits first. These take you through a fascinating journey through evolution:

My son's favourite shell

There was plenty of hand on stuff including this magnifying glass:

Examining bugs close up

Or this bugatelle where your choices of things such as number of legs resulted in a different bug at the bottom. Both my two had several goes on this:

Bugatelle