Three Musketeers at Williamson Park

It is nearly 2 years since we went to see The Hobbit at Williamson Park. Last week my daughter and I went along to this year's promenade performance by The Dukes Theatre. This year's production is The Three Musketeers and we followed the signs to the first scene:

We were there in plenty of time for my daughter to get us front row seats:

We had eaten on the way but had time to eat our dessert whilst waiting for the play to start. It was a lovely sunny evening:

Reasons to be Cheerful: Cakes, Butterflies and Coming Last! #R2BC #BeMoreWitWitWoo

I am day late joining in with Michelle as we were out all day yesterday at Ambleside Sports! That will be a video and a blogpost so watch this space... Meanwhile here are this week's reasons:
1) Home Baking
Sometimes its the simplest things that make us happy. I love rustling up a simple batch of cupcakes using our tried and tested recipe. This time I used butter and they were so tasty they were gone in a day:

2) Butterflies

I am so pleased with my bee and butterfly friendly garden. Seeing these beautiful creatures flitting about is a delight to behold. There have been a few varieties too as I tracked for the Butterfly Count:

3) Guinea Pigs

As I am constantly putting the boys out on the grass I am enjoying spending more time with them. This time it was Splodge who posed beautifully:

4) Outdoor Theatre

I had a lovely evening just with my daughter at Williamson Park for the Duke's Theatre promenade production of The Three Musketeers. Plenty of laughs as well as sword fights with some stunning backdrops:

5) Being more Wit Wit Woo

I was blown away by the likes and comments when I joined with Swim Suit Saturday to celebrate the life of Kate Sutton:

In honour of Kate Sutton @witwitwoo who died this week at the age of 48 we are embracing her attitude and going out of our comfort zones! So a rare sight me in a swimsuit... #bemorewitwitwoo

A post shared by Becky Willoughby (@lakessinglemum) on Jul 21, 2018 at 1:45am PDT

I embraced this attitude by actually taking part in the mums' race yesterday. I knew I would be last but just went for it... and yes I was about a metre behind everyone else. My celebration was probably a prize winner though! And look I got this as an award for taking part:

Book Review: Math Quest The Museum of Mysteries

When your child loves maths but doesn't enjoy reading it is great to be recommended a book which is right up their street. These Math Quest books are a perfect combination for him so I ordered one from Amazon (affiliate link):

He was hooked pretty much instantly! I didn't hear a peep out of him for ages as he worked his way through the adventure. You have to solve maths problems to progress through and stop the thieves. If you get an answer wrong the book tells you what you should have done:

The math puzzles are set at KS2 level so year 3 and upwards. Younger children may need to work on the puzzles with the adults unless they are math whizzes! Don't panic parents about not knowing what all the maths terms mean as there is a helpful glossary and explanation in the back:

Wednesday Top Tip: Parking in a new place

When visiting a new town or city and parking in the streets it can be hard to remember where you put your car. There was a story in recent months about a lady who lost her car for several weeks as she forgot where she had parked it... My simple solution is to photograph the street name so that you can check it when you need to get back to your car. You can even then just type it into Google Maps and i will tell you how to get there! It works in big car parks too as you can just photograph the floor/bay numbers for easy reference (maybe even the name of the car park if you are as scatterbrained as me...):

#usefultips for days out... when street parking photograph the street name so you remember where you’ve left the car when it’s time to go home!

A post shared by Becky Willoughby (@lakessinglemum) on Jul 24, 2018 at 1:06am PDT

Do you have any useful parking tips when visiting places?

Big Butterfly Count

I decided to take part in the Big Butterfly Count after seeing it promoted by Sir David Attenborough. Having an insect friendly garden meant I didn't have to go away from home to spot several species. First up was a Peacock butterfly:

That shows why they have eyes to make them look scary to predators! There were two of them enjoying the nectar:

It was fascinating watching the proboscis being dipped into the flowers: