Coughton in the Autumn

 The last day of September and we are well into Autumn now. It is getting chillier by the day and the leaves are changing and falling. We decided to head over to Coughton to spend some time together, seeing as we had our Autumn holiday cut short last weekend. Mr Bee remembered the place perfectly, especially where the playground was! He showed Papa around the house gracefully, if not rather speedily.

Inside, the dining room was decorated for Autumn, with beautiful orange and gold leaves and displays. In the main hall, the fire was lit and inviting, a pianist played some favourites and we huddled into a sofa and read the books. It was just perfect.

 We went to explore the grounds, stopping to feed the ducks. Papa, the duck whisperer, was having a good conversation with them, I do worry sometimes...

Just why I love Autumn.

Dinner Party

 1. It was a slippers and wooly socks kind of morning.

 2. Breakfast

 3. Pretty mushrooms.

 4. A topless lasagne.

 5. Scampi and chips in a basket, toddler style.

 6. Starting the dough.

 7. Painting, keeping in the lines.

 8. Birthday gifts.

 9. Doughnuts cooking.

 10. Bike chase.

 11. Wild mushroom and spinach lasagne.

12. A tray of homemade doughnuts.

 14. Perfection!

15. Licking the sugar!

Poorly

Mr Bee came down with the chicken pox at the weekend, new spots are still appearing and whilst he is being such a star, he is very sleepy. He usually has one little nap in the day, around half an hour to an hour, but he has been having two or three in one day. Other than that, he has been himself and not scratching at all.
I have had a dreadful cold and luckily there has been people around to look after me. Today however, everyone has gone back to work so we are fending for ourselves today.
We have been tucked up in blankets, snuggled in lots of cushions and drinking hot juice all day. Bambi has had three runs to keep my little Bee content :)
Papa has been a bit poorly too but he has been a trooper and gone to help Grandad for the week.
Hopefully we will all be better soon and we can get out of the house again!

Autumn Holiday 2012

We have been planning and looking forward to our autumn holiday since we got home from last years adventure. This year we opted for a camping trip in the beautiful Cotswold countryside. We were all packed up on Wednesday evening and set out on Thursday morning. That is when things started to go wrong!

Mr Bee came down with chicken pox :(

 We arrived and Mr Bee was a star whilst Papa and I set up our home for the weekend. He played football whilst we organised tents and beds and storage. We popped to the local supermarket for some shopping and had a lovely evening around the barbeque eating yummy marinaded chicken and rice followed by toasted marshmallows (of course).

 An exhausted Mr Bee went to sleep nice and early so Papa and I stayed up around the fire nibbling biscuits and reading.

 Friday morning we visited Cirencester. What a beautiful little town!

 It was late morning when we stumbled upon 'He Says She Waffles' a cute little waffle shop down a little alley. We enjoyed yummy waffles, tea and milkshake for the poorly boy.

 We wandered for a while, buying Louie some new books,  a little playmobil set to cheer him up and some bits from the antique fair to put in our house box.
In the afternoon we visited the Cotswold country park and beach. It was really quiet and we were the only ones there for a while. We walked around the lakes and as there were no children around, we had a little play on the park.

 We had a rough night of Mr Bee waking up with his spots hurting and my dormant cold seemed to be coming out. Papa cooked us yummy bacon sandwiches for breakfast and we lazily got ready to visit Bourton on the Water.

 We wandered the pretty little shops, had tea in a sweet little tea room and took the boys to the motor museum. Whilst we were there, I seemed to get even more poorly so we made the decision to travel home in the evening, a day early.

We packed away our tents before having an early barbeque dinner of steak, mushrooms and garlic bread, all done on our tiny little barbeque. We didn't get to explore the pretty campsite, walk around the lakes, go in the swimming pool or soft play area, and we didn't get to visit the last few places that we had planned.
So our Sunday has been spent feeling sorry for ourselves. Papa has been a star unpacking everything for us and even making us brunch in bed. Hopefully, we will all be feeling better soon :)

Girls Night Out

Yesterday I went on my first girlie night out in 3 years!
Kerry and I went in to town after work, did a little shopping (and came out with lots of Clinique goodies, more about that later!) and we both had our hair done. Lots of chatting and a glass of wine later, we had a nice meal before going to the cinema to see the most stunning film, Anna Karenina. We were in awe just how magnificent the film was, completely not what we were expecting.
I got home late to two boys sleeping happily, can't ask for much more than that.

Atom - Panopticon

 You may remember my post the other day about the Singing Ringing Tree on Crown Point in Burnley. It is a modern sculpture in the series called 'Panopticans'. On my way towards Yorkshire, I passed a second panopticon, the Atom.
It is in such a beautiful landscape. I sat and admired the view for a while and even befriended some sheep!

The view from inside the Atom