Summer Holiday

It has been a fantastic long week. Playing on beaches, swimming in the pool, exploring little villages, rock pooling, eating, riding, reading, late nights... oh the list could go on with all of the busy things we have been up to!

Now I have returned home, Mr Bee is still in the South West with his Nana and Grandad and looking back on all of my photographs, it has been a beautiful week. 

Suffolk

We decided to take our annual holiday in the May Half Term this year, to celebrate our First Wedding Anniversary (which is actually today!). We picked Suffolk as it was our first holiday together 6 years ago, so it seemed like a fitting place!

On our way through, we returned to Anglesey Abbey, a place that I have been desparate to revisit for such a long time! Although it was just a passing visit, we spent a while exploring the woodland walk and the rose garden, counting clocks in the house and then a hearty lunch to set us up for the remainder of our journey towards the seaside.

 On our first day, we made a beeline for the beach. Of course! The boys played on the beach whilst I enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We had a delicous lunch, the product of the many delis and bakeries in Southwold. Then there was more playing on the beach (of course!) and then we went for a long walk around to the harbour for a fish and chip supper and a nose at the boats.

 We couldn't come all this way without making a trip to Felixstowe, the venue for many of Dan's holidays as a child, and the place that we stayed those many years ago. More playing on the beach, yummy Italian for lunch and it wouldn't be a holiday of ours without stopping in to the nearest Waitrose. We are all for little traditions!

Our National Trust visit of the week was to Dunwich Heath. We have fond memories of Dunwich from our last visit, but this time we chose the Heath. It was beautiful. We had a lovely stroll around the kids trail, including a play on the, you guessed it, BEACH! But of course the main feature was the famous scones. I chose Raspberry and White Chocolate and my goodness, I think it was the most delicious cream tea I have ever had!

Then I had a day cameraless. You can guess what we started with. Beach! And shopping for a few souvenieers. To celebrate our wedding anniversary as a family, we went to the local posh hotel for Afternoon Tea. Finger sandwiches, tarts, macarons, scones. Delicious. And Louie thought it was very novel!

And to end our week away, another National Trust property to break up our journey. This time, Ickworth. What a beautiful house indeed and one which Dan was completely enamoured with. Especially because of the electrical engineering magazines from 1936 in the basement. He was just a little excited when he found articles on Switchgear, and even more so when he found details of a unit he was updating only a few weeks ago! We ended up staying at Ickworth much longer than we intended and didn't get home until bedtime!

You can find more about our day trips here, here and here.

A Trip to the Sea Side

Sun washed photographs from our trip to Fleetwood.
A surprisingly mild morning on the beach where Papa and I shared our first date. Four years passed.
Throwing stones into the sea.
Chasing puppy dogs.
Chips on the seafront. Always.

Autumn Holiday

We are now back from our holiday, which seemed to last forever! We have been away for nearly two weeks, which is the longest we have been away from home since Mr Bee was born, and even longer than that thinking about it. 

We had a lovely trip to Cornwall, then Papa and I headed north for the Christening of our Niece, Summer Daisy.

Our holiday started as it meant to go on, with rain. Unfortunately, it rained every day that we were on holiday, but we did make the most of it.

We began by visiting the Eden Project, as it is quite a distance from where we stay but is en route, so it worked quite well. Our only regret is getting there so late in the day.  You really do need a proper day to spend there, and we had to miss one of the biomes as there was a wedding there. 

bumblebee!

We had such a lovely time exploring, Mr Bee loved all the little paths where he could hide from us.

 I particually love this photo, of both of my boys pointing up at the WEEE man. We had our tickets validated into year passes so we shall definitely come back for the day when we return to Cornwall in May next year.

On Tuesday, we decided to make the most of a morning, which gave us a little bit of sun. It wasn't very warm and my it was blustery. But not wanting to miss an opportunity, we packed up and headed down to the beach. Mr Bee wasn't too sure on going in the sea this time, even though he had loved it when we were here last. Papa Bee wasn't shy though and got straight in.

Bond-esque!

I adore this photograph

Building a wall to save Mr Bee from the sea! Complete with moat.

Surfs up!

 We didn't do much else on our holiday, nothing that really warrants photos. We did visit Tregnwainton Gardens, but that is for another post :)

 And we also visited St Michaels Mount, but it was so foggy that you couldn't see anything. This was about the best picture I could get...! Unfortunately, then my battery wore out so I couldn't get any more photographs. I am sure we will go again though, if only for the delicious lunch that we had in the cafe! Mmm!

After a 5 1/2 hour journey home to Leicester, we piled our clothes in to the washing machine, ordered a takeaway and got re-packed and ready to head off to Burnley for the second leg of our holiday!
We arrived with plenty of time for Papa to get ready for the Christening (Louie and I were dressed and ready for traveling but Papa didn't want to drive in his suit) and we arrived at the church promptly.
After finding our seats in the church, along with the rest of the congregation, we were only told that we had ALL come to the wrong church!
Anyway, there were some crossed wires when organising the event but we all made it over to the correct church. However the Vicar had gone home! We got hold of him though, and the Christening went ahead. Poor little Summer Daisy will have a tale to tell when she is older.

The best photo from the Christening 'do, of Grandpa and Mr Bee

The rest of our time in the north was spent relaxing, which was lovely. Mr Bee got to play with his Auntie Elle a lot which gave me a bit of a rest. Grandma Jojo took us shopping on the Tuesday and we got Mr Bee some new trousers for Autumn /Winter and some jeans for myself (as my favourite jeans have ripped in the knee now, so I replaced them with the same new pair, how I love Gap jeans! They lasted me for 4 years!)
Alas now we are home now, and back to work! We also have some visitors over from Ireland, our cousins, which is lovely. But they have ventured up to Bradgate with my Uncle so today we are having a lovely quiet and relaxing day of baking :)

Its good to be home