Strawberries Sweeter

Pick your own. Childhood memories of picking gluts of fruit with my grandparents for my grandmother to turn into jam that she would gift in excess for the rest of the year. Grappling around on your knees to find the best fruit and eating more than you took home. Try before you buy. Times have moved on, it would seem.

As a woman who had inherited a strawberry allergy from her mother at birth, leaving her mother allergy free while she dreamed of strawberries all summer, I was OVER THE MOON after having Effy that I not only seemed to have ditched the allergy, but Effy wasn't allergic either. So we have spent as much time as possible eating as many strawberries as possible ever since. Safe to say my little fruit bat can inhale strawberries faster than sweets, which makes me a very happy woman!

So yesterday, we went to pick our own. We finally got to explore Dovecote Buttery in Newton between Kettering and Corby, having driven past a million times, commenting on how we really should visit.

In the afternoon sun the strawberries shone like little red beacons throughout the rows and rows of plants ready for the picking. Delicious. But the plants weren't down on the ground, they were on legs, making them perfect adult picking height... And not quite so toddler friendly picking height. However, it became apparent that it was probably no bad thing, as Effy quickly realised that there were a lot of strawberries for the eating and she needed careful supervision. No sooner had daddy put some strawberries in the punnet had a little hand grabbed one to munch on... And another. And another.

With two punnets and a toddler full of strawberries, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and played in the play area while Lowen slept and indulged in an icecream before heading home.

A really perfect summer afternoon activity... And a perfect excuse for eating strawberries for the rest of the week. Whipped cream? Rude not to...

Over-adventurous

I never thought that mooching around the bridal ways of this lovely county would be over adventurous. Although originally from the flattest part of the country, beautiful Norfolk, I wouldn't associate Northamptonshire with treachery and danger when out walking. 

Last Saturday we had two agendas. Pick up a couple of geocaches and walk 5k to complete my Virtual 5k for the Lullaby Trust.

Two children, 3 pairs of wellies, our Phil&Teds and our phones fully charged and we were off. It was wet underfoot. The grass was taller than Effy. We found the first cache and then it went quite wrong. The ground was so wet in places it was like quick sand, but we felt we'd got so far it was silly to turn around when I wasn't quite at the 2.5k mark and maybe these conditions were isolated. Then areas we thought would have gates for crossing did not, and we had to walk lengths of fields we hadn't anticipated. And then what we thought was a path from the map was actually a stream. By the time we got to cache two, we'd done our 5k and a bit more but we were not going to be doing the "and back" to this walk. Then we realised that there was no path on the main road back to the car, and both kids were asleep. So caked in mud and edging closer on dinner time, we walked another 2.5k home, and D got a cab back to the car while I put our muddiness in the wash or gave it a brush down.

Then the washing machine died. But that's a story for another day.

Lessons learned. My pram, although an excellent off-roader is not a snow plough and does not have the wheels of a tractor. Read more about the cache before trying to locate it. Don't be over ambitious. Be safe first.

Despite our over-adventurous-ness, our long walk felt good (aside from D having to pull the pram backwards through a field. That felt less than good!) and it reminded me just how at home Effy is in the outdoors, and I love that. She hates her hands being mucky, but I was the same as a kid and still am now, in reality, but she LOVES running, and exploring, and looking and asking questions about what she sees. And it exhausts her, which means we get a lie in sometimes too. While I love carrying Lowen and adore my pram, I can't wait for her to able to join in with her sister.

I can't imagine not having the countryside on our doorsteps. I can't imagine having a family who didn't want to spend time in it.

Over-adventurous we may be, but we are very, very lucky.

And a smidge muddy still.

Exploring

For a little girl who cracked the walking thing at 9 months old, until recently Effy's not been a walker. You might remember our battle of wills resulting in a stand off (actually, she was planking face down in a puddle) over walking to the park when I was quite heavily pregnant. But something has clicked in that head in the last month - perhaps her new found "grown up sister" status - and she loves walking. In fact, when we got home from walking Hamish last night, she refused to come in the front door insisting that we go back out with him... Lucky pooch.

So, now we can enjoy being on foot and with the better weather, we've been out exploring and discovered two new places to add to our favourites list.

The first is Forestry Commission Fineshade Woods, between Corby and Stamford - we've been several times in recent weeks, alone and with friends. There's a multitude of reasons why this place is worth a visit - or several. To say it's a new discovery is a lie - we had been once when we first moved back here but had forgotten about it.

The forest has multiple walks of different lengths and some are more accessible on others. But there's one that is completely buggy/wheelchair etc friendly, and it's not too long, so small legs can do it (and it's not too far for a piggy back if you get tired). It's also dog friendly, and well behaved dogs needn't be on a lead. There's also paths for cyclists and you can hire cycle equipment on site. 

There's also a play area with plenty of things to do for the younger kids. Effy absolutely adores the little hut and likes to have imaginary dinner parties in there with her friends! And right next to the play area is a lovely cafe, with delicious paninis and cake, that's reasonably priced and worth going back to. There's a number of little shops on the complex. So you can definitely make a day out of it, or a shorter visit if you wish. 

The only downside is having to pay for parking - £3 for the day, which isn't astronomical but arguably there are other places to walk and play for free. That said, if it's somewhere you want to visit regularly, we we do, the Forestry Commission do Discovery Passes for each forest, that make parking free, so we've invested (it applies to both our cars too) for the year - we only have to go 9 times for it to pay for itself and that's definitely doable.

Yesterday we popped down to explore the Gruffalo Trail, part of the 15th anniversary of the Gruffalo celebrations. Lots to do for children of all ages, we were a smidge disappointed that there was no Gruffalo at the end, and that he doesn't arrive until June... Worth noting if you had planned to visit your local forest for a similar event, as I didn't think the literature available was very clear! 

Our second find is Stanwick Lakes, not far from Wellingborough. We've been meaning to go for years, but it's a bit out of our way. However when we had friends staying recently, we took the multiple geochaching opportunities at the lakes as a challenge and went to see what was there.

In a nutshell, it's beautiful there. Calm and serene, with lots of nature to see, particularly waterfowl. It's big enough for you to walk for a while without seeing anyone, but not too far back to the car! There's also an amazing adventure play area, although we didn't get to explore as it started hailing and I had forgotten the rain cover... But it's definitely on the list of places to return to! The cake in the cafe was really quite exquisite too... A word of warning, geocachers; lots of caches were not there, or not what they were listed as. It's definitely worth reading recent logs before looking! 

It's easy to get stuck in a rut of heading to the places you know all the time, and sometimes I forget there's more to explore. However, both Fineshade and Stanwick have so much to do, I don't feel like we ever experience the same stuff on our visits... And I can't see any of us getting bored of either in a hurry!

Good Clean (FREE) Fun

Geocaching.

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

Heard of it? A student told me about it - vaguely - last year, and I mused on it and parked it.

We've had friends stay for half term who are new cache-ers. The rain didn't show on Thursday, so we signed up too and went caching! You have to be signed up, else you're a muggle, but it costs nothing and it's curiously addictive. And what's more, it gets you outside, exploring new places. For free! Hurrah! 

I wont say where, but with the help of the app on our phones (the most basic version of which is free), GPS and some stealth, we found two... It wont be long until our kids can really help us too, rather than just join us on the adventure.

There are rules for geocaching: It's quite secretive and has to be undertaken somewhat covertly. You don't go telling the non-cachers (muggles) too much. You can make and register your own caches to hide, and you can take items from caches so long as you replace that with something of equal or higher value. You record your find, and log it.

I waddled about and looked at things I'd seen before from a completely different perspective. I found a cache and it was exhilarating. And I finally saw my first snowdrops of 2014.

Good, clean, free fun.

Local Gold Mine

Even though she hates having dirty hands, E is an outdoors kind of girl. She loves being outside and getting fresh air, and places that offer the opportunity to look at animals are a double whammy of joy. We have a great local farm park, but I've always felt it a little expensive for what it was, and have been keeping my eye out for alternatives.

I was over collecting some baby clothes from my friend's parents the other day and we were chatting about Colchester Zoo, as said friends have been posted to Colchester. In the midst of conversation it became clear I had not researched my zoos properly, and it transpires that Hamerton Zoo is only 25 minutes drive from us.

So when the Met Office promised sunshine today, you can guess exactly where we headed. What a great day, despite the chill and it being the muddiest E had ever encountered. And their annual pass is £28.50 so I'm signed up for a year of zoo visits! Truly a local gold mine!

Not only was E stoked about looking at animals, it proved a great opportunity for discussion and vocabulary building... New animal names and some great sentences including...

"Monkeeezinere"
"Monkey go outside"
"Tigersleepnow!"
"Noisy monkeeeey!"
"Monkey eat an apple"
"Baby in the tummy" (referring to the wallabies and me)

Educational and fun. My kind of day out.

Fresh air

When my daughter woke up at 7:30 this morning and peeled my eyes open I assumed at first I must be dreaming. A) a lie in? B) is that SUNSHINE?! 

Today was marked in my diary as the day I'd attempt taking a few photos of my bump that weren't just me in the mirror with my camera and might be vaguely good enough to hand alongside the handy work of my lovely friend Sarah McKee, who took my shots when I was expecting E. It was also the day at the end of a very wet week so E needed out but  despite the sunshine, it was bitterly cold and blustery... So, there's no better place in my mind to tick off all the boxes: Kirby Hall, our local English Heritage property, which I have raved about on le blog before. 

Despite the wind we were able to search for the (absent) peacocks, engage in hide and seek, read books about the Tudors, see some birds of prey, chase our shadows in the sunshine and look at moss growing on the urns out in the garden.

I took advantage of my favourite window in Northamptonshire and managed a select few pictures to be proud of, with a better selection of photos being photo-bombed by my toddler. 

We'd almost forgotten what blue skies looked like. Almost.