Bank Holiday Monday - Memories

Its been a very hectic few days, hubbie was away attending a wedding in Dorset, leaving me alone with the girls until he returned home on Sunday afternoon. To make up for spending some time away, we decided that today was going to be our family day. It is only recently that we have started to make a habit of spending time together as just the 4 of us, and actually doing something rather than just staying at home. I find that if we stay at home, we don't really do a lot; we all do separate things rather than spending time as a family.

Today we ventured over into Northamptonshire to a place called Coton Manor; there are over 10 acres of beautiful gardens and a massive 5 acre bluebell wood. My mother had recommended Coton Manor to me as she remembers visiting it with her Nana when she was as a child. Next time I might even take my mum with us as Coton Manor is definately a place we will visit again. You can find more details on their website www.cotonmanor.co.uk

On arriving at Coton Manor the sun was shinning so brightly, but it was a little bit windy. Ruby was very excited about looking at all the pretty flowers and as soon as we were in the garden, she was walking up sniffing them and saying 'beautiful, they smell so lovely" Everyone near to us who overheard were all smiling at her.

We had a lovely time ventured into all the different sections of the gardens and even came across lots of different animals that were happily walking around the gardens at their leisure.

There were even some flamingos; at first we didn't think they were real so Ruby walked up to one and stroked it before it let out a squawk and ruffled it's feathers, much to our surprise. I have never seen ruby move that fast!

Flamingos!

We settled down for a spot of lunch near to the flamingos and it wasn't long before we were being surrounded by various different animals who all wanted to come and taste some of the picnic that I had packed.

Chickens joining us for lunch!

After lunch, we followed a path that led to an amazing sight; bluebell woods! Wow, it was such a wonderful sight, I have never seen so many bluebells. It was just magically, I loved it and it felt like we were in the woods with fairies.

Magical Bluebell Wood

Ruby loved running through the bluebells and Lottie was very happy to sit and feel the bluebells in her fingers whilst posing for some photos.

We had a really lovely time at Coton Manor and its such a shame that the bluebells only last a few weeks; we are definately planning on returning very soon and can't wait until next year when we can go back into the bluebell woods.