The start of a new year never fails to motivate us to plan ahead, does it? Whether it’s decluttering the house to make room for all the new toys, resolving to get outdoors with the kids more, or booking a family holiday, there’s something about the clean slate of January that gets us all fired up about focussing on family life and looking forward to the coming months. We’ve been having fun this month creating our bucket list of family days out ...
Neverland: family Christmas theatre at Nottingham Lakeside Arts
A family trip to the theatre is such a Christmas tradition, isn’t it? For us it’s very much a part of our family Christmas and it plays a key role in the build-up to the big day. I do like to mix it up a bit though, our Christmas theatre trip isn’t always a traditional pantomime - so when Nottingham Lakeside Arts invited us to see Neverland we booked up straight away. Neverland is a brand new musical production aimed at families, inspired by ...
Blog it Forward: support vulnerable children with a Faux Ho Ho
At this time of year we're all so focused on celebrating Christmas that it can be easy to forget about those who won't be having such a good time while we're enjoying ourselves. In the midst of all the indulgence I think it's so important to give ourselves a bit of a reality check and try to give back - and if we can make it fun at the same time then so much the better. Last week I spent a lovely afternoon with my Nottingham blogging friends, ...
Exploring family arts in Nottingham
Over the weekend we were invited to take part in a fabulous blogger event, celebrating the wonderful family arts venues in Nottingham. Today I'm sharing some of the brilliant things we got up to, hope it inspires you! The event was hosted by Family Arts Network Nottingham, to celebrate the launch of the Get Creative Family Arts Festival and showcase the family events and activities Nottingham's arts and culture organisations have to offer. We ...
Exploring Clumber Park
Visiting Clumber Park is one of those days out where the minute you arrive, you just know it’s going to be brilliant. We’ve been meaning to visit for such a long time and we finally managed it over the bank holiday weekend. Covering over 3,800 acres of parkland, heath and woods in North Nottinghamshire, Clumber Park was once the country estate of the Dukes of Newcastle. The original house is no longer there but there are lots of other ...
BBC Gardeners World Live: my highlights
Last week I spent an amazing day at the BBC Gardeners World Live show at Birmingham NEC. Such a brilliant show - I barely stopped for a break because I couldn't tear myself away from all there was to see, do and try out. I came away with a head full of ideas and, obviously, some lovely new plants - well it would be rude not to, wouldn't it?! Here are my show highlights - so hard to narrow it down! Floral Marquee I made a beeline for the floral ...
Make a Small Change for Nature: Nottingham in Bloom Open Day
Over the weekend we spent a great family day out at the Nottingham in Bloom Nursery Open Day. This free annual event has something for everyone: a chance to explore the council nursery, free workshops and planting advice from the RHS, plant stalls, beehive tours and loads of hand-on nature activities for the kids, to name but a few. We were in our element! We started off with a trip around the council nursery. You never really think about ...