National Trust – new members

Today we went to Nostell Priory to go on an Easter Egg hunt and ended up joining the National Trust. Funnily enough we had been discussing it on the walk from the car park to the priory, so when it came up as an option to join instead of buying access to the Priory for the day, we decided to go for it. £97 for a family membership for the year and we got free access to the Easter Egg hunt – a mere £3 discount on the day 🙂

We decided that it would help force us to get out and do more family things at the weekends and get some mini breaks in as well. It also made us feel old as joining the National Trust is something that old people do right?

Anyway, we had a spot of lunch there and then went on to do the hunt – it was fun for the kids but a little muddy – glad we took the willies for the boys but would have been smarter to have taken them for mummy and daddy too….

A quick visit to the shop for the usual sort of crap that kids like at these sort of places and then home again for tea that Tim and Heather made for us.

Elliot did incredibly well as he did not complain once while we were out about having to walk etc – surprising considering he really did not want to leave the house (surprise) at all today. Oliver on the other hand who couldn’t wait to get there, whinged rather a lot and ended up sitting on daddy’s shoulders for most of the hunt.

So, we are already planning our next National Trust trip before the Easter holiday is over – probably up to Fountains Abbey or somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales

Silcoates Sunny Hill – Spring Service

P1010469This morning was the Sunny Hill Easter Celebration Service (of Spring Service) up at the Silcoates Chapel.  Oliver is poorly still so is not at school, but was adamant that he wanted to go and sing with his friends.  So, we took him up to chapel to let him join in and then have brought him home straight afterwards.  Hopefully he will be well enough to join them all at school again tomorrow.

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Conservatory hot house

Last week we had the conservatory company perform some remedial work that ended up in many of the panels being removed and refitted, the doors realigned and resealing.

Well, it has made a MASSIVE difference to the feeling in the room itself – it is actually quite warm in there now.  There must have been a nasty leak somewhere that was letting a lot of cold external air in, and hence cooling the conservatory down significantly.

It may be too early to make this comment but it generally feels MUCH warmer in that room now than it did 2 week ago.