And the active family award goes to...

Hello dear friends,

Its been a busy and fun few days in our neck of the woods with a picnic at Hanningfield Reservoir, our nearest Wildlife Trust Reserve, and family bike rides to keep the children, and ourselves of course, entertained. (Ben even managed to rescue a child that had got stuck up a tree, good deed of the day done - tick).

There are Wildlife Reserves all over the UK run by the Wildlife Trust and they are well worth a visit, as you enter they just ask for a donation (the ones in Essex suggest £5.00 for a family) and the money is put back into conserving wildlife habitats among other things like educating visitors and protecting animals that are at risk.

We had an enjoyable day walking amongst the bushes, trees and looking at the birds and insects.

We sat in the observatory and watched the birds, swans and ducks on the reservoir with our nine year olds binoculars. We were even lucky enough to see a beautiful deer hovering in the bushes.

At lunchtime, we found an area near a pond with picnic tables and the children were delighted that several brown rats decided to join us for lunch, needless to say that mummy was not quite so thrilled!

The thing that I love most about days out is that it brings us together. Even our fourteen year old, that has been known to sit in the playroom on the Xbox and not speak to anyone, wanders along chatting and playing with his younger brothers and sister.

It was a delightful day that ticked all the boxes.

We have also been taking the children out for daily bike rides, its good exercise for us and the children love riding their bikes. We are thinking about riding to and from school when the youngest one is proficient enough so that we can get home quicker.

I think he will be needing a bigger bike soon. (My baby is growing!)

Have you done anything fun this weekend?

Take care xx