An exciting day today, we trekked up to Kent to visit Leeds castle... A real castle with a rich history, dating back to the 1100s. The weather was fantastic... To the extent that we wished we had packed a picnic! Gemma had visited Windsor Castle when she was 5, but didn't remember much about it, so this was a new experience. Daniel didn't even want to get out of the car because he couldn't see a castle so thought it was going to be a complete waste of time... But...

The weather is not flash today, a good day for mooching around at home. The kids brightened things up with a good old fashioned gingerbread smash! After a moochy start we headed to Maldon for a roller skate .Then headed to the promenade for a seaside walk along the estuary .The children had a great play at the adventure park,then ice creams at the seaside store. Then back to stock for a quick late lunch before Lynn and Stacey and her children Connor and Ruby came...

For Boxing day we all headed to Southend for brunch, having not eaten enough on Xmas day, followed by a walk along the sea front. What started as a wet day turned into a mild windy day (reminded me of home!) and it saw loads of people come out to walk off their Xmas dinners. And dogs too! I have never seen so many dogs in one place. It was a great atmosphere with kids trying out their new Xmas toys, families together, and dogs playing happily. We had fun running ...

Quiet on the blog for a few days, as we immersed ourselves in all things Xmas! ''Twas the night before Christmas... Christmas Eve we let the kids have a quiet day mucking about at home, and then we walked to the village for a late lunch with a group of school parents. The pub had never been so busy! "The Bear" is a traditional English pub, with the low ceilings and roaring fireplaces...a great atmosphere. Things were set up as I remember them as a child, with a k...

Today we went in to London for the day and ticked off a lot of things from our wish to do list. First tick: We went on a fast train from billericay, then we changed on to the tube and went on the underground...tick. When we came out we were at Big Ben, just in time to hear the clock chime for 11. That was cool! And tick. We walked around the Houses of Parliament, Westminster abbey, 10 Downing St, Trafalgar Square and more...tick. We learned that Westminster abbey...