Nostell Priory, Fun In The Playground And A Very Clever Boy

It was beautiful this morning so we whipped out our new National Trust cards and headed off to Nostell Priory - it's only 20 minutes from the house. We have been once but it was before we moved house, I think last September time.

When we arrived, only the parkland was open so we went for a wander and found some great felled trees to climb on. Beth was a little under the weather as she's recovering from slapped cheek syndrome which made her tired, achy and rather miserable. She did manage to have a good run round and could have played on the tree trunks all day.

Inside the formal gardens of the house, a playground has just opened. It was really nice and despite being aimed at older children rather than toddlers, Beth was able to negotiate all the bits. There was a birds nest swing (they seem to be appearing everywhere now) and a jumper thing. After seeing a little girl with her brother bouncing and swinging on it, Beth was determined to hold on to Toby. He absolutely loved it and Beth was fantastic at hanging on to him and being the perfect big sister. Oh, this isn't a great picture but I thought I'd bung it in to show I'm at these outings. :)

After lunch we had planned to go inside the house for a poke around. There is a huge dolls house in there and we are sure Beth would love it (well, at least until she realised she's not allowed to actually play with it). However, by that time both kids were past it and we thought it would be a bit unfair to subject other visitors to the sounds of two screeching children echoing off the walls so we came home.

Newly refreshed after a nap, Toby was adamant at dinner that he wanted to feed himself a yogurt. I was not enthralled by the thought – scraping food off the ceiling is not my idea of a fun Sunday evening. He was quite stubborn and wouldn’t take no for an answer so I closed my eyes and handed over the spoon. To our delight, he proceeded to eat the yogurt without making any mess and has probably lulled me into a false sense of security concerning his self-feeding abilities. I’m sure we’ll find out when we decide to give him a big bowl of spaghetti bolognaise. Beth was very supportive and presented him with a sticker while telling him “Well Done”.