farm shops and treasure hunts

Yesterday was one of those wonderful days that started out with such promise and then actually delivered. The sun was peeping through the clouds in the morning (which is rare in these parts) and I was feeling great. I dropped my eldest daughter off at nursery and went to meet my friend, Lucy, for a coffee at Hinchliffe's farm shop and restaurant.

If you live nearby and you've never been, I highly recommend it. This place is great. The building is divided into two. There's the farm shop and butchers on one side and the restaurant on the other. The restaurant is delightful and is really accommodating for kids - there's even a hamper stuffed full of toys for them to play with. Although the plan was to only have a coffee, I'm sure it will come to no surprise to regular readers of this blog that I succumbed to the sugar monster that lives inside me and ordered a plate of American pancakes, maple syrup and bacon as well....mmmmmm....nom nom nom...... Obviously no pictures of this exist because, once again, I was too much of a gannet to pause for thought before digging in. 

As well as the shop and restaurant, there are animals that roam around in pens outside, so after coffee (and extras!) we went to see the animals with the kids. My youngest had a blast saying hi to all the animals....well, almost all of them - a shire horse with a head almost as big as her entire body gave her cause for concern!

Once we'd finished seeing the sights it was time to go home and all that was left was for me to say a big THANK YOU to both Hinchliffe's and my mate Lucy who made such a great morning possible. Thank-you!!

The sunny happiness didn't end there. Later on, at home, me and my eldest daughter had a great time making treasure maps and hunting for *treasure in the garden. She pottered around and kept herself busy whilst I took snaps of the lovely greenery. I even filled a vase. Lovely.

Aahh, ain't life great when the sun comes out? What have you been doing? I hope the sun's shining where you are!

Smell ya later!

Michelle x  

* By 'treasure', I mean a pear, a handbag and some Smarties wrapped in foil - the innocence of youth, eh!

I've finished!

Well, I've finally finished giving my blog a well needed makeover. Big thanks have to go out to Mr C, who is a whizz at these things and saved me lots of stress by clicking and tapping at the laptop whilst I shouted instructions. Do you like? I hope so. let me know what you think.

Byee

Michelle x 

changes are afoot...!

Hi folks

I hope you are well. If you're thinking that things are looking a little strange on this blog, don't worry, your eyes are not deceiving you. I've decided to make a few improvements. However, I am having to fit this in amongst the usual mum stuff - nothing major - just wiping tears, making food, ensuring the kids don't starve/kill each other. (Plus, this post was a great excuse to show you my favourite pair of shoes - they're real beauties aren't they!) 

Hopefully, I should be finished primping and preening the blog in a couple of days, so please bear with me.

That's all folks (for now anyway)

Ciao

Michelle x 

birthday card shopping

I'm hopeless with birthdays. I forget to send cards, my presents (although awesome) are usually late every year. It doesn't just end with friends birthdays either. I'm pretty hopeless with family ones too. I've tried to explain my  mental block with important dates as Dateline Dyslexia, but that excuse was pretty much blown out of the water when my brother-in-law pointed out that the cure for it was a diary. 

Anyway, I found these cards by cathtatecards.com  and they made me chuckle. So much so, in fact, that I decided to buy a stack of them so hopefully, I will be less Dateline Dyslexic in the future. Wish me luck. Here they are....

and last but not least......

I hope they made you chuckle too!

Over and out

Michelle x 

back to work beauties

Hi folks. I hope you had a great day back at work today. Here are your Back To Work Beauties - 10 beautiful things you can find on Etsy. This week's theme - Stars. 

Enjoy

Credits: Top (1, 2, 3), Middle (1, 2, 3), Bottom (1, 2, 3, 4)

I hope you liked this week's selection,

Sleep well

Michelle x 

bank holiday

 The Bank Holiday is over, kids are back to school and our working weeks have begun again. I always put loads of pressure on myself when it's a Bank Holiday to do something extraordinary, but this time around we made no plans. However, a simple trip out to local farm shop turned into something much more memorable when I happened upon a Vintage Emporium. To call oneself an 'emporium' is a big boast, but in this case it was rather apt. This may have been my first visit, but it won't be my last and I promise to blog about it in the future, so watch this space....

The other significant thing I did this Bank Holiday was make American pancakes with maple syrup and bacon. I don't like to boast (actually, I kinda do), but they were SOOO YUMMMY!! Needless to say, they didn't hang around long enough on the plate for me to take a picture of them, so you'll just have to believe me. If you've never tried these before, I can't recommend them enough. There are loads of recipes for these on the internet, but I tried this one.

Have you tried something new or found something new recently?

Have a great day peeps!


Michelle x 

free stuff

Come look at my new cup. Isn't she lovely? Not only is she wearing my initial, but she was (virtually) free too. Interior design website, mydeco.com are offering Easy Living readers a £20 voucher to spend in their online store. I'm usually very wary of these things, but it appears to be no a strings attached offer. Judging by all the retweets there have been on Twitter, it's definitely brought them a lot of publicity which was probably the point of the exercise. Anyhoo, who cares, I've got a beautiful new cup!!

If you're interested in the offer, then click here, but hurry up, it runs out on the 27th May. If you're in a hurry and don't  have time to browse, here are a few of my favourites....

Happy voucher spending...

Michelle x