Our Disney Holiday Photo Album

We have just come back from 5 amazing days at Disneyland Paris...we enjoyed glorious weather (30 degrees plus), fantastic food (thanks to our free and very generous half board dining plan), great accommodation in our cabin in the Davy Crockett Ranch (with quality air con), some really cool rides (Tower of Terror is my personal favourite) plus plentiful amounts of incredible Disney magic!!  Here is a selection of the 1000+ photographs we took featuring my very own Disney Kids: Megan, Ella, Kizzy and Freddy enjoying being together, having fun and making magic moments at Disneyland Paris :)

A Smiling French Goat #Project 52

We are here in France, staying in a fabulously French gite on a goat's cheese farm.  This morning we went to visit our neighbours...they seemed pleased to see us! 

Internet access is dire...we are currently in a dodgy takeaway restaurant called Quick with Wi-Fi Gratuitie!  It is soooo slow...but I couldn't miss my Project 52!!!  Now that's commitment!

The Lakes...our near miss!

We have safely arrived home after a rather eventful weekend in the Lake District.  It is so typically me to be holidaying in the West Lakes when unseasonal blizzards set in!  We had a very hazardous moment when our Sat Nav took us down a route that crossed Corney Fell , which turned out to be the second highest road in the Lake District.  It was the day before the snow fell and we were totally caught out.  The thick ice on the high roads made it treacherous to drive on, but the gradient made it impossible to turn round and go back.  We inched along having to stop every few hundred yards to walk out the next challenging obstacle.  Four times, I was terrified and in genuine fear for our safety.  My baby was sleeping in his carseat and I prayed he'd stay peacefully oblivious to the danger we were in.  At one point my husband lost control and our Galaxy hurtled out of control down an icy slope with a steep incline to our right.  To see my husband start to panic was the worst thing, because he is such a confident and competent driver.  If he starts to panic, I know it's bad! Thankfully, he was able to gain enough control to get two wheels onto a grass verge which allowed the brakes to work enough to stop our descent.  Unfortunately, my son Joe was following us in convoy and he failed to get control of his vehicle and crashed into our bumper.  Luckily our big car had enough inertia to stop him without pushing us over the edge of the incline. If we hadn't been in his path, he could have gone off the road...I've never been happier about a prang!!  We were very shaken and my daughter hit her head on the side window.  Thankfully though, we were all OK.  It took us nearly 2 hours to drive six miles...it was the worst, most frightening journey I have ever been on.  I shudder when I think about what could have happened, but knowing we were all OK and that the cars were not too damaged, bar a cracked bumper, made me feel lucky to still be able to continue my holiday.

Our family meal was meant to me on the Staurday night, but the icy roads and our traumatic day made us loathe to venture back out.  However, the restaurant was good enough to move our reservation and set menu to the Sunday at noon instead.  So we went en masse to Brockwood Hall to celebrate my parents' 55th wedding anniversary in style.  As most of us are vegetarian we arranged a suitable menu in advance.  But when the "vegetable" soup came out, it was so chicken-y i had to query it.  We were told it was leek and potato...not convinced!!  At the least it was made with chicken stock.  The lunch was redeemed by a rather delicious goat's cheese and leek tart served with roast veg trimmings...but again it was let down a little by the fact that the gravy was not vegetarian.  Dry roast spuds are really not as good as a nice gravy covered tattie...but overall the meal was good.  Dessert was a perfect sticky toffee pudding with ice cream.  Lovely!  Coffee served in the bar completed our meal.  We forgave them for soup-gate because they were so ameniable about moving our booking...and the food was generally good.

We searched the house for evidence of paranormal activity.  Apart from a couple of unexplained knockings, my mum feeling someone touch her head, Fred being fixated by an old stone wall and me thinking I saw my sister lying on her bed (when she was still downstairs!!) we saw no concrete evidence of the Lady in Gray said to walk the halls of our house.  A nighttime walk of the grounds was exhilarating, but we witnessed no ghostly goings-on. 

The snow that initially gave us a beautiful sprinkle, soon started falling in huge flakes.  The land was soon covered in a good three inches of white snow.  It looked beautiful and Freddy was amazed by his first time out in the snow on his own two feet!  But the potential hazards of the weather conditions, after our near miss, made us eager to leave during daylight hours, rather than stay on and enjoy our last day.  But the beauty of the snow covered Lakes was breathtaking.  Our journey home took much longer because of the road conditions...but we got home safe and sound.  The rest of our party have also all arrived home safely.  It was a very eventful weekend...and it was wonderful to be surrounded by the whole family!




Corney Fell before the drama!



The gorgeous kids!

Holiday Hell or Heaven?

We have had this family gathering booked for months.  My parents are celebrating their 55th Wedding anniversary in December and this holiday is their way of celebrating.  There is nothing they like better than having their family around them, so booking a manor house in the Lake District and inviting everyone was the perfect choice.

Irton Hall was the location we settled on.  We booked Broughton House and the The Clock Tower to accommodate our extended family.  We loved the idea of staying somewhere steeped in history, opulence and with a spattering of associated paranormal activity! The idea of my parents feeling like Lord and Lady of the Manor was a very appealing prospect.

Broughton House

The Clocktower

So, yesterday we set of armed with a Sat Nav to drive the 160 miles from our home in Shropshire to the West Lakes.  Prior to this, I had my usual pre-holiday meltdown where I fail to cope with the prospect of leaving the safety and security of my own home.  I panic about what to take, and end up overpacking to cater for every single eventuality that might befall me or the children.  It's my "thing"...I do this every time we go away. We set of 3 hours later than I had initially planned to, but we were on our way.

The journey was good with minimal traffic, so we made good time until the last 20 miles.  Our Sat Nav must have thought it was incredibly funny to lead us of the beaten track to take a cross-mountain short cut.  To call what we were driving on a road would be a stretch of your imagination.  The track through the snow capped hills wound around, climbing and falling in a fashion akin to a rollercoaster.  In some circumstances this would be fun, but baby had just woken up and was getting restless.  Teenaged daughter was feeling car sick and my general anxiety had resurfaced, manifesting itself into a form of Tourette's aiming abuse at my husband for not checking the route before entrusting our lives to a mischievous Sat Nav!  Thankfully, Ian is incredibly tolerant of my episodes and kept his mind on the driving and after what seemed like an eternity we arrived safely at our destination.

The house was instantly impressive.  The sheer size of the property is amazing.  I chose a bedroom that, in terms of surface area, would dwarf the entire ground floor of my own four bedroomed house.  It's huge with an enormous four poster bed and an ensuite with one of those stand alone bathtubs in the middle of the floor.  The stair case is dramatic with its huge stained glass window and chandelier.  The living room boasts a wonderful open fireplace.  The roaring fire is perfect in this Wintry weather.  I can just imagine this house in its glory days when Henry VI and Oliver Cromwell came to stay.  The ghosts who reputedly roam the halls must have some stories to tell!  Hopefully I'll have some tales of my own to tell soon, about our long weekend!

I'm now going to go down to the grand kitchen for a family breakfast around the biggest table I've ever seen in a holiday home.  A fresh dusting of snow has made the 19 acres of woodland look very inviting...I'm looking forward to exploring!  My older children arrived safely last night and I can't wait to see them, when they wake up!  Maybe holidays aren't so bad after all!