Oast Farm Wassail 2019

So much fun, our second year at the Oast Farm Wassail, this time it was sunny!  We loved the morris dancers again and the torchlit procession up to the orchard, the chanting, singing and draping the tree with cider soaked bread.  And of course, the apple cake and hot apple juice afterwards followed by some shopping in the farm shop.

Uck FM Jan

Happy New Year!

I hope you've all had a wonderfully festive Christmas holiday and haven't succumbed to the January blues yet!  It's only day 3 after all.

Hopefully tales of my colourful Christmas will cheer you up in this dull, cold weather.

Advent Calendar

The lead up to Christmas is one of my favourite times of year and we had so much fun with our Advent Adventures!  We saw Panto in Eastbourne (see more below), went ice-skating, painted decorations and snowmen pictures, bought our tree and decorated it, ate pizza outdoors by the fire at Wilderness Wood, donated to Book Trust and our local food bank and had some more simple days too with some Christmas films and cosy days in with Christmas jigsaws and hot chocolate, building dens, decorating a gingerbread house and wearing Christmas jumpers.

Christmas Eve Box tradition

I love Christmas Eve, the anticipation and the fun as work is over and we get to open our Christmas Eve box.  (We actually did it a night early this year but it was amazing!)  I bought us all new matching pyjamas with christmas lights on.  The kids' were from Gap but they didn't do them in adult sizes (gutted) but then I found these very similar ones from Chelsea Peers via ASOS.

Birthday Cocktails at home

Christmas Day 2018

As you can imagine there was MUCH excitement on Christmas morning when the kids woke to find Santa had been!  They immediately brought their stockings through to us in bed and climbed up to start opening presents.

Work Christmas Parties, Southbank, London and Proud Cabaret, Brighton

Birthday Sunday Lunch at The Peacock Inn, Piltdown - review

For my birthday this year I had a couple of things planned, one was a cocktail night in with some friends and the other was a roast at a good local pub since it landed on a Sunday.  I chose The Peacock Inn as I'd never been before but had heard good things.  We invited another family to join us, one of my lovely friends whose daughter happens to be Priya's favourite person!  We get requests for Bella every day in this house and they're so cute when they get together!

Anyway, for lunch we went to The Peacock Inn at Piltdown and their Sunday roast didn't disappoint...

Wilderness Wood with new friends on NYE

You might be getting bored of seeing Wilderness Wood on my blog but I never will, I love it there and we went back again on New Year's Eve with new friends we met at a school visit so hopefully the kids will be starting the same school together in September and the twins are managing to expand their friend circle already as am I.

Of course I took lots of photos again and loved seeing Kalyan hit it off with William as he's been left out of the fun a little when Priya gets together with Bella.  They're mutual friends with each other too so that's great for future play dates too :)  Since Christina's husband was also working on NYE, we met up for some company outdoors to tire the kids out, it worked perfectly and I had a lovely morning!

Craft Courses review - Paper Scissors Rock paper cutting in Kent

The other craft course I booked with my birthday gift voucher was paper cutting with Paper Scissors Rock in Kent.  Sam is an excellent teacher with loads of samples for inspiration as well as templates for us to use during the class and extra ones we could buy for £3 if we wanted to carry on at home.

Ice Skating at Calverly Grounds in Tunbridge Wells - review

We booked a session on 22nd December for the ice skating at Calverly Grounds in Tunbridge Wells and had a fab time!

Boxing Day in The Garrison, London

We went on a day trip to London on Boxing day for a meal at The Garrison pub with family.  As we weren't able to be together on Christmas as planned this year we arranged to meet up for a meal that was relaxed but delicious and The Garrison was an ideal venue within easy access of London Bridge station.  The kids had a blast with their cousin and we all had a cuddle with the newest member who's looking cute as a button as always!

It was lovely to get a family photo but of course with so many kids, at least one was bound to not be up for it.  Priya was getting a bit tired by this point...

Craft Courses - Beaded Snowflakes in Worthing - review

Last year for my birthday a group of friends pitched together to get me a gift voucher for craftcourses.com.  It was such a great gift as I had hundreds of courses to choose from and enjoyed browsing through the options.  Initially I thought I'd try a pottery day course and add the extra cash myself but with such a busy year, I struggled to have many spare days to myself and truth be told, forgot all about the voucher.

Luckily I remembered after Nik's exams were all over and used it before it expired!  As I had £40 to spend and with fewer choices before the end of the year, I decided on two shorter courses - snowflake beading for £18 and papercutting for £20.  After some initial issues splitting my voucher (there was a minimum value of £25 for splitting them) the lovely team at Craft Courses managed to sort it out for me and have changed their system so this doesn't happen again.