Lovely weekend away.

Having got back from our holiday on Thursday, on Sunday we packed a bag again, just an overnight one this time, to go and stay with friends, Mn, C & Ma who live in rural Worcestershire with lots of space outside to run around.  They have a field with a badger sett in the far corner and, nearer to the house, chickens along with three still fluffy chicks.

After lunch, C & I went on ahead to some local woods to set up a trail for the girls to do, and they followed on a little while later with the dads.  We tied half a dozen bits of paper with activities on them to trees with strips of cloth (easy to undo and take back home).  Things like, collect 5 different leaves, play the 3 Billy Goats Gruff (over a little bridge - Mn was the troll), play hide and stick, find a stick and have a play sword fight with a grown up, climb a tree and walk along a fallen tree trunk.  As well as this we also had an eye spy chart and the girls each spotted a holly tree, bluebells, ferns, a butterfly and a few other things.  The woods were beautiful and, given the very late start to spring, the bluebells were still spectacular.  The walk also marked the start of the husky game, in which the girls were C's huskies, and which involved them pulling C along especially when going uphill.

The bluebells

Tree climbing

Balancing on a tree trunk

Cookie break!

 Once we'd had tea and the girls had played more and climbed more trees in the garden we played a board game, Let's Buy Hollywood.  It was fun and the girls played again this morning, so they obviously enjoyed it!

Today we made good use of our National Trust membership.  Firstly we went to Kinver Edge and Rock Houses.

One of the houses - the brickwork to the right is the chimney

 The houses, built into the sandstone rock, were pretty spectacular and reminded me a lot of our visit to the Nottingham caves last summer.  After a quick pit-stop at the cafe, we climbed up to the top of the Edge, with some more tree climbing en route.  We had talked before we went about how Mn & C had been before a long time ago, before the houses had been restored and had spotted adders on the heath although we weren't particularly expecting to see any.  Particularly not on the edge of a really quite busy path...

Fortunately for us a family in front of us spotted it, so we stopped to see what they were looking at.  We then had a fantastic walk.  It had loads of variety, woods, sheer cliff with a scramble down the not sheer but still pretty steep side, more sandstone caves and occasional things to do, such as a 'story glen'; a little clearing with about a dozen tree stumps seats and one big chair for the story teller (Ma & K both had a go in it and told us a little story), and things to climb on.

The scramble down

We started at the top and ended down here in a pretty short space of time and then explored those caves

I just really like this tree!  Very characterful I thought.

Once back to the car, we headed off to our second NT place Dudmaston.  After a picnic lunch, we did the children's activity trail, which included 'slug quoits', hula hooping, skipping, skittles, hop scotch and a couple of others and had a look inside the house too.  We just managed to fit all that in before it started to rain a bit before heading back to Mn, C & Ma's for tea, tired buy content.  K, M & Ma have plotted that we need more than just one night together next time and suggested that 'the whole summer holiday' might be a good idea, so it's fair to say that they certainly got on well!