Terrifically Tremendous Tuesday...

Now today could have been a total washout.  Literally.  The Teignbridge and Torbay Home-Ed group had arranged to meet up for a river walk, only Mr Weather misbehaved dreadfully yesterday and it rained and rained and, just to make sure we knew where we stood, it rained some more.  This did put the area we were going to visit today at risk of flooding, and pretty darn unsafe to visit really.  With this in mind, coupled with a few families unable to attend due to illness, we decided it better to call off the meeting this week.

So, we were left with a free day - oh what shall we do with ourselves we wondered.  But not for very long.   Husband and I called the children together and had a brainstorming session.  Tiegan said that she wanted to go somewhere where they could use their nets - so rock-pooling or pond-dipping.  The other three agreed that this was a good idea, and Callum requested the beach.  After some thought, we decided to head off out to Stover Country Park - about a 20 minute or so drive from our home.  Hurray for not being constricted by the school day.  Hurray for freedom.  Hurray for being so blessed!

Want to see some pictures?  Of course you do!  Much easier to digest than my waffling ;)

After a few hours at Stover, admiring the views, exploring the ponds, and generally enjoying a family bonding session - we headed back to the car, munched on our picnic food (it kept raining, hence eating in the car), and decided on our next destination.

We knew it was going to be a beach, but which one? We are spoilt for choice around here really. We are so lucky to live in such an area with beautiful countryside, rugged moorland, and coasts and beaches, all within a 30 minute or so drive.

Teignmouth was mentioned, but we settled on Dawlish. Sadly we timed it wrong, and the tide was in at the best place for rockpool exploration, but that didn't dampen our spirits. We just carried on regardless, and explored further along.

After a couple of hours, we decided it was time to head for home. Afterall, there was baking to be done!  (We did take a quick detour on the homeward journey to stop by and hug a wonderful friend *grin*)

Before we had left the house this morning, we had talked about what the children wanted as their after dinner pudding. We decided that home-made jam tarts with custard sounding rather yummy, so we needed to get home and make a start. We made the pastry whilst dinner was cooking, then got to work after dinner. As we were baking we talked about what we had liked and disliked about the day, our favourite parts, and what we would like to do more of. We discussed what we had been talking about earlier in the day - about setting up a family nature journal - even husband agreed to take part :)  We'll be making a start on that tomorrow.

Needless to say, pudding was ultra delish, now we just need to decide what to bake tomorrow...