All Grown Up!

Today my youngest child sits her last university exam which therefore means it’s her last day there. She has done very well already as she has a graduate position lined up with a company in London and so soon she will begin her career.

Milestones in our lives come and go and shunt us up into new chapters of our lives.

Last Christmas, I bought my husband (and me) a National Trust membership. We both work full time and often at weekends, so I wanted a reason to make us go out and explore our local area rather than catch up on jobs at home in our free time. We live in Kent, the  beautiful Garden of England so don’t have to travel far to use our membership. When our children were younger, we had to look for things to do and places to go to keep them entertained and then came to the stage when instead of enjoying our freedom as they became independent, the weekends flew by without having achieved much other than a pile of ironed clothes and a fridge full of food for the week.

We  have all enjoyed many wonderful holidays together often on cruise ships and have always tried to see as much as possible in these diverse countries we’ve visited. Don’t get me wrong, I love a beach as much as anyone, but also love to feel that I have caught a small glimpse of the place I’m visiting.

We have travelled around all sorts of ways from trains to kayaks to quad bikes to bicycles and actually also like coach trips as a way to try see as much as possible, especially if just in a port for a day.

This bank holiday weekend, we both had 4 very rare days off together so blew the cobwebs off our NT membership cards and headed off. Sunday we had beautiful sunshine at Knole and after exploring the big house, we strolled through the park home to families of deer.

Monday, being an English bank holiday, it rained all day. Unperturbed, we visited stunning Ightham Mote, a lovingly restored house originating from the 14th century.

As we entered the drawing room…

…….it was heaving with people and we soon realised that we had inadvertently joined a group of Germans on a cruise ship’s shore excursion from Dover!

We all have our own ideas of  how to make the most of our well-earned breaks. If, like me, you want to see some of whats out there, ask me about the shore excursions we can book for you, often much cheaper than through the cruise lines.

……..and GOOD LUCK Rachel!!!!! I’m very proud x