Picnic at Mount Stewart

As a birthday treat George and I went out to Mount Stewart for a picnic with our friends Kerry and Felix. It was a gorgeous sunny day, the first proper day here you could sit outside in short sleeves.  It was even quite warm in the shade.

We went for a bit of a walk after eating lots of lovely food.. My favourite thing about our buggy is that I can fit my wicker picnic basket underneath it!

and were accosted by some very loud and nosey ducks!

They got really close!  I suspect they maybe wanted some of our picnic!

The National Trust have recently bought more land around the estate and have open up some bits that I hadn't been in before.  This was the dairy which leads of a walled garden.

There were some beautiful tiles on the walls.

I think this was a rather ornate old fridge.

This is the walled garden, it is pretty derelict at the moment, I'm not sure if they have plans to reinstate it.

I loved this cheerful, if slightly grubby door!

My first sighting of a bluebell this year!

Views of the lake.

We managed to get a quick peek round the downstairs of the house which has been newly renovated but we didn't get a look upstairs so I will have to go back another day.

Birthday Party!

At the weekend it was someone specials first ever birthday party!  Naturally that meant the bunting and balloons had to come out!

It wouldn't be a proper birthday party without balloons on the gatepost!

I love these marbled balloons from the pound shop!  They don't look very promising in the bag but once you blow them up they look lovely.

More bunting, you really can never have too much in my opinion!

Cheerful top hats.

Pretty butterfly buns.

Some personalised bunting.

This bunting was recycled from my surprise baby shower. 

Even the hall didn't escape buntingification!

A very happy birthday boy!

Unfortunately my massive hair is obscuring the birthday boy in this action cake shot!

This is the inside of the cake, it was rather more massive than I had intended.  The bottom layer is banana, the middle layer is banana and peanut butter and the top layer is banana and nutella.  It was lovely even if I say so myself!

Everyone was so generous, now I just have to find somewhere to put all this!

Rowallane Gardens

Last week George and I took a trip to Rowallane Gardens in Saintfield, County Down.  I had rung my mum to see if she wanted to come with us but it turned out she was already there with her friend Oonagh doing some painting in the walled garden! What are the chances?

Anyway it was a cloudy but pretty warm day so perfect for walking about all the different areas of the garden.  It's a National Trust property but the house isn't open for house tours, I think it's actually used by the trust for their headquarters.  However there is a lovely shop and a tasty cafe inside the house as well.  The main attraction here is definitely the amazing gardens....

A lovely bench in the walled garden, you can just imagine the ladies in their long dresses taking a stroll round here and stopping to sit for a bit, maybe watch some croquet on the lawn....

Amazing patch of clover underneath a tree.

This tree looked like it had been dusted with blusher.

A sea of ferns that looked like a 1950s tropical pattern.

The spring garden

Post and gate inspiration.

The outside of the courtyard.

Rather cute glass house.

I think I definitely need some arches in my garden!

Ornamental herb bed

I don't know what this plant is but it was swarming with bees.

I thought these little fellas had cute faces looking up at me.

The lavender smelled amazing.

Cat mint, I've just bought some of this for my garden from rosy bee.

These looked like they had been spray painted the most bright purpley blue!

This is the house, rather modest in comparison to other nearby National Trust places like Castle Ward and Mount Stewart

Another nice spot for a bench.  Benches are the most important thing in a garden if you ask me - you need somewhere to sit back with a glass of pimm's to admire your hard work! 

Bank Holiday day trip...

On the last Bank Holiday in May we decided we would take our first proper day trip as a family.  It was a really sunny day and we contemplated going to Castle Ward but decided in the end to go to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

We spent most of our time in the transport galleries looking at all the trains, buses and cars.

I was particularly taken by this Land Rover fire engine as it has so much in common with our camper van.  They really are very versatile vehicles!

We thought it would actually make quite a good mobile shop with the openings on the side!

So many of the vehicles had brilliant badges.  They just don't make them like that anymore.

I also really liked all the commercial vehicles, again modern commercial vehicles really don't cut it compared to some of these.

This little blue car was pretty cute.  It's a Peugeot Bébé.

Always love a Morris Traveller.  Maybe some day!

We then went across to the Folk park part of the museum were we had a picnic, with tasty bread and olives from the Poachers' Pantry in Lisbane and then we went for a walk round the rural part, mainly getting ideas for our own house and garden!

One of the last building we looked at was the rural school, it had some lovely vintage posters inside.

We reckoned that the older the kids got they must have moved up to the higher coat hooks.

All in all it was a great day out, I'd definitely recommend it if you're looking for an interesting trip.