And so we made it, its the first week of the summer holidays and we’ve spent the week playing on the beach and splashing in the sea and we’ve been dodging the showers and have already hit the wet weather list of things to do, crafting anyone?  The week started with a weekend away at one of our favourite places, Longleat and then we spent our first week of the holidays pottering around at home with trips to the park, cinema and swimming.

We signed up for the library reading challenge this week, its become one of our little holiday traditions and is a welcome activity in the summer. I love the idea and have challenged myself to do it too, sadly I won’t get the stickers though.

To start the holidays with a little treat we went to Longleat for the weekend with two days in the safari park.  We love Longleat and there really is so much to see and do.  I am just amazed by the animals and each time we get to see so many special things.  This time, I think the lions were my highlight, it was feeding time so they were very animated and we spent a long time just watching and marvelling at their majesty and magnificence. On Sunday morning, we were on the first boat so the sea lions were keen to see us and be fed and we went really close to the gorillas and hippos so the staff could check on them too.  It was fantastic to be so close and observe the animals.

I got so excited on the last day of term making my last packed lunch but since then I’ve been busy making the same just under a different guise of ‘picnic’ We took a lovely picnic full of treats to Longleat for the Saturday lunch, its a bit more than a packed lunch, nice picnic tableware, fancier food – dips, berries, pastries and savouries, I even bring napkins!  A picnic is also an essential part of our holiday days out, I was back in the kitchen on Monday too preparing another picnic for the park.  I feel I’ll be making as many picnics as I do packed lunches through the holidays.

This is my outfit of summer 2017, my Boden sundress, New Look cardigan and favourite flip flop necklace. I wore it to Longleat and although it was hidden by my mac for parts of the day,  at the first hint of sunshine the coat was disposed of to show off my favourite dress!

So with wet weather forecast our first day of holidays started with a trip to the cinema to see Despicable Me 3.  The film series makes me smile if not laugh out loud but I was really taken by the soundtrack and the dance offs in this film, lots of 80s classics, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Aha etc.. Needless to say I insisted on an 80s playlist on our journey home.

So that’s week 1 over with, I really hope that this is not going to be a repeat of the summer of 2015 which is etched onto my memory as the really, really wet summer holiday.  There are only so many original wet weather activities I can create.  Fingers crossed for sunnier times next week.

Due to some technical difficulties I’m a little late with this post so I may not be able to link up with the marvellous Morgana and her lovely contributors, but here’s the link