6 Highlights of our Christmas trip to Bluestone

We were recently invited for a midweek break at Bluestone, Wales. Pembrokeshire is such a beautiful part of the world and we’ve previously been on holiday there for our honeymoon and first anniversary/babymoon. I’ve heard wonderful things about Bluestone, so I was very excited. To add to the excitement, at this time of year, it transforms into Christmasland. There are lots of Christmas activities on, including Kingdom of the Elves which I’ve heard so much about. This year’s theme is a visit to Elftopia.

I want to blog in more detail about our week away soon, but first, here are my 5 top highlights!

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A family day out at Sheffield Park

Sheffield Park in East Sussex is renowned for its beautiful autumn colours. I’d say it’s definitely one of the best places to see the autumn colours in the South East. A National Trust property, it boasts acres of landscaped gardens with park and woodland. October was a very busy month for us. I went back to work, I was under the weather for most of the month and it just generally seemed to whizz by. When we got to the beginning of this week, I realised that we hadn’t visited Sheffield Park.

Fortunately, I must have expressed this to my husband. On Thursday morning we went to drop off my car to the garage first thing. As he drove me back home through the country lanes, I gazed across the fog on the marshes and the gentle sunlight dancing on the frost in the fields. It was a beautiful morning made better by the fact that he then announced he’d taken the day off and was taking us to Sheffield Park!

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paternity-leave-interview

A husband’s view of paternity leave and returning to work

Going back a couple of generations, looking after the home and children was very much thought of as “women’s work”. However, with the rise of stay-at-home dads and dads seeming to be more hands-on in general, I wondered what my husband’s thoughts were. He’s wonderfully hands on with Autumn and has expressed in the past that he is worried about missing her doing different things like crawling and walking for the first time. I thought I’d do a little interview with him about his thoughts on paternity leave and working, leaving his baby at home.

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Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and Charity

Less than a year ago, I had a seriously ill child. I know first hand just how awful it is to be in that situation as a parent. You just feel so helpless. In many ways, I expect it’s worse when your child is older and actually aware of everything that’s going on.

I’d like to bring your attention to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and the amazing work that they do. They care for over 270,000 young people and their families each year, as well as carrying out important research. This research includes children’s medicines, infection, inflammation and oncology.

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