Batemans & Standen

I've mentioned Monday Club before - it's a little weekly outing that my Parents, Toddler F, myself and my little nephew, Toddler Z have been doing for a couple of month's now on a Monday morning. Dad has been working up to retirement and had a lot of holiday days to use up before his official leaving date so he took off every Monday to go through it, which meant that we were then free to all go out somewhere exciting. 

It was always fairly local and Toddler F and I would usually hop on the bus in the morning, get off nearer to the parents' house and we'd all pile into the car - The Mother squeezed in the back between two child seats - and head off to somewhere. 

We've also enjoyed some really lovely weather this Spring so, although it wasn't always the warmest, there were lots of beautiful sunny moments. 

Quite often we've headed to fairly local National Trust spots as we are all members and it gives the boys somewhere to rush around and explore, throw sticks into rivers and examine worms and ants in great detail. For the grown ups there was guaranteed delicious cakes and coffees so it was a definite win-win. 

This particular National Trust spot is Batemans, somewhere we've been to lots of times before and has appeared on this blog before (in 2015 for definite). It was the family home of Rudyard Kipling, the chap who wrote the Jungle Book, and it has been preserved pretty much in the way he left it, as if he'd just walked outside for a bit. 

The gardens aren't that big (in comparison to other National Trust sites, not in comparison to the average person's garden! Especially considering that my garden consists of a balcony with a few pots) but they are always beautifully manicured and planted, with different sections to it. 

There are a few walled gardens, and you walk in from the carpark and ticket office just at the top of the vegetable patch with pleached fruit trees and a little orchard and all sorts of things growing. 

Another section of the walled garden leads to more apple trees (which the boys found great fun in autumn, collecting the apples into little piles) and the back of the cafe. 

There are more ornamental type gardens, a very controlled rose garden around a fish pond, but then, through a little archway is a much wilder planted area with a stream, beautiful wild flowers and a dirt path which takes you to the flour mill at the end of the garden. This is the bit the boys like most, you can play Pooh sticks and there are some children's things to do in the mill, or you can spend hours watching water filter through little grates in the millpond and trying to spot newts. 

Another of our little adventures took us to Standen, with a couple of extra family members this time. It had its Easter finery on so there were lots of different activities to play with as you walk round. 

This has definitely appeared several times on my blog before and, if you click through to this post in April 2017, you'll see what we had expected to see this time around - but wasn't there....tulips!

It turned out that we actually knew one of the gardeners there who came up to say hello, and we asked her about the lack of tulips as it's a well known part of the Standen calendar. Apparently they had planted them all as usual but everything had been afflicted with Tulip Fire, a fungal disease which makes the plants look like they've been scorched in a fire, and they had to be dug up which is such a shame. 

They still had some very pretty areas of planting, although slightly barer than usual perhaps, and there was a lot of work going on in the garden, it was teaming with gardeners and wheelbarrows. There isn't such a lot of ornate garden planting here, it's much wilder or looser with lawns surrounded by shrubs and trees rather than boxy flowerbeds.

We did do a very whistlestop tour around the house, but with three boys under the age of 5, their interest in comfy chairs and William Morris wallpaper wasn't held for long. We stayed longest in the room where a volunteer was playing the piano as they wanted to dance to the music, or in the conservatory with all of the Easter cacti and succulents but mainly it's easier to just let them be small boys out in the wilds of the garden. 

The house is full of Arts and Crafts workmanship, and Morris & Co wallpapers and textiles - the servants corridors are completely papered in Morris Trellis, and there is now an exhibition about Morris in some of those rooms. 

It's another house where you have lots of vaguely tamed but not orderly areas. Follow this little path, trip up some wide steps and suddenly you pop out into a little wooded clearing with a funny little shack and a balcony area looking down over the house and entrance road. 

There's a wooded walk with the trees mostly on one side, and the other side there is this view! 

As part of the Easter trail there were lots more little activities in the woods and a big marquee with some games in to play. It changes up here every now and then; sometimes there's a planted maze, or a stack of rocks to climb on but it's just a fun place to be free. 

I would really recommend that if you have smalls and live near to National Trust properties that you sign up. We aren't affiliated with them at all but sometimes being able to go out (and obviously the more you visit the more viable it is to expense the membership fee) to these places, park for free and wander round these fantastic gardens is such a godsend - especially as we don't have a garden ourselves. Having a rambunctious toddler in the house can be quite overwhelming sometimes but, release them into a wide open garden or field and let them explore and dig and play in a wide open space doesn't feel quite so much like you are trapped. And they are beautiful to boot. 

Wakehurst Place

For Mother’s Day this year I was treated to beautiful blue sky and sunshine (obviously organised by Toddler F), and a trip out to Wakehurst Place - part of Kew Botanical Gardens and also National Trust. It seems to be more Kew than NT these days as the shop doesn’t resemble a usual National Trust shop (no badges for my camp blanket) and, to be quite honest, the food from the restaurant was expensive and not all that nice. 

We used to come here fairly often as a family when I was a kid but rarely come here now so seeing the gardens again was a bit of a treat. Especially with the time of year matching up with their Magnolias being in bloom. That was always my favourite part. 

We actually had four mothers on the trip out, myself and my sister, our mum and Reece’s mum, plus the various men and boys in our lives. 

It’s nice just to get out somewhere where the kids can run and be free, dance under falling petals, watch giant fish in still ponds and slide down weather (and other bottoms) worn grooves in giant rocks. 

The house itself isn’t open, when it is open there isn’t anything in it really, it’s not furnished with items from the period or anything like that and I think it’s mostly used for functions or educational visits. 

It is a huge place, with wide and manicured lawns, ornamental ponds, rock gardens, woodland areas, a valley walk with amazing Rhododendron trees and a stream at the bottom leading to more ponds and lakes. It is quite a steep walk to follow if you do go into the valley toward the bottom lakes, we had a buggy with us which was an effort to push back up so that bit isn’t entirely accessible for things on wheels but we managed it so it was ok. 

Around the side of the house there’s also a garden full of grasses and those fiery red stemmed plants interspersed with Silver Birch trees for contrast, a walled garden, a vegetable plot and a mud kitchen which we hadn’t noticed before and the small boys absolutely loved. Clearly some people had come prepared for the mud kitchen and their children were dressed in waders and wellies. 

I can recommend the ice cream truck that was sitting outside next to the restaurant though. We had absolutely delicious salted caramel and triple chocolate ice cream cones which had big chunks of yummy goodness inside. 

There is also the seed bank which you can visit but the boys don’t find that particularly interesting so we didn’t go down that way. We were all a bit worn out after our trek into the abyss so trundled our way back to the car - passing the most enormous queue of people waiting to come in! Timed our visit well I think.

Toddler F fell asleep on the way home (which we had anticipated) so I even had some quiet time to myself, sat in the sunshine in the car - with coffee! - working on my pond life ATCs. I don’t think I could ask for a better Mother’s Day. 

Counting Down

How is everyone doing? Are you all ok? I'm definitely feeling very swan-like at the moment, seemingly coping very well on the surface and juggling all my balls but underneath there's a lot of frantic paddling, unsettled nights, endless to-do lists, hours and hours of wrapping presents and trying to make sure I haven't missed anything. I haven't properly sat and stitched or relaxed for what feels like weeks, my evenings being taken up with admin for end of term Guiding, writing risk assessments for cinema trips, writing cards, packing online orders, filling in forms and goodness knows what else. 

I think it is perhaps worse this year because for the first time we have little nursery friends for Baby F to write cards for, teacher gifts to think up, extra Christmas parties and events that we're attending and our weekends haven't been free at all for us to take a breather. We've seen Santa in various places, just keeping bumping into him(!) and have attended Baby F's first ever Nativity! In which he was Rudolph...the Grinch was also present at the birth of Jesus which was very interesting. 

The weather has sunk into a gloomy, wet and windy mood which probably doesn't help. We had a fantastic randomly sunny day at the weekend and managed to take advantage of it with a quick half an hour at Sheffield Park to feed the ducks, look at their Snowman trail and let the sproglet run off some steam. Since then it's just been dismal and doesn't ever seem to get light. We have to keep our lights on inside the whole day!

 

Baby F is absolutely loving nursery and has made several friends, including his main supervisor Jade (who he calls Lily??? Reason unknown.) who is brilliant. The other week he brought home the nursery dog, Frank, who has a diary that he likes you to fill in after your week together, showing all of the things that you've done and places you've been. Reading through Frank's previous diary entries, he spent 10 days in Egypt earlier in the year!! I'm not sure we can top that but he did come with us to the Uckfield Late Night Shopping event, and to the Festival of Christmas Trees at Holy Cross Church, and then to a party with a bouncy castle and scooter things. Baby F was super excited to have him stay and introduced him to all of his other teddy bears and stuffed toys the minute we got home - before settling down for a movie and popcorn night together which was very sweet. 

The Christmas tree festival is always very popular and you have to get there quite early to avoid the queue. We didn't go last year because you could see the queue was enormously long but this year we thought Baby F would have the patience to sit and wait in it so took our place in the line. 

It was lovely to see the church all lit up and to walk along a path lined with candles in jam jars, very festive. Inside was incredible - they have over 100 trees crammed in there. I had been during the week to decorate a tree for Girlguiding Uckfield District so I had an inkling of what it would look like, but to be there when it was all fully decorated and lit up was brilliant. 

We only managed the bottom floor before a certain small someone decided that he'd had enough - which was fair enough as progress around is slow whilst you wait for those in front of you to move on and 2 year olds aren't known for their tolerance and patience. One day we will get round the whole thing!

Frank had a nice time too. 

My stitching time is mostly limited to my coffee mornings, but I did snatch 10 minutes on the bus the other weekend as it was daylight and I could see what colours I was using. We are nearly at the shortest day now, huzzah! The worst bit about catching the bus is when you get it in the dark at both ends of the day. There aren't even any fun sunrises or sunsets to inspire you this time of year. This hoop has been hanging around forever and really needs finishing off! I might get some time to do that this evening perhaps which would be nice. 

We are definitely winding down for Christmas now. I keep thinking it is on a weekend this year but it's a week today to Christmas day!! Ours will be slightly different from our usual as some of Reece's family plans have changed and we are having a rather quiet Christmas day round my parent's house as just us five. Reece and I are cooking fish for Christmas dinner (crusted sea bass most likely), but then on Boxing Day my sister and brother and families are joining us for a belated 'traditional' Christmas dinner and present opening session. 

Before then though we have most of Reece's family squeezing into our flat for a pre-Christmas, Christmas shindig in lieu of the actual day so the children can open their presents and we can celebrate together, then we have an uncle's birthday party on Christmas Eve, followed by a Christmas Eve evening at Bedgebury Pinetum to see the lights!! There's a lot to come in the next seven days. I'll have to see you on the other side!

I will hopefully have a few other blog posts coming out in the next couple of days as I can catch up with those this afternoon but they have more specific topics rather than a chatty catch up so, have a very Merry Christmas!! Just keep paddling.