"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."

It was one of those weekends which started with three out of the four of us being ill. I had a raging headache, Mrs M had been peaky all week and Opeie has had a snotty nose and bad cough for the last few days. As always though Seth (the possible carrier of all the lurgy) was fine. We all slobbed around the house for the first few hours of Saturday morning but I was getting a little stir crazy and The boys clearly wanted to get out in the glorious sunshine.

It's one of our many family traditions each year to comb the local area looking for fruits to steal (I mean borrow) and we'd yet to visit a lovely abandoned orchard this year that is only a short drive away. Its a beautiful Orchard with apples, pears and cherries. It also has elderberries, blackberries and hazelnuts in the surrounding area. Sadly a bulk of the fruit seems to go to waste each year so we always fill at least a couple of large bags up to make good use of them.

The boys were really excited about picking the apples but when we got there all the low hanging fruit had perished from bees and other insects. Even sat on my shoulders the sweet looking Rosie red fruit was still out of reach. It was time for the very grown up adults in our apple picking party to show the little ones how it is done. Gracefully Mrs M mounted my shoulders and away we went like an apple picking tornado.

It very quickly became one of those days where me and Mrs M had a great time giggling and acting like big kids while the boys sat and watched, oops.

We ended up with quite a good haul ready for a week of pies and sauces and despite feeling a little groggy the vitamin D did us all the world of good. On the drive home we passed through Ironbridge and stopped off at a fruit and Veg honesty stand on the side of the road. We've picked up eggs from there before but this time a lovely pumpkin and some blackberry jam for Seth came home with us.

It was the perfect unplanned spontaneous day with my three favourite people and the amazing weather really added to the quality family time we spent together. Now to get peeling all those apples.

Searching for bugs and wildlife at Attingham park.

I try and write about things as soon as they happen, sometimes though i half write posts and then get wrapped up in other things, my bad. Last week we all had a morning out at Attingham park, our friend Chris had stopped at ours the night before and we managed to kidnap him for the morning and took him along with us which the boys were very excited about. Mrs M had been before but even though its not far from ours I had not been. We managed to get out of the house at a reasonable time, even if Chris did have a lie in (lie ins are unheard of in our house).

We arrived at our destination and after flashing our new National trust memberships we headed on to our adventure. The grounds were beautiful and although there was a chill in the air and Mrs M needed my shirt to keep warm, the sun was shining and was desperately trying to warm the place up. The boys were in their usual excited mood, laughing and running about.

There was a 'searching for bugs and insects' activity on which the boys couldn't wait to join in with so armed with a magnifying glass, tray and sheets with pictures of wildlife to search for, off we went turning over rocks, rummaging through bushes and checking the skies.

It wasn't long before we made it to the orchard which I think was what kicked off the last two weeks of apple scrumping (which I will write about very soon). The walled garden around the fruit and veg being grown was like Mrs M's personal heaven and she walked round in awe of all the crops and was even more excited when she saw the beehives (one day we'll have that self sustaining life that she dreams of).

The flowers there were stunning too...

Seth was desperate to get to the play area and I was parched so we headed there next. Clearly the boys had even more energy to burn off and who were we to deny them that. The play area was great, lots of climbing things handcrafted from wood and long dark tunnels built into hills, great fun for any inquisitive child, although the tunnels were slightly to small for grown ups and me and Chris ended up with neck cramp.

And then it was time to head back for lunch and i suppose we needed to let our hostage go back to his wife. So we headed back to the car. It was a great way to spend a couple of hours before Lunch the adventure got me wondering where our next National Trust adventure will be, any ideas?

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

'I don't like people!' is a phrase i tend to use a lot, not because I'm some strange hermit man that shuts himself off from the rest of the world, but any of us only have to leave the house and walk down the street and chances are you will come across some moron that is doing something that really gets up your nose, a parent being verbally abusive to their child, people walking down the street in their PJs because they cant be bothered to get dressed, young kids smoking and being aggressive (i could go on). Because of this and the fact that i have been let down so many times by family and previous friendships i can be a bit of a grump and it takes a lot for me to trust people. Generally 'people are horrible'.

Every now and again though my faith in humanity is restored and today was one of those days. Myself and Mrs M have been eyeing up an apple tree from over our back fence, the apples are a beautiful red colour and because we go through so many in a week we wanted to see if we could get some. Over the past few weeks we have noticed that they hadn't seemed to be being picked so earlier today i popped round and knocked on the door to politely ask if we could fill a bag. I knocked the door and i saw someone behind the net curtains look out but they wouldn't come to the door (be honest how many of you would open the door to me?). So i headed home, Mrs M, the younger and clearly more attractive one of the two of us popped round instead thinking that maybe she would be more approachable, but sadly the same outcome, so we dropped a note through the door (i wouldnt want anyone worrying or thinking we were dodgy and up to no good).

While we were putting the boys to bed earlier the door went and Mrs M went and found an envelope on the floor...

It blew me away that this gentleman had taken the time to type out what i thought was an unbelievably sweet letter. Its very rare that you come across people that are this thoughtful and honestly receiving this unexpected letter put me in a great mood. I'm safe in the knowledge once more that there are kind and thoughtful people all around us. Thanks Bobby x