"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.

"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain."

It's been a pretty bleak few weeks with all of us being ill at some point or other. I still feel really awful myself and I'm surprised I'm writing this instead of curling up on the sofa under a blanket. It's typical that we would all feel like this during Seth's summer holiday and Mrs Ms week off last week that she had booked for a long time seemed like a bit of a waste.

This morning I didn't feel to bad (that didn't last) but the weather had other ideas about us getting out and doing anything. It was absolutely thrashing it down and with Mrs M going back to work today the two kick started the day on a bit of a down note. On the way home from dropping her off we chatted and decided to write a list of activities to do today and tick them off as we go along.

First up make a mask! I've been introducing the boys to more cartoons from when I was younger, they love hearing stories from my childhood and I think they feel a part of it when we are watching old shows. Opeie's latest retro cartoon obsession is Bananaman, so Opeie made it quite clear that on this drizzly day he wanted to be transformed in to the banana eating hero. Seth as always wanted to be the bad guy so he decided on Appleman. I love craft activities like this as they are quick and we can move on before they lose interest.

Next we built a base which soon became  two bases so that we could combine that  with 'play fight' off the list. The Boomco guns came out and within minutes there were darts flying round everywhere.

Next up was 'play on the Wii', which suited me perfectly as it gave me the chance to clear up the battle arena quickly without either boys hanging round my legs. It also meant that I could get the lunch on early in hope that I could get Opeie down for a decent timed nap.

It turned out that I didn't need to worry about that though as the adorable big brother had it covered. We took Opeie to bed with a pile of books and after I'd read a couple Seth offered up his services which resulted in a very relaxed Opeie and a poorly Pauly getting about 10 minutes myself, Oopsy.

While Opeie was asleep we moved on to LEGO and Seth continued working on something pretty awesome which I will write a full post about very soon. I'm so proud of how creative he's getting with his building.

By the time Opeie had woken up the rain had stopped and the sky was relatively clear so we jumped at the chance to get our shoes on and venture out in hope that the weather was going to play ball. Mrs M had mentioned that she needed some apples and Blackberries so we hit all the hotspots from last years scrumping but our haul was a little disappointing.

Opeie soon had enough so we headed home to play some more LEGO. It wasn't long before it was time to pick Mrs M up again so we were all excited about seeing that beautiful face of hers. It was great actually being out of the house for a bit and I had high hopes for tomorrow but as Mrs M has just had to ring our out of hours doctor for an appointment this evening I think I'm going to need a little more than hope. Guess we'll be making another list in the morning and fingers crossed Seth can get me down for a well deserved afternoon nap.

"You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is."

Over the past few weeks we have become a family of scrumpers, foraging for food wherever we can find it. It all started when Mrs M took us to an apple tree not far from where she used to live, turns out though that there are literally apple trees everywhere, I've just never paid much attention until now.

So armed with our supermarket hessian bags or apple sacks as they have now become we have been Investigating all over and have been lucky enough to have picked around 10 large bags of various kinds of the juicy treat (three of those this morning).

The boys have really been getting involved and our foraging exploits have been teaching them a valuable lesson in sustainability. It's also great for teaching them to respect the food that they eat (plus it always tastes that little bit better when you know you have picked it yourself).

It's not just apples that have been getting all our attention though. We've found plums and pears in a derelict monastery orchard which was a great find, elderberries, hazelnuts and buckets of blackberries (which you can find everywhere this time of year). We've definitely taken full advantage of our surrounding area and had lots of fun in the process. If people could see Mrs M riding around on my shoulders, us giggling like teenagers while she reaches for apples they would think we were hilarious.

Recently Mrs M has gone into her usual preparation for hibernation mode, which she does every year for winter, so our new found love of foraging means that there are plenty of pies in the freezer ready for thoring out, bags of peeled and cored apples for winter cooking, not to mention a lovely selection of chutneys and jams. Mrs M's squirrel like tendencies are adorable and she really looks after me and the boys, we will always be eternally greatful for what she does for us. We're a great team and doing everything as a family is so important, it keeps us close. We will continue to forage while the fruit is available and will definitely be more prepared for next years harvest.