"After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb."

If someone had have told me four years ago that in four years time you will be signing up to be a member of the national trust I'd have laughed in their face. I was a party boy through and through and I would never have been found traipsing around a stately home or castle ruins. Just goes to show how much my life has changed and as we sat in a valley coffee shop filling out our application i had a little chuckle to myself.

These days I've traded in the alcohol, late night partying and waking up and not knowing where I am for quality time with the three people I love the most. We asked Seth what he wanted to do yesterday and he told us he wanted to splash around in a stream with his wellies on so I packed the car and we headed on our way. Thankfully the weather was great, warm and with a sun that was shining bright. As soon as we had reached our destination, used the facilities and filled out our application it was wellie time and as soon as Opeie had got his famous and very glamorous pink sparkly Peppa Pig wellies on we were being pulled over to the nearest hole with water in it.

I'm not a huge fan of stomping through streams and turning over rocks but if it makes the boys smile then I'm happy to pop my wellies on and get wet. The stream was pretty shallow compared to our last visit, so Seth's plans at catching fish with his bare hands was soon shattered. Opeie soon got bored of looking down at clear water with nothing going on and dragged me to the foot of the valley where there was a rope climb and informed me he wanted to go up. Excellent i thought, my boy is going to be a climber, that's exactly how I was when I was young, always climbing trees and tall hills. It worked out quite well as while me and Opeie went climbing Mrs M and Seth continued their nature hunt.

It was a steep walk but surprisingly apart from steadying himself on my shorts for balance a couple of times he managed the hike by himself. A huge change from the boy a year ago who could only roll to get about. He was more interested in saying "Be careful daddy" every ten steps (i guess he knows first hand how accident prone i am). When we reached the top Opeie let out a loud 'yeah we did it daddy', looking very proud of himself.

Opeie spotted Seth and Mrs M from way up high and gave them a shout which echoed through the valley. They looked up and waved so we took a photo, not a great one but that's them smack bang in the middle of the picture.

After Seth had finished splashing around and me and Opeie had made our way down we went for a gentle stroll as Seth's legs were starting to hurt. Me and Mrs M being the grown ups that we are took it in turns to sprint up the steep hills while being timed to see who won (I'll let you decide for yourselves who you think was fastest). 

It was so nice being out in the middle of nowhere for the afternoon and spending quality time together. Although Seth Struggles to walk to far,pottering about was lots of fun. The only sad part of the day was the amount of dead bees that we saw. We're always reviving bee's at home with honey and our trip out as made us realise that we need a utility belt with a honey dispenser on it. We did spot one interesting bug though that was happily strolling about.

Well i guess being part of the National Trust now we better take advantage of all the beautiful places in the UK. We will definitely making the most of it over the next year and have already spotted some interesting looking places so stay tuned of the coming weeks.