"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.