Ho ho ho, what a wonderful afternoon!

We decided to push the boat out and go see Santa somewhere a little different this year. I felt under pressure as we had a private audience at a set time, we hadn't been to the place before, I was unsure of where we were going and whats more we had to clean out the chook and duck houses before we went. Arghhhh!

I'm pleased to say we found it, in time, and having been accosted by a lovely lady with a big tray of steaming glasses of mulled wine, I was feeling much better. Oh dear, I think the weekend before Christmas is always a time of heightened tension for parents. There's so much pressure knowing there's so much to be done, yet also so busy ensuring there's festive fun to be had by all - or perhaps it's just me who feels that way?

We explored beautiful frost tinged gardens, hunting for treasure clues. The gardens were stunning, even in the depths of winter. I'm so pleased to have discovered them and will certainly return come spring; with Nana too as I think she'll appreciate their style of planting and design.



It doesn't look it in this picture but the lake was actually frozen, from edge to edge.



Sheesh, chilly!!

















We visited the Magical Glitter Grotto where elves were dispensing magical oats to entice Rudolph onto our lawn come Christmas Eve.




Songs and stories by the fire.




Mock snowball fights with crumpled newspaper in the Jacobean Hall. With or without the help of Mr Frosty (at the back there) our team won hands down.




Whoops, that one was heading right for me.




Of course, last but not least, the main man, in the most magical grotto I have seen. He had gifts for us all - a book for Miles, a mug for Hermione, a jar candle for me and liqueur chocolates for Craig. Sadly Craig doesn't like liqueur chocolates but I was happy to relieve him of them while catching up on a bit of tv tonight.



To top off what was already a lovely day, Miles headed to bed at a reasonable time and Hermione headed on off to a carol service with Nana. This gave me the ideal opportunity to do gift wrapping, while catching up on TV and scoffing liqueur chocs. So now I can go on to enjoy all this weeks festivities knowing I'm probably more organised than ever. Yay!!!