Making the most of the sun - Belton House

The sunshine lured us out again on Friday - this time a little further afield to Belton House just outside Grantham.

It was too nice to waste time indoors, plus we had our grandson along in his buggy, so we didn't go in the House itself but wandered round the formal gardens, had a play in the maze, saw the moondial and checked out the adventure playground for future reference (also it was cooler under the trees there)








And, of course, we found time for lunch and cake.

I've become a rather lazy, ambling outdoors person recently but, although "just a short stroll' is what I tend to think when visiting gardens,  I'd soon clocked up enough steps to make my Fitbit happy (in fact by the end of the day, I'd done more than double my target!)

With a buggy to push you notice different things - gravel is very noisy, grassed areas that look flat actually have hidden humps and hollows, certain areas of the garden were out of reach because of steps, and our daughter felt the baby changing area she used was functional but could have been improved. All things you stop noticing as your children grow, but now as a granny I need to consider them again.

We used to stop at Belton frequently on our way to and from Norfolk, but it's a while since we've visited and even longer since we've been in the play area. It's now bigger and although some old favourites have gone, there's lots of fab things to explore when Grandson is older. Meanwhile I couldn't resist 'testing' some of the new things - a hand pump which delivered water into wooden troughs and turned metal cups, a hanging xylophone and some musical stepping-stones. I just wish I were still small enough to explore this 'castle' :)