When Amy was younger I used to make summer holiday vouchers for her. These were little tokens that she could cash in throughout the 6 week summer break and they usually included the simplest of activities and treats, things like a shopping trip, a picnic, a visit to the cinema and an annual favourite – berry picking at the local pick your own farm, which we did again, and again.

A few years ago she decided that she'd outgrown the vouchers and she was much more into spending time out with friends than doing things with her mum. But the other day she was at a loose end and so we decided to be nostalgic and head off together for a spot of berry picking.

Unfortunately the season here has already finished (it must have been an early year for strawberries) so instead we bought lots of delicious treats at the lovely farm shop, had a big slab of cake (me) and a full English breakfast (Amy) and then were at a bit of a loss for what to do. We opted for driving the long way home with lots of detours through the pretty local villages and we ended up in Braughing where we decided to park up and go for a wander.

It is the prettiest of English villages, full of thatched cottages, Medieval buildings and a beautiful church – St Mary the Virgin, the oldest parts of which date from the early 13th century.

Come and join us on our walk…

At the church there were some lovely people tidying up the porch noticeboard and they invited us in to look around. It is a beautiful ancient building with many different parts spanning the last 800 years – I found the 15th century angel ceiling particularly breathtaking. As we left and were walking through the churchyard we passed the Vicar who stopped for a chat, such a friendly lady. In fact the whole village has a very friendly feel, even the cows in the field at the edge of the village came over to greet us.

Thanks for coming with us, I hope you enjoyed the walk 🙂

And if you ever find yourself in East Hertfordshire with an hour or two to fill then a visit to Braughing is definitely recommended.

See you soon x

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PS: Thanks so very much for all of the lovely comments about the new room in the previous post. I really appreciate all the compliments and am really enjoying the new space. It still feels a bit like sleeping in a nice hotel – though sadly without the room service!

For the last 16 years our bedroom has been more of a family room than a place to call our own. Before going to bed at night we've either had to sweep crumbs from the bed due to toast-munching toddlers, remake the bed entirely thanks to Toby using it as an indoor trampoline or get into bed to find lumps of lego underneath the top sheet from where Toby has crawled (in summer we have a stretchy cotton jersey fitted sheet which he likes to sit under and use like a tent).

Over the years the bed has been a surface for tickle games (like in the pictures above), a thing to hide behind in games of hide-n-seek and a quiet place to snuggle at the end of the day for bedtime stories. Both of the children have at one time or another slept in our bed (or next to it in a moses basket as newborns) and we've frequently had family breakfast in bed – before Toby was born Amy used to sit between H and I every morning to eat her toast.

The walls of our room have been crayoned on by Amy when she was small and Toby has smeared my rather expensive face cream all over the floor and used it as a skating rink. Several times in the past he has smeared much worse over the walls, but we'll not think too deeply about that.

We'd never ban the children from our room but they both have rooms of their own that they now prefer spending time in, so it felt like it was time to reclaim a little space of our own again (and a room that was a more fitting backdrop to the crochet blanket that I spent so long making – it used to have dark blue walls).

The walls are now all painted, in the soft dove grey colour I had in mind (we went for no. 3 in the end), the pictures are re-hung (all are photographs taken by H) and the new furniture is in. I am so enjoying having a peaceful, tranquil space to retreat to now and then. In fact I'm off there now for a spot of knitting (Toby is at a holiday club for a few hours today enjoying the bouncy castle) and it might be a while before I come out again!