Summer Inspiration....

Aaahhh, all is well and good in the Charles family household. We have returned from various camping excursions around the country, covered many a mile and put the tent and down about 8 times in 20 days.....The weather? Mixed. From blazing sun to hale stones in the Highlands of Scotland and torrential rain and just that good old British Grey day.

The one thing that saved us and the children for the 2 weeks in Bonny Scotland was joining the NTS (National Trust for Scotland). It ticked all the family boxes, Chris and I enjoyed fantastic gardens and castles, the birthplace of JM Barrie and the amazing Robert Smails printworks. The children, while moaning a little, had to spot the muddy footprints of Gnasher from Dennis the Menice Comics. After finding all the foot prints in 6 properties on our travels they will be rewarded with copious amounts of Dennis 'stuff' - they were obsessed and we now have to wait until October to reap the rewards of this challenge......3 times over!

Back to inspiration- this was my favourite castle, Crathes - stunning, beautiful and a lovely sunny day out.

Now, I have to admit...... I broke the law of the NTS (shhhhh). You are now allowed to take photos and the children were mortified that I even attempted to. Mortified. Butter wouldn't melt of course, as we had to remind them. But I could not risk not being able to be inspired if the shop did not sell the specific post cards I needed, could I? So just in case.....

This was a snippet of a painted ceiling:

And this was a beautiful appliqued bed cover, which I continued to dream about and plan some work around. I was disappointed that there was no postcard, so it's a good job I was a bit naughty.......no body saw anyway.

Around the gardens I was allowed to snap away at the lovely flowers, no body minded.

Noah was amazed by the size of these daisies as you can see.

So here we are, standing in the gardens of Crathes, just lovely.....Happy Campers all round. The Gnasher trail was our saving grace and fantastic value for money spread over the year. Oh, and another thing....we can use our membership to visit UK National Trust Properties too!!

Yippee- do-dar, more lovely inspiration just waiting for a visit.