Beautiful Stowe

The last time I went to Stowe I had a pretty rubbish time with the Little Misses and wasn't in a massive hurry to return.
But this morning Miss E asked if we could go as she wanted to buy the bug catching set that she's been saving up for. She has been lovely over the last week or so - finally back from her extended visit to the dark side! - so has accrued a lot of marble money. And as we forgot to tot it up last weekend she suddenly found herself with £1 more than she needed.
Mr K needed to work so the Little Misses and I headed off on our own after a brief surprise visit from Nana, Papa and Maisie.
The Little Misses were very happy to see Maisie. And I suspect Mr K was pretty happy to see my mum and dad as they interrupted the ear bashing I was giving him about the amount of time he spends working at home and the impact on our family time.
As I write this a few hours later I feel guilty! He works incredibly hard and would obviously prefer to be out with us than slaving away at a nightmare project on the computer.
We do appreciate it Mr K!
Stowe was lovely. I was met with the obligatory rude woman on the buggy who told me I should walk down to the gardens rather than take up space on the buggy. We had been queuing for it for quite a while and behind us were four women with sticks who were on a coach tour and didn't have long. She took them first and told me I should walk.
I'm much better now and don't shout at people at Stowe so I merely pointed out I prefer my children to go on a long walk actually in the gardens rather than miles down a farm track just to get there and have had enough before we even start!
We waited ages for her to get back, smiled sweetly and got on.
We had a lovely picnic sat in one of the temples watching the swans and ducks on the lake, then we walked all around the lake - with many, many, many, many stops and detours! For the first time we picked up the 50 things to do before you're 11 3/4 leaflet so there was lots of rolling down hills, trying to catch falling leaves and hunting for bugs. It was ace!
We ended our lovely afternoon with a visit to the café. Tea, tiffin, cornettos, soleros and juice. Yummy!
I still think the changes they've made at Stowe are rubbish but today reminded me how much I used to love it and why we should go more often.