Blenheim Palace, Cogges Manor Farm and Swallows and Amazons

On Wednesday we decided to have the book club at Blenheim Palace as it was such a lovely day and there is so much space for the children to run around. Now it may be ' a unique example of English baroque architecture set in 2100 acres', but when you are nine years old it is so cool to roll down the moat!

 We got our annual pass while we were there so we have so many more moat rolling opportunities ahead of us! Dogs are allowed on leads in the park land so that is another great place to take them for a walk.

Today was the first day of our 12 session course focusing on outdoor learning and philosophy at the Cogges Manor Farm site in Witney. Even with the rain we still managed to have a great day, and thankfully the sun came out in the victorian walled garden when it was our turn for the gardening. The parents and children were tasked with digging up all the existing plants and weeds and replanting new seeds and plants.

 N felt a bit sad about some of the plants that were being dug up and disgarded. There was one in particular that she liked as it looked and felt like velvet. One of the other mums told us it was called Mullein, we asked if we could take a couple home and try to save them............

Here they are, all we can do now is wait and see if they 'take' in our garden after being dug up and carried home by N. We looked Mullein up on the internet to find it is a proven medicinal herb backed by scientific evidence and legend has it that it keeps evil and bad magic away as well :)

We have started the new book for book club - Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. N seems to be really enjoying the first few chapters. I have printed a diagram of boat terms out for us to look at while reading it and we had to find out what promontory meant this evening as it is repeated a lot in the book!

Our next challenge is to try and drop that one into general conversation.