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Monday 1 June 2009

Sun, fun and the happiest happy couple

Sun, space hopper fun and amazing fairy cakes were some of the delights encountered by the Family Outdoors at a tri club pal's recent wedding in Herefordshire. The bride Jo's amazing attention to detail meant that despite the obvious stress that must have taken place prior to her big day, the wedding itself was a dream of relaxation, fabulous food and great company.

Just take a look at a few of the piccies to see how smiley and content everyone is. The funniest moment had to be the two bridesmaids (and one small page boy when he was allowed a shot of the hopper) bouncing across the field next to the village hall (where the reception was held) on a pair of space hoppers.






We had decided to make a long weekend of our trip, having never visited this part of the UK. And what a great decision. We spent four nights staying at one of the best self-catering cottages we've ever found. The Buzzards offers several cottages to rent and is essentially a low-key organic farm with sheep, pigs, hens and cats. The owner Elaine made the perfect host and if it hadn't have been for our return flights from Birmingham to Glasgow I swear we would have happily stayed here for the rest of the year. Certainly Little Miss Outdoors thought The Buzzards was pure heaven. She was allowed to feed two orphan lambs, collect eggs from the hens and take a sneaky peek at two new-born piglets. "Can't we live here?" was her repeated question throughout our stay…

Wonderfully quiet, quintessentially English country lanes and days of sunshine meant we also enjoyed one of our best outdoors family trips yet. Hiring mountain bikes from Wheely Wonderful Cycles we headed off for a delightful 12-mile round trip on undulating roads and taking in a beautiful tea shop en route. (Of course, every family cycle should also have a delicious incentive!) The total mileage ended up being 12 miles, which was three times as far as Little Miss Outdoors has ever managed. "Awesome," she reported.

The fact that we only made check-in of our return flight by a scary and very stressful 2 minutes just goes to show how reluctant we were to return home. Or perhaps it was simply because of some appallingly bad plannng and navigaton by Mr Outdoors?!

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