Mucky adventures

We all slept well, and after breakfast I helped Ella and Nathaniel to make Chocolate Cornflake cakes for the second-cousins coming to play at Cragside.

Mr C's brother-in-law drove the 2 grandsons he has staying, and his other daughter drove her girls, so we had 6 children playing happily - aged 13, 10, 9, 6, 5 and 3. My niece and I kept an eye on them while the old boys caught up on their news. We had a picnic, played in the adventure playground and in the woods making dens, and after four hours we all went back to our house for more playing together, and eating the cakes.

I made a collage - Ella (5) wanted to keep up with Robbie (10), while Lauren and Rosie liked looking after Nathaniel. Callum who is 6 wanted to build a den - Ella was invited to eat BBQ with him. She didn't look impressed.

Their mum did FaceTime from NYC, where they are having a great time, seeing as much as they can in 4 days, but the children didn't have a lot of time to chat as they were wanting to dash off with the others.