Brading Roman Villa, Isle of Wight

We had a lovely week in the Isle of Wight earlier this month, and another of the places that we really enjoyed visiting was Brading Roman Villa, so I thought that I'd share what we got up to. Brading Roman Villa is considered one of the finest Roman sites in the UK, and is mainly preserved undercover so it's a good choice for a rainy day. We paid £25 for a family ticket and our visit lasted for a few hours.

The West Range of the Villa is preserved in the museum, with walkways so that you can have a good look around it. Outside you can see the North and South Ranges marked out with chalk outlines as well as a Roman garden. I must confess that we felt that the mosaics aren't as spectacular as some that we've seen elsewhere, but the layout of the museum gave you a good overview of the structure of the villa, and there was plenty of artist's impressions and information to help you understand how the villa would have looked in Roman times.

The children are both interested in the Romans, and thanks to studies at school and their own reading they are able to identify characters from the myths and legends that they could spot in the mosaics, as well as identifying different objects from Roman life. But when visiting a museum like this they do need to have some additional child friendly activities to keep them interested, and luckily Brading Roman Villa provided quite a few of these. 

They spent ages working on these mosaics, and behind them you can see a toy model of a Roman villa which they also enjoyed looking at, with Mia desperate to recreate one for herself when we got home!

There were also dressing up costumes, and various puzzles to complete as you went around, like reassembling the layers of artefacts excavated from the well on site. This also meant that us adults could spend time reading the information boards without interruptions!

The children also loved creating some different realistic and mythical Roman figures, and putting together a large jigsaw puzzle representing one of the mosaics on the floor. These activities really kept them interested as we explored the remains, and definitely meant that we made the most of our visit.

There was a special exhibition running during our viist, Hoards, which was included in the entrance price. It's a touring exhibition featuring various hoards of valuable objects which have been discovered, and there were some fascinating objects and stories behind them to learn about.

We visited on a Saturday and we didn't see any other children, which makes me think that perhaps the villa is marketed more towards an adult audience. But if your children are studying the Romans at school or just generally interested in Roman history, then I'd recommend a visit to the villa.

Related post - Tapnell Farm Park, Isle of Wight

We bought the children Fitbits

A couple of weeks ago we treated the children to a Fitbit each. Although Ram and I do exercise regularly, I often think that the children don't get active enough. We can't walk to school as it's several miles away, although I do make them walk to the road that I park in. But they aren't the most athletic of children, and I can't imagine that they get particularly involved in PE lessons at school. Aside from swimming lessons they aren't interested in doing any sports clubs.

I've had a Fitbit for a few years now, and I find it really interesting and motivating to keep track of my steps. For the first year after I started wearing it I managed to reach my step goal of 10,000 steps every single day, and although I'm not as obsessive about it now I do feel better when I've made that goal.

A great deal of deliberation went into purchasing the Fitbits. The children don't have phones so they need to connect to a tablet, and they have small wrists so it needed to be one designed for children. I was keen to go for the Fitbit brand because then we could share our stats and enter challenges together, and we eventually settled on the Fitbit Ace. This is an older model, so it was a reasonable price.

The children were so thrilled when they arrived. They soon worked out that they could 'cheat' the step count by waving their arms around, although I don't mind because it still feels like a form of exercise! Mia also discovered that when Harry challenged us to a step goal day challenge she could adjust her goal to one step and complete the challenge before she even got out of bed! But they've become used to them now and are using them as they are intended, checking in their step counts with each other and with me throughout the day.

I'm really enjoying how it has been encouraging them to get out for a walk. At the moment in our town there is a brilliant initiative called Beat the Street running. Electronic boxes have been placed at regular intervals across several towns in the area, and you can use a map to find them and swipe them with a special card to collect points. We've really enjoyed going out for some walks together, and many of the boxes are at playgrounds which is added motivation. I've found that because they have such small legs, their step count racks up much faster than mine does!

I'm very interested to see what their step count looks like once they are back at school. It's only a small school but there are lots of steps up and down so it may well add up quite quickly! I'd definitely recommend a fitness tracker if you want to see how active your children really are, and take literal steps to improve.

Tapnell Farm Park, Isle of Wight

We loved visiting the Isle of Wight as a family. We found so much to do that our week was filled, and there's plenty left for our next visit! One of our favourite days was spent at Tapnell Farm Park. We looked at various options for a longer family friendly day out, and chose Tapnell Farm Park over the other contenders, Blackgang Chine and Robin Hill Country Park, because we felt that it offered better value for money. We paid £37.80 for a family ticket, saving ourselves a couple of pounds on the gate price by booking online the night before.

We had read that the park can be quite busy and so we arrived as it opened, but as we were able to time our visit before most schools had broken up for the summer we found it very quiet. We headed first for the pedal go karts, with an outdoor track for older children and adults. There are go karts in all shapes and sizes, ones that children can ride themselves and ones with seats for younger children to be pedalled around. It's a wide track with beautiful views and plenty of room for overtaking if things start to get competitive!

We visited on a lovely sunny day, but the indoor play barn is a great place to spend time if the weather isn't too good. There are a couple of long zip wires side by side so that you can race your friends, and a brilliant straw bale play zone for exploring with tunnels and dens.

There's also a climbing wall with several different routes that children can try, which was pitched perfectly and not too easy or too difficult.

There are plenty of animals at the farm to visit. Indoors there are pet animals like rabbits and guinea pigs, which are available to stroke at certain times of the day. Outside you can see traditional farm animals in the paddocks, like sheep, pigs and goats, as well as a Wallaby Walkabout area where you can get close to the wallabies. So close in fact that we were trapped inside for a while as a wallaby refused to move out of the way to the exit!

There are also plenty more play areas outside, including colourful tyres and two large bouncy pillows, one for younger and one for older children.

Children can race a cart down the Sledge Slides, practice football skills by aiming balls at targets, and play farm themed Mini Golf (this costs an additional £1 per ball from a vending machine).

We were lucky with the weather when we visited, but I think that even on a rainy or cold day there would still be plenty to do. It was also a lot of fun for adults too, it wasn't just about sitting around watching the children enjoy themselves, and we also had a go at many of the activities! We spent several hours here with a picnic lunch, and definitely feel that we got our money's worth. I'd really recommend it if you are looking for somewhere fun to visit with the family in the Isle of Wight!

Related post - Ad - Wightlink Ferries to the Isle of Wight

Journalling and writing prompts for bloggers

Recently I treated myself to a new journal, and although I was full of ideas when I purchased it, as soon as I found time to sit down and write my mind went blank! So I thought I'd come up with a list of journalling and blogging prompts that I can use as a way to both open up my creativity when it comes to creating new and interesting content, and come up with ideas that I can develop into blog posts.

I hope that these ideas might be useful for other bloggers too!

* Create a visual mind map or spider diagram for your blog. With your blog name in the centre, create bubbles for the topics that you already blog about as well as new topics that you would enjoy writing about. Under these main areas create sub-categories and sub-themes. You will see if there are any gaps in your content, and be reminded of topics that you've already covered and can link back to in new blog posts.

* Find a list of seasonal events and awareness days. There are plenty out there to choose from so choose your favourites, maybe one or two for each month, and think about a related blog post that you could write. Maybe it's an issue that you've been touched by, or a related recipe or craft that you could share. You could create a page for each one and add in related thoughts and ideas as they come to you so that when the day comes around you have something ready to write up and publish.

* Start a list of social media status updates and prompts that you can post to Facebook or Twitter to inspire a conversation or spark engagement. If you have enough you could share them in a blog post, maybe themed by season or blog niche.

* Come up with a list of photo challenges or blog post challenges that you could set for fellow bloggers. For example you could come up with a list of themes for each day of the month and encourage others to join in by posting a daily photo to Instagram or Twitter.

* Explore what blogging means to you. For example:

- Why I'm glad that I started this blog
- What I enjoy most about writing my blog
- Why I write a blog
- What I've learned from blogging
- What I've gained from blogging
- Advice for new bloggers
- What I'd do differently when it comes to my blog
- Where I want to take my blog

These don't need to be written up into a blog post, but they are a way of helping to think positively about your blog and what you've achieved, especially if you are becoming disheartened or feeling that you can't compare to others.

* Keep a record of your statistics over time - the number of posts written, number of followers on different platforms and so on.

* Lay out and track your blogging goals. Either specific goals such as reaching a certain number of followers, or a more general aim like creating a viral meme or setting up a social media scheduler. Think about what needs to be done to meet each goal by writing out a specific list of actionable tasks that you can tick off when they are complete.

* Brainstorm potential blog post ideas, trying to be as specific when it comes to the title as possible. There is lots of inspiration for blog post ideas online, for example my entire year of blog post ideas and inspiration. From time to time I like to challenge myself to quickly come up with five or ten different ideas for blog posts, and then I immediately schedule them in my editorial calendar to encourage me to get them written up.

I hope that these ideas give you some inspiration the next time you're staring at a blank page in your journal!

Photo credit Kyle Glenn via Unsplash

Main image credit Ana Tavares via Unsplash.

Wightlink Ferries to the Isle of Wight review #ad

Ad - We received a complimentary return ferry crossing from Portsmouth to Fishbourne in exchange for this blog post.

We've just returned from a wonderful family holiday on the Isle of Wight. Although we live pretty close, and have often seen the island in the distance, it was our first visit, and we had such a lovely time that I'm certain we'll be back!

There are several different ways that you can reach the island. Our closest port is Portsmouth, and so we chose to travel with Wightlink which offers three different routes from the mainland. You can travel with your car from either Portsmouth Gunwharf to Fishbourne or Lymington to Yarmouth, or as a foot passenger you can travel by FastCat from Portsmouth Harbour to Ryde Pier. We were taking our car and so we used the Portsmouth Gunwharf to Fishbourne route. The route to the port in Portsmouth was very well signposted, and as we'd made sure to arrive at the earliest recommended time we ended up making an earlier ferry which was a big bonus! This crossing over the Solent takes just 45 minutes.

Loading the cars onto the ferry was simple and speedy in both directions. While you are waiting to board, both Portsmouth and Fishbourne have facilities for passengers, including toilets with baby change and hot drinks. You need to leave your car once it has been loaded on to the ferry and head to the passenger decks and lounges for the journey. The ferry leaves as soon as the last car is loaded, so if you are among the final passengers to board you'll be underway by the time you reach the deck!

Sailing from Portsmouth you have a beautiful view of the city, the skyline dominated by the Spinnaker Tower. We were lucky that the weather was lovely for both our crossings so we were able to enjoy the sunny decks, and there was barely any motion from the waves. If the weather is more inclement then there are plenty of places to relax inside the ferry, alongside toilets and cafe facilities.

On our ferry there was a small area inside set aside for children with large windows and padded seats, I think Harry could have stayed here all day! It's such a busy stretch of water that there is always something interesting out there to spot.

Up on deck you can see land in both directions so it's easy to see how much of the crossing is remaining. I was really impressed by how smooth and enjoyable our ferry journey was. I'm sure we'll definitely be using Wightlink to make this crossing in the future!

I made a short video of our crossing which you can see below - enjoy!

Useful things that you can make using Hama beads

I love that Hama beads are such a versatile crafting material. There are plenty of ways that you can craft with them rather than just creating different patterns and shapes. I'm all about creating things that have a purpose, and so here I've rounded up some ideas for Hama bead craft projects that can be used to make something useful. There are some great gift ideas too!

Related post - A year of Hama bead crafts

I really love my Hama bead jam jar storage. I took old jam jars and tins and made colourful wide strips of Hama beads to decorate them. When the Hama beads are still warm from the iron they are supple and can be formed into a curved shape that will hold once the beads have cooled. Then you can glue them to the outside of the jars or tins. It also makes the jars easy to pick up and carry!

I love using Hama bead photo frames to display my favourite photos and postcards. I've made several different themed frames, and you can use colours and patterns that match both your decor and the theme of the pictures.

I use these Mini Hama bead decorative plant markers to brighten up my pot plants. They are so colourful, and the mini Hama beads can be used to create some lovely and intricate designs in the same range of bright colours as the larger beads.

Related post - A guide to using mini Hama beads

This Hama bead hair clip hanger is a great way to display a couple of Hama bead creations. Just fix a larger piece to one end of a long piece of ribbon and a smaller piece to the bottom. When hung on the wall it makes a great place to display and organise hair clips, and you could also use it for pin badges or buttons.

Related post - Ironing tips for Hama beads

Hama bead keyrings make a really useful and practical gift. I made these Minecraft key rings as party bag gifts for a Minecraft themed party. We've also made key rings using the mini flower peg board. The children love them for decorating their school bags!

Hama bead Emoji magnets are another useful gift. We've made them using the Minecraft templates that we used for the key rings above, and we also came up with our own Emoji based designs. They were a great hit with other children at the school summer fair!

Finally you can never have enough coasters, and I've made Hama bead coasters in a variety of seasonal designs, including Diwali, Halloween, Autumn and Easter.

I hope that my designs have inspired you to get crafty this summer, happy Hama bead crafting!

You can find many more Hama bead projects on my dedicated Hama beads page.

Why I want my children to travel the world

As a family we love to travel, and we have been lucky enough to enjoy some wonderful experiences. We are very varied in where we stay, from self-catering cottages to cruise ships to tents. We also travel all over the place, from the campsite up the road, to cities in our own continent, and to faraway countries on the other side of the world.

I know that my children are still young, and there are many things that they don't or won't remember.  But I will always have my own memories of sharing these experiences with them, and I hope that they will grow up remembering an interesting and exciting childhood.

We prioritise travel above many other things in our household budget - our house and clothes are definitely a little scruffy - but I'm so grateful for all the opportunities that we have had.

So I thought I'd write about some of the reasons that travel is brilliant for our family, and why I want my children to see the world.

* Travel helps to enhance their learning. We try our best to find attractions that relate to relevant school topics. So we have seen real Viking ships in Norway, a Roman villa reconstruction in Los Angeles, and numerous castles and forts.

* We can expose them to different cultures. For example in Singapore you can visit temples belonging to many different religions, all located within walking distance of each other.

* They see different languages being spoken. As someone that has studied languages, I think that language learning is really important and I want them to understand that too.

* While we are away we become a single family unit, depending upon and helping one another. We work together to plan itineraries and solve problems.

* The children can be given some responsibility, even if that's just helping themselves to their own food from a buffet dinner, or a short walk back to the hotel room to fetch something.

* We learn to enjoy each other's company, to play games together, talk together, or just sit in companionable silence reading, without the distractions of home and work.

* Time spent travelling from one place to another means that children need to learn to entertain themselves and be happy in their own company. They know to pack books, puzzle books, and pens and paper alongside electronic devices, and they are very good at sitting still for long periods in the car or plane.

* The children are used to living and sleeping in different environments, with different food, routines, and away from the comforts of home.

* They are able to learn about the different ways that other countries deal with the same problems, and think about whether the solution is better or worse than where we live. For example social problems like homelessness, or practical problems like recycling and public transport. This is something that I really thought about when I spent a year living in Germany for my degree, and it always interests me to see how different countries and cultures are both similar and different.

Do you enjoy travel with your children when you can? What do you think they learn from it?