Starting the week by writing the Happy List is something I’ve been doing for the last few years. It’s my chance to sit down and reflect on the things that made me smile in the previous week, as well as to record some of our family adventures.

Five Happy Things {Week 36/2025}

We started last week using our National Trust membership cards to visit Stourhead in Wiltshire. This was a place we visited many years ago when the kids were little and it was fun to visit again now they are older. We managed a walk around the beautiful lake before it clouded over, and made it back to the lovely cafe before thunder and lightning set in.

The teens went back to school on Wednesday. The summer holidays felt short this year but we managed to cross off nearly everything from our family bucket list, from crazy golf to baking, geocaching to visiting a local waffle place.

Over the weekend we went school shoe shopping (!) and decided to treat ourselves to a drink in the Hotel Chocolat cocoa bar cafe. We had never visited before but it’s starting to feel like the weather for hot chocolate. We had the most amazing hot chocolates with cacao whip on top.

Thankfully we had the chance to burn off all those calories with a trip to Swinley Forest to cycle one of the many bike trails through the forest. The weather was lovely but not too hot, so it was perfect for a bike ride. We stopped for lunch afterwards, they have a great cafe and kids play area too.

We popped over to my mum’s so Little Sis could do some painting for her. She loves to earn extra pocket money and it’s great that she was able to pick up some new skills too!