Happy Easter!

I hope you had a great Easter, I certainly did. We spent quite a bit of the Easter weekend enjoying the Lake District, which is pretty easy to get to from here. It was so lovely walking around Kendal, having lunch on the banks of Windermere and exploring the Grasmere area. The weather was pretty good on the whole and the views were magnificent. If you’ve never been to the Lake District you really should visit.

Although we spent much of the weekend out and about there was still time for my favourite pastime – eating chocolate! (There’s always time for eating chocolate!) The kids bought Ben and I a huge Easter egg to share and the kids received lots of eggs from the family, as usual. They spent most of the weekend scoffing chocolate and feeling sick … oh to be young again! We also had the customary giving of clothes – a tradition that has been in our family for as long as anyone can remember.

My grandmother once told me that when she was young it was very common for families to give presents of clothes at Easter. Back in her day buying new clothes was a special occurrence for most families and it often coincided with special occasions like Christmas, birthdays and Easter. These days buying new clothes is much more commonplace, but in my view buying new clothes for special occasions (like Easter) is still important – it makes those occasions even more special.

This year Ben bought me a beautiful new Armani Collezion double-breasted trench coat from Selfridges online. It is so comfortable and stylish; you can really feel the quality. And it goes perfectly with the Armani stretch-cotton pencil skirt that Ben bought me last year. I can’t wait to show Judy, she’ll be so envious!

I bought Ben a collection of high quality ties from M&S online. He already has dozens of ties but they’re getting a bit old and shabby so I decided he needed some new ones. They have so many great ties at M&S that I was spoiled for choice, but in the end I went for two from the M&S Collection and two from the Collezione collection. They’re all great quality, but the Collezione ties are especially good – they’re made in Italy from pure silk and they feel so soft and smooth.

We bought Keith a pair of top quality pretty originals boys white patent shoes in leather from Cachet Kids. They have 100% white patent leather upper and leather lined interior. He was so pleased with them and they looked great when he tried them on.

Crissy really loves fancy socks and so we bought her lots of pom pom socks and satin bow socks from Cachet Kids. They had many different colours and we ended up buying a few of each. I think that my favourite ones were the girls knee high fuchsia socks with satin bows; they looked really striking.

Simon is a bundle of fun and he loves to dress up so we bought him a boys pirate outfit in blue and white with hat and sword from Cachet kids. It was such good value (as you’d expect from Cachet Kids) and Simon really loved it. In fact, it was hard work getting him to wear anything else for the rest of the weekend!

Last but not least, Sarah is going to a friend’s birthday party in a few weeks and so we bought her a very pretty special occasion dress from Cachet Kids. I just love the intricate decorations and subtle use of colour on the dress. She’s going to look absolutely gorgeous!