On Orkney, there are 4 islands that you can drive between thanks to the Churchill Barriers. We also wanted to visit another island entirely, so decided to take the little 8-car ferry from Tingwall on the Orkney Mainland to Rousay.

The single, sole downside to visiting Orkney out of season is that many of the touristy things are closed until summer. Oh well, that just gave us another excuse to plan a return visit next summer!

We had an action-packed holiday in Yorkshire and as a measure of how busy we were the toddler slept for over 12 hours each night (unheard of) and even the newborn managed several hours of sleep at a time (wowser).

We're just home from an excellent week spent on the Yorkshire coast. Based in Staithes we revelled in the first glimpses of real sunshine this year and dragged the girls to an array of local beaches.

When we first visited Orkney for a long weekend 2 years ago, we’d driven past the Standing Stones of Stenness and Ring of Brodgar (they’re about a mile apart) because 2 out of 3 minxes had been asleep, so we hadn’t gotten the chance to explore. They were definitely on our list of things to see this time round!

Halfway through our Easter trip to Orkney, we decided to have a bit of a rest day and drive round to Stromness. Innocently following what looked like the main road on the map took us right through the centre of the beautiful town.

You know us by now and our beach fascination... so it’ll be no surprise that on our first full day in Orkney over Easter we set off first to explore the local beach, Sand Wick in South Ronaldsay: a clean, empty crescent of white sand.

We’ve lived in Moray for 6 years now, and never visited the iconic Bow Fiddle Rock. Shocking! So today we rectified that. It’s not at all difficult to get to: it’s only a minute’s walk along the Moray Coast trail from the end of the road at Portknockie.

Saturday was so nice and sunny it looked like spring was finally here. It really was the perfect day for a trip to the beach but then again it was also great bike riding weather. Aargh decisions, decisions – bike or beach. After umming and arring for a while we eventually decided– both!

We love the colours of spring! It suddenly seems as if the hedgerows have burst into colour with yellows and pinks framed by fresh green leaves. Our biggest Little Trekker took me on a colour hunt up and around our countryside lanes.