I’m finally back with a Me & Mine post! I knew I hadn’t written one for a while but when I looked back it turns out I haven’t done one since January! I just didn’t get round to taking any family pictures in February and then lock down came at the end of March and until the last few days we haven’t been anywhere at all.

Even though it feels like a time I should be documenting I just haven’t felt like writing about it. But this month I managed to get a couple of pictures of the four of us and so here we are.

It was my 42nd birthday last week so we ordered afternoon tea to be delivered from one of our favourite cafes (The Black Sheep Tearoom in Lytham if you’re local) and it was amazing. It was such a lovely birthday treat and we were still eating the cake the next day!

Since lock down started back in March we have barely left the house. I’ve been to the supermarket a couple of times and the boys have come with me in the car to pick up our click and collect shopping from Tesco. Barry has been for a few walks around the local streets but that’s about it!

We’re very lucky to have a garden the boys can play in (the trampoline has been brilliant for keeping them busy, and enclosed) and we live on a cul-de-sac so they can go on their scooters and bikes in the road outside our house too. We just haven’t needed or wanted to go anywhere really so we’ve just stayed at home.

The day after my birthday though we all got in the car for the first time in 10 weeks and drove half an hour to a local hill called Nicky Nook. We took sandwiches and spent a lovely few hours walking in the woods and up the hill where we had amazing views of the whole Fylde coast and all the way to the Lake District.

There were quite a few people about but not so many that it was difficult to keep our distance. We walked about four and a half miles in the end and although the boys moaned a bit, especially towards the end, they both did a great job! I think we all enjoyed being out of the house somewhere different for a while – Toby says he never wants to climb another hill again though!

We took this selfie at the top of the hill, and I have no idea what’s going on with Gabe’s face! I always found it hard to ask strangers to take a photo for us but I don’t suppose we’ll be able to do that for quite a while now anyway. I actually caved and bought a selfie stick this week because it’s too hard to fit us all in an arm’s length selfie anymore! It hadn’t been delivered in time to take this picture though – maybe next month…

I’m going to try and make sure I keep up with these Me & Mine posts for the rest of the year now. I’ve been doing them for six and a half years so it would be a shame to stop now!

This is my seventh year of taking Me & Mine family portraits. You can see all the rest of the posts here.