The lovely thing about National Trust membership is that you don’t have to commit to a whole day out if you don’t want to, there are so many lovely places to just dip in and out of.

One of these is Speke Hall in Liverpool, ten minutes or so drive from where my parents live.

A couple of weeks ago Anna was staying with Nanna and Grandad by herself and they went for a full day out to Speke. Anna is fascinated by history, and she loved looking round Speke Hall itself, a beautiful Tudor Manor house, and spotting the priest’s hole and spy holes which tell of the owning family’s Catholic faith at a time when that was persecuted. She also loved the new Childe of Hale trail which celebrates a local hero – the Childe of Hale, John Myddelton, was an astounding nine foot three inches tall. And, being seven she also thoroughly enjoyed the woodland adventure playground complete with zip wire, and the millionaire’s shortbread in the tearoom afterwards! I wasn’t there, but I may as well have been because I’ve heard all about it!

This week, Anna is off in Cornwall with Daddy and Granny, and Sophia and I have come to stay with my parents for a few days. Apart from some very welcome cosseting following Sophia’s frightening experience we didn’t have many plans. It was such a lovely day today, though, that we decided to pop into Speke Hall this morning.

Sophia’s interest in historic houses and historic figures is perhaps understandably at a pre-embryonic stage, so today we headed straight for the playground for smaller children. Sophia busied herself clambering up the ladder and whee-ing down the slide, and then we went and played ball on one of the open grassy spaces with beautiful views across the Mersey estuary.

After a stroll through the pretty orchards and walled kitchen garden, an increasing grumpiness and sleepiness (from Sophia, rather than my parents) indicated it was probably lunchtime and nap time, so we headed for home. We’d only been there for an hour, but to my mind little excursions like that are what add up to making family membership of the NT so worthwhile, and there’s no sense of guilt that you haven’t ‘made the most’ of your admission fee.

Incidentally, down in Cornwall my husband has taken Anna to St Michael’s Mount (National Trust), and they’ve been walking on the coastal path (National Trust) and are off to the beach this afternoon (National Trust!), so we’re definitely getting good value for money.

And now it’s a lazy sunny afternoon, and I’m gazing out at my dad’s beautiful garden, having a chance to blog whilst my parents entertain Sophia. Earlier we had lunch in the garden, with tomatoes plucked from the vine literally seconds before eating, and the obligatory Magnum to follow and possibly, just possibly, I am allowing myself to relax fractionally.