A couple Sunday's ago now, I took my little sister to the National Marine Aquarium down in Plymouth as a special 'big sister-little sister' day out. We (not as often as I'd like) have these days, mornings, afternoons, evenings, whatevers together to spend quality one on one sister time, but we don't often venture outside our hometown of Exeter, usually choosing to go shopping or to the cinema, which is fun but samey. Coincidentally, our sister days often collide with the release of a new Disney film...
Colouring pencils and a colouring book are of course vital for on train entertainment
The train journey down to Plymouth is such a beautiful one, all down the Devon coast
Spending time together with my little sister like this is just so precious, half the time I'm so busy I barely get to see her, so to catch up and chat is just the best honestly, and we had such an amazing time exploring the aquarium and doing a spot of shopping and caramel milkshake drinking in Plymouth. The aquarium is such a good one, full of pretty fishes and sharks and all sorts of interesting sea type things. I'm horrifically scared of boats and all things ocean usually, but I did love the aquarium, it felt a little like being in a different world. And Plymouth itself is always pretty great for shopping. Good day all round.
We prepared very thoroughly for our little excursion: an essential when you're taking a ten year old out for the day. She loves to have a little bit of independence, so I packed her a colouring book, some colouring pencils, headphones, iPad (with BBC iplayer programmes downloaded), a snack, a drink and some little girl essentials (lipgloss, small body spray etc) in her Cath Kidston backpack, and packed lunch, more drinks and the camera, along with my purse, hand cream etc into my larger backpack. Thus we were set up for our trip and ready to catch the train for a day of adventure, and what a day it was! (I didn't even get lost, which for someone who can get lost in her own village was a pretty impressive feat). We spent a good couple hours exploring the aquarium, before lunch on the hoe overlooking the sea, watching out for the ferries (we saw none). It was freezing, but great fun. Then we headed back into the city centre to Drakes Circus, tried on plenty of insanely high heels, and stopped at our new favourite coffee shop The Coffee Bean for the best caramel milkshakes. Finally it was back to the train and back home for a Sunday roast! I utterly adore days like this, and shall probably blog about them in the future, as and when we have more sister days together.
Lunch overlooking the sea from the hoe
Aforementioned best caramel milkshakes (and cheeky slice of millionaire's shortbread) at The Coffee Bean
x
