It's March and of course that means we have to share our obligatory start of season fishing adventure! This year the first day was a weekday - and not great weather - so only the most hardy in the family ventured out. But the fist weekend of the season was just nice enough to lure me out too for a full family-fishing adventure.

Canoe camping has been on our to do list for a long time but we never seem to mange to pull it off.

The fantastic scenery and numerous opportunities to get out and about in the wonderful great outdoors was one of the major draws for our move back up to Scotland. Though so far we haven’t ventured very far from home. Although not too far away we thought we should at least head somewhere new with Sophie and James. So we packed up our canoeing stuff and headed to Loch Earn.

In Scotland changeable weather is of course the norm, but this year spring and early summer were particularly miserable, and changeable.

I am sure there are things in your family outdoor life you ALWAYS wanted to do? Climb that mountain, walk that path, paddle to destination X, sail to Y, cycle to Z ...

Inspired by a post from another Ambassador earlier in the year we had made it our business to acquire a Morphibian for the LTs to enjoy on our summer holiday. These amazingly robust remote control toys work on land and in water, and Joe couldn't contain his excitement when we produced it from the back of the car with a flourish one sunny day in Switzerland.

After our eye opening family cycle ride the previous week, we were on the lookout for a not just mostly flat but a really very flat bike ride.

We are still on our 'First' time adventures theme, and might be for a while, as we have not yet run out on options. Added to the mix this time a friend whom you have met in other blog posts, our Chinese friend Qun.

James had been itching to get out canoe camping again but the weather gods had been refusing to play ball. After a couple of weeks of cancelled plans, we decided it was now or never.

We don’t usually go away on a ‘proper’ holiday over the summer - too crowded and too expensive - but this year we decided to try something different, and booked a week of ‘glamping’ in Italy.

With 2 adults, 2 children and a dog our poor canoe is starting to burst at the seams. So with Sophie getting a bit bigger we decided to brave it and start venturing out in two canoes.

The River Esk through Edzell isn’t the only gorge in NE Scotland - there’s a wee bit of the Cairngorms that Jon and I have fancied visiting for ages, near Dinnet. With a let-up in all the rain (finally!) over the middle weekend in May, we decided to go and look for ourselves. !