Last month we paid a visit to my mum and dad. They took us to Umberslade Farm Park.
I must admit to not having heard about this place. But I can report that it is one of the best child-centric farms we've ever been to. This fortunately makes the substantial entrance fee worthwhile. We picnicked, had a tractor-powered tour of the lower field, and fed the hungry ducks. Additionally, Olive had a ride on a 30-year-old pony called Polly, handled some cute animals and enjoyed the fine playground.
We both had Wednesday off work. My mum and dad came up for a short visit, and we all went to the Great Yorkshire Show.
Despite setting out at what I consider to be the fairly early time of 9am, we spent a long time sat in queue of snails pace traffic. I subsequently found out that ignoring the officially signed route and an earlier start is the trick to avoiding the jams.
The weather was pretty much dry and almost warm. Gemma's mum called to say that 'Prince Charles and her' were going to the show today. We already knew this, and when we found ourselves near some pens in which Charles was to be judging sheep in a few minutes we made sure we headed for the other side of the site. She (Gemma's mum, not 'her') also said she had just seen Olive and me walk across the background of a live report on the lunchtime edition of Calendar.
We stopped on a grassy knoll to eat our picnic, and managed to see stalls, shops, exhibits and animals in all corners of the extensive Harrogate Showground. Olive loved meeting all of the animals, especially the pigs.
I took a couple of opportunities to snap the views with my still-favourite new toy:
I saw this on my way home from work today, and thought I might share it with you.
I saw these classy garden ornaments a while back in the Crossgates branch of Wilkinsons.
If you're an ornithologist who likes outdoor lighting powered by renewable energy, these might just be idea gifts.
To mark Gemma's 30th birthday, we went on a mini-holiday to London. We really like London, and agreed that we both rate this as our favourite English city.We stopped in an apartment, which was like a nice budget hotel with the bonus of there being a kitchenette in the room. Olive had the bedroom with it's comfy bed all to herself, whilst we slept in the slightly wonky and subsequently uncomfortable sofa-bed.
Both of us having iPhones revolutionised the way we were able to plan. We could check the tube or bus routes, keep an eye on our Oyster credit, look at maps, opening times and information about the places we were at. Much easier than carrying handfuls of maps, leaflets and timetables. And of course the information was live.
Here is a list of the main things we did:
And here are some pictures, mainly of the zoo, but bookended by the park and the museum.
I introduced Olive to the worms last weekend.
Gemma bought me a wormery a couple of years ago. But it is only in the last couple of months that the wrigglers have started producing an unbelievable volume of liquid fertiliser.
Just look at how much I've syphoned off since November! This doesn't include the bottle used on our houseplants, or the three jars I gave to my dad as part of his birthday present last month.
Olive helped me drain some more of the surprisingly non-stinky, dark brown liquid (it has a kind of tart, earthy aroma), then we emptied the almost overflowing contents of the kitchen caddy to the wormery.
We needed to flatten the reeking and rotting top layer of food before doing this. Finally, we spied on the worms in the middle layer, which is essentially an odourless compost.
There is a self-service catering toaster in our canteen at work. I have recently noticed that the dial for controlling the degree of toasting features potentially confusing labelling. Instead of there being 'High' and 'Low', 'Hi' and 'Lo', 'Light' and 'Dark' or some other variation of short words, the control dial has silhouette of a hare and of a tortoise.
The dial works by controlling the speed of the conveyor upon which the raw bread is placed, so it seems reasonable to use these fabled animals to indicate the speed setting, and the resulting toasting preference. Doesn't it?
Well, if you think about the story of The Tortoise And The Hare for a moment, then you will realise what is wrong with this choice of illustration. Call me a pedant, but didn't the tale tell of the tortoise winning the race? It must follow that for lightly toasted bread, you should select the tortoise setting.
Monday was a warm sunny day, ideal for our planned jaunt to the West Midlands Safari Park. Another stalwart of my school trip days, this was Olive's first proper encounter with your non-standard, non-UK animals. And we figured she is old enough now to appreciate a little of what she was seeing and we hoped she would enjoy it. I am pleased that she did.
After the long, slow drive round the four-mile route through the reserves, we went to the rides but didn't go on any. The £13 entrance fee is excellent value, but the rides are a bit pricey. We limited ourselves to lunch, the sea-lion show (which was pretty lame), an ice cream, a look in on the goats, and a couple of goes on the lion-race game (I won the second game - although it was only me and Gemma playing then - and won Olive a cuddly donkey).
On the Sunday, after breakfast, we went to Temple Newsam Farm. This is usually a reliable day out, especially if you have children, and so it proved to be on this occasion.
