Country Kids: Porthkerry Park

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The azure sky and white-hot sun beckoned us out to play today, so we popped our welly-boots on and hot-tailed it down to Porthkerry Park for some fun and games. We'd tried to have fun with The Boy there last year when the new playpark has opened, but he was a little too young for it at the time. Now he's more physically confident, he adored the challenge.

After doing a fantastic impression of Spiderman on the climbing frame, we had a bear hunt through the woods looking for interesting shaped leaves for some art work, and ended up on the beach making pebble towers, plopping and skimming stones and riding fallen trees before squelching our way back through the mud to wrestle our boots off.

porthkerry park

Please excuse the rubbish quality on these images. Taken with my fantabulous dSLR but uploaded via wireless tethering on my phone due to Sky not getting their arses in gear and delivering our new router to us. I miss ADSL.

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coombe mill

Country Kids: At Home With Coombe Mill

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We've come for a short break down to Coombe Mill for a few days and I have to say that I think I've found paradise on Earth! Having been to a few places that have Scandinavian lodges as their accommodation, it is refreshing to come to a similar place but with the difference that this has the great outdoors as the entertainment and what an outdoors it is.

This thirty acre site has a beautiful and melodic river running through it which is the soundtrack to our stay, a plethora of children's play areas for different abilities and desires, and the most fantastic animal farm we've seen.

Yesterday we had fun exploring the play areas…

… including some twilight trampoline jumping!

Today we set off after a hearty breakfast to enjoy the feed run. I'll admit I was sceptical about this as The Boy has always been apprehensive about animals, especially those which are similar in size to him, so I expected lots of, "Can you carry me?!"

However…

… he even told us he uncurled the pig's tail!

But for him the best bit of the day was this…

… under a small amount of direction, he was genuinely steering this tractor!

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coombe mill

How To Have A Pirate Treasure Hunt

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That Peppa Pig has got a lot to answer for you know! Thanks to her and her friends on Pirate Island, we've had to hold a treasure hunt, although I have managed to stop short of making a metal detector to find treasure in the garden. (Maybe we could pretend there's treasure in the defunct vegetable patch which might convince Mr. TBaM to dig it over?)

If you want to have a treasure hunt, you'll need:

pirate craft

a map, a telescope and a treasure chest…

pirate craft

We used these pirate masks which are pre-cut, pre-strung and adhesive.

pirate craft

We used tea bags onto a picture of our garden I'd drawn and The Boy had coloured in. Torn edges make it look more authentic.

pirate craft

And of course, no treasure hunt is complete without a treasure chest and a spyglass to help find the secret stash.

pirate craft

And the reward? The best chocolate coins that mummy can find in August!

I was provided with the linked items by Yellow Moon to see what I could do with them. The ideas and activities are my own.

Country Kids: Country Wide

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This weekend has seen us go from one side of England to the other and back again. Aside from the overnighters in hotels, we've been outside all the time and it's been brilliant to take advantage of the beautiful, albeit stiflingly hot, weather.

On Friday night we drove to Reading, where we stayed overnight before heading off to the LolliBop children's festival in Regent's Park, London. It was a blisteringly hot day, and someone decided that black would be a good colour to wear. I think at one point I actually almost passed out as my vision was swimming and my head was light. However, I'm made of sterner stuff and don't do fainting. All I needed was an Oreo cookie milkshake and the sight of Messers Maker and Winters entertaining my son to perk me up. (The pint of water and paracetomal may have helped!)

LolliBop is a great festival and I've never been in Regent's Park before so it was refreshingly beautiful when surrounded by the grey buildings of London. The festival is a riot of colour, sounds and entertainment, and we thoroughly enjoyed everything there. However, we were only too happy to be back on the train heading out of the smoke later that afternoon where we picked up the car and drove to Gloucester where we did another overnighter in a different Premier Inn. This one was fantastic and tranquil, in the middle of a lovely country village with a stereotypically quaint pub attached.

This morning we packed up early and headed off to the Forest of Dean to surprise The Boy with a Thomas Days Out trip. The Boy has recently started a fascination with the little blue engine and we regularly have to sing the theme music. Today was no different once he'd found out what was going on. Seeing his little face break out with sheer delight when Thomas chugged into the station made my heart burst, he had the best time riding on a vintage steam train and meeting Sir Topham Hatt.

To finish the weekend off, we drove up to Puzzlewood near Coleford. It's a stunning small forest that we've been to before and is such a gem to explore. At the time The Boy was only 20 months old and fell asleep while we were walking around, so this time I was very eager to show off the wonders of the mysterious woods (used in Merlin and Doctor Who). He didn't disappoint as he traipsed around the moss and mud-ladened tracks, exploring steep paths, stone steps and searching for The Gruffalo at any opportunity!

And of course the weekend wouldn't be complete without a splash in the paddling pool, right before turning his hand to his first ever spot of car cleaning!

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Country Kids: Ahoy There M'Hearties!

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In a break in the weather this weekend we decided that The Boy needed some more practise scooting and pedalling, and so we packed up various paraphernalia and headed down to Cardiff Bay Barrage. It's an ideal place for The Boy to practise his bike-riding because it's completely flat and there is no traffic on the road.

It's normally packed down there, especially on a Sunday, but there was only a handful of people around! It meant that The Boy had plenty of space tonot perfect his steering, but to focus on not falling off his scooter as he noticed the mud dredgers in the Bristol Channel. We then ended up like typical parents, having to carry his scooter while he rode the rest of the way to the sand park three quarters of the way across.

It's a fantastic park, completely enclosed with only one way in and out, but the best bit is the theme: it continues the maritime theme by having a 'shipwrecked' pirate ship 'sunk' into the sand. As there wasn't another child in sight, The Boy had free run of the park and we spent a good half an hour or so there, pretending to be pirate captains.

We haven't been there in about two months, and it was fantastic to see the difference in The Boy's physical development. This time he was perfectly confident and happy to climb the nets or the climbing wall whereas before he's been too worried about falling and hurting himself. He's had a growtth spurt at the moment so I think it helped that he could reach the next step each time.

cardiff bay barrage pirate park

cardiff bay barrage pirate park

I'm hoping that this boost in confidence will help him keep up with Burton from Mummy Mishaps when we meet up on Thursday!

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Country Kids: Fun In The Sun

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With the cobalt blue sky and the sun shining so beautifully all week, getting out and about has been an absolute must for us. It coincided brilliantly with the start of the holidays, and has ensured that we haven't wasted our time together!

Sunday – Gruffalo Hunting

On the way back from Silverstone on Sunday, we stopped off at an RSPB nature walk to stretch our legs. While we were hunting for The Gruffalo and calling out to mouse to see if he knew where he was, we came across a cave and The Boy just had to explore it to see if anyone was inside!

Pebble Plopping

After Mr. TBaM got home from work on Monday, we nipped down to our local beach to partake in some pebble plopping. Mr. TBaM was determined he'd be able to skim stones, whereas The Boy just wanted to make the biggest single plop possible.

Sandplay

We met up with our toddler group down at Barry Island beach and managed to avoid high tide, but only just. Then, because we hadn't played with enough sand, we came home and built some more sandcastles.

Clifftop Picnic

On a Friday morning The Boy goes to nursery. While he's there he has lunch, but because he has so much to say for himself, he never eats well and quite often doesn't like what they give him anyway (spinach and potato pie for example). I'm not bothered because the socialisation is more important for him, but when I pick him up we always have to have a second lunch to make sure he's had enough to eat. I decided to take him to the clifftop park for he could burn off some more energy and eat a picnic lunch.

Pirates at Barry Island

The sun today heralded more outdoor play so we headed for the beach again. We originally went further down the coastline to Southerndown beach, but the problem is that when high tide is approaching there it covers all the sand and only leaves a swathe of rocks. Cue an about turn and off to the old faithful of Barry Island! More sandcastles, more buried The Boy, and finishing up with a round of pirate mini-golf!

Hope next week is just as activity filled!

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Going To The Island

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Recently I wrote a post that was our own version of the National Trust's list of Fifty Things To Do Before You're 11¾, adapting it, as The Boy's birthday was imminent, to Five Things To Do Before You're Three!

About a month ago, we decided it was a glorious day and the tide was out (the Bristol Channel has the second highest tidal range in the world after Nova Scotia) so it would be an ideal time to attempt a walk over to a nearby 'island'. I use the inverted commas around it because at low tide it is connected to the mainland by a causeway covered in rockpools, at high tide it's an island. There's nothing on this island apart from a wrecked boat, a swamp and some rather spectacular views of the Bristol Channel and England, it's also only about two hundred yards wide and four hundred yards long, if that. However, an island it is and it was on our list.

The tide was very low when we set off under the midday sun (and wind), giving us at least three hours before it started turning back in again. Plenty of time for us to have our picnic lunch on the beach, explore the rockpools and get to the island and back again. I wasn't convinced The Boy would manage it in all honesty, but it's amazing how little ones can just keep on going if you take it at their pace.

It was an eye-opener for not only The Boy; all the aspects of living on the coast that I assumed everyone knew about, always amaze my husband as he grew up in the heart of England. We discovered mermaid's purses, the difference between wet and dry seaweed, barnacles (Like Captain Barnacle Mummy!), there was a small crab in one rockpool, and salt crystals in a dried-up pool.

And when we got to the island, I realised that I've lived here all my life and never been all the way there before! And the view is spectacular.

[slickr-flickr tag='GoingToTheIsland']

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