We're off to Neverland! The Lost Boys' Day Out

A couple of weekends ago, we took a Sunday trip to somewhere we used to go when I was but a wee lassie; The Den in Kirriemuir.

The entrance to the Den - under a road!

Lots of bridges for Pooh sticks of course

 It's a gorgeous, sprawling stretch of park, which must be ancient.  Lined by a fast-flowing river that starts at the most beautiful waterfall, and surrounded by trees and acres of grass and wild flowers, the Den has a perfectly-sized little park in the middle.  It's quite old-hat now I imagine, what with the new and fancy Peter Pan play-park at the other end of Kirriemuir Hill, but in my mind, you can't beat this place.

A climbing frame that doesn't give me 'the fear'

Right-sized play-equipment that doesn't give me 'the fear'

The paddling pool - definitely coming back in the summer!

Picnic Time!

It even has a paddling pool that's filled in the summer, and tons of space for the perfect picnic.  After you've exhausted the playground facilities, there's a lovely short walk into the woods to the aforementioned waterfall, and back towards the car park again - perfect for little feet.  Quite long, but not too far and lots to distract. Brilliant!

Tom and I on our walk after the play-park

Gorgeous crocus display - they are everywhere in The Den

One of the many bridges over the river

A gorgeous walk up the stone steps to the waterfall

The waterfall view from the bridge

Today we had also come to see the new Peter Pan park.  Built in 2010, we'd never been.  In fact, we hadn't heard of it until recently, and what with Ethan's new Peter Pan obsession, we just had  to go!  What kind of parent would I be if I withheld that kind of information?

O.K, so we only got slightly lost.

We knew where the cemetery was, and that it bordered the cemetery.  But what actually happened is that in our frustrations we ended up in the cemetery.  But, serendipitously, we happened upon the man himself's grave.  The Peter Pan of Kirriemuir - the town's whole raison-de-etre: Mr James Matthew Barrie himself, creator of Peter Pan.

I have a special interest in Mr. Barrie's works, and if you have time, please spend it having a look at his birthplace, which is in Kirriemuir, just a street away from his headstone.  We've been once, when Tom was little, and it was great.  It's a National Trust site now and houses a lot of important information about one of Scotland's favourite sons. We will certainly be factoring in another visit soon.

'Arrr!'

Once we'd figured out where we were (at the back of the park) we managed to find our way to the top of Kirriemuir Hill and to Neverland.  And what an awesome sight it is.

We're off to Neverland!

What a splendid park.  A proper adventure for children, with imagination grabbers all over the place, all pretty much carved from wood.  It was beautiful and I can think of no better homage to Mr. Barrie and his timeless creation, than this marvelous play-park that feeds children's imaginations.

Peter, watching the magic from on-high

Ethan finally finishing his feud with Hook!

Escaping the ship on the slide!

At the helm

Watch out for tick-tock crocs!

Try not to get carried away though...

Escaping from Pirates!

It was a very windy day, and on the top of a hill means very little shelter, but we still had an ace time.  The kids can't wait to go back.  It's not too far from us either - I can forsee many happy memories being made her (as long as we go to The Den first!)

The Den at Kirriemuir was somewhere my sister and I would be taken to as children with my Nana and Grandad.  On the way home, he would always point out The Soldier On The Hill - a memorial to The Black Watch.  My Grandad served in The Black Watch in WW2, so I suppose it was quite poignant for him.  In a nod to him, we stopped on the way home to pay our respects - to all the lost men and boys, and my Grandad too; a lost boy himself, really.

It was quite moving to see my son pay his respects with his daddy, safe in the knowledge that neither of them would have to go through what my Grandad did.  In a way, he did it for us.  I made sure to explain to Tom as best I could about war and soldiers and WW2. He was very solemn.  He has a really good heart, that kid.

We left in the spirit we set out - adventure in our heart and happiness in our souls.

What a view!

Edinburgh Trip Report: Surviving The Capital With Two Small, Excited Children (part 1)

Holiday Time!

Day 1


We have spent the last two weeks fielding tantrums of the worst kind, dealing with bad behaviour, courting questions from two small, very excited, very anxious children about what is going to happen on holiday, how long we are going on holiday and how long it's going to take to get there.

Ethan has spent the last two weeks flipping out at the smallest things - the amount of milk we pour in his cup 'want it bigger!', getting to wear his wellies to nursery 'they my crocodile boots, my not like shoes!' and going to sleep at least two hours after being put to bed 'my. not. TIRED'.

He was, clearly, very bloody tired.

Thomas has had a breakdown at the school disco because he left his lunchbox in after-school club, he's had a breakdown on the way to school because I put an apple in his bag for play piece instead of Haribo sweets, and he has had a breakdown at bedtime because 'my bears are not all wanting to go to bed, they want to play my game with me.'

Dave spent the last week knackered after being away (in Edinburgh, har de har) at stupid-o-clock in the morning for training sessions for his job, I'm knackered from dealing with all of the end-of-term stuff plus work, plus the fall-out from what can only be described as annual pre-holiday hell courtesy of two small excited children and in short, we are all completely done in before we get there.

But when we get to that train station on Monday morning, bags packed with more teddy bears than we told them they could take (we didn't find out just how many Ethan had sneaked in until we got to the hotel) and picnic at the ready, we were all extremely relieved to be finally on our way.

Going anywhere with two small children is always going to be hard work.  You must plan everything to within an inch of it's life.

This is where the problem lies - I am a planner, Dave is not.  And when I am not carrying my A-game because I'm knackered, stressed and basically completely finished, then my planning ain't all that either.

Thus our Edinburgh trip, although it had a basic framework to it, didn't have the precise information needed to make it a completely stress-free and happy trip.  Yes, we had fun, but like most times when we go on holiday with two erratic balls of energy, we came home feeling like we really need a holiday!

There's a LOT of walking in Edinburgh!

Do yourselves a favour when planning a trip:

• Check the weather forecast before you spend nearly £50 booking a zoo trip
• Don't leave the house without making sure that everyone is wearing appropriate clothing in case it rains
• Make sure you have appropriate footwear for all the walking in the rain
• A packet of biscuits in your bag will save you approx. £17 in a National Museum
• Make sure you book your trip the week that all of the fun, free stuff actually starts - not the week before.
• If you book on the trainline.com, be aware of which train service provider will carry you to avoid disappointment 

That being said, we did have some great fun and the kids had a great time - which is all we went for.

Here's our Day 1 trip highlights:

The Train!

It was Ethan's first time on a train, and Tom's first time for a wee while, so this was actually a very pleasant way to spend an hour.  Once we were on the train (and the food was out of course), the kids just sat and chilled out and enjoyed the view from the windows as we went over the water.

The train was very busy and all seats were booked.  Like all under-5's, Ethan didn't have to pay for a seat, but this also meant that he didn't have a seat.  We were fortunate that we'd booked a table seat, thus nobody wanted to sit beside a family who were engrossed in eating and chatting total nonsense to each other, but if someone had seriously needed that seat, we would have had to give it up.

I do think train services should think better about placement of family groups on trains - especially as they charge so much.

Outside Art!

Passing the Mound precinct, we came across an outside gallery of a celebration of fluorescence in nature, called Living Lights

We spent about half an hour here just wandering around and having a look at this huge and interesting display.  Tom was really surprised to learn about all of the natural colours in nature and why animals and plants use them.  It was cool to see art on such a large and accessible scale too.

This is why i love Edinburgh - so much culture and art in one place, just naturally cropping up.  there's always a chance to learn.  It must be great to pass something like this on the way to work every day!

National Library!

One of the gorgeous book sculptures

I couldn't resist popping into the National Library - and they had an exhibit on about Scotland's Inventors.  It was a great excuse to have a nosey around and the kids loved seeing what we had come up with as a nation.  Plus, they are housing some of the gorgeous book sculptures which have been mysteriously appearing in libraries all over Edinburgh.  I saw them on tour a year or so ago and it was great to see the most recent ones on display.  If you've never heard of them before - check them out here

They are absolutely fascinating - and anonymously donated to various different libraries, each purporting the cause of libraries and their importance to society.


National Museum!

T-Rex! Huge teeth!

The museum was awesome.  The first thing we saw was the T-Rex skeleton, intermingled with other prehistoric and endangered critters.  This huge building is just filled with inter-active points of interest and is very well laid out.  We only had the afternoon, but after spending at least four hours in here, we were all exhausted.

My only gripe was the price of the cafe.  Trying to get a mid-afternoon snack to refuel a bit and get some more energy to carry on, we sat down in the cafe on the balcony.  Dave came back to our table with four medium-sized tray bakes and four cans of juice. Grimacing, he informed me that our little treat had just cost us somewhere in the region of £17!!  That was definitely a learning curve.

Tom checking out animal hearing frequencies

Our last inch of energy was given to the lovely children's area tucked away in a corner of the building, which had a dino-bone dig, dressing up boxes, tree-house and science experiments for little hands.  It was so good just to chill out here for a bit after trailing around and let the kids run free for a bit.

Ethan got stuck right in to the dressing up!

It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon, but we were really tired afterwards - and we still had to walk back to our hotel, which although was city centre, was still a fair walk for wee legs.

Pizza Express!

We did have a cheeky pit-stop at Pizza Express on the way home.  I would definitely recommend this place!  The food was amazing, the service was second-to-none and the kids were treated like royalty, even leaving with their own chef's hats at the end.  It was quite pricey, but we never eat out any more and we were on our holiday, so we tried to forget about it!

Chilling at the Hotel!

The Blue Rainbow Apart-Hotel was really good - a good value for money stay and somewhere I would book again without hesitation.  We were left to our own devices, everything was clean, comfortable and uncomplicated.  The location was great too - just a stone's throw away from anything you need and right opposite the National Portrait Gallery.  They were kind enough to let us check our bags in early too so we didn't have to lug them around Edinburgh, which would have proved painful!

All in all, a great first day's trip, with lots of little extras packed in.  And yes, the kids went to sleep with no complaints!

• See part Two of our trip HERE

Fun Easter Holiday Ideas

BORED?

The kids are off school, they are bored, they are restless. The clocks are going forward (thanks, Greenwich Mean Time- and on Mother's day?  Cheers for that hilarious irony) and more daylight means more time to fill.

But what to do with it?

Five fab tips from my two Blethering Boys.


1:  "Visit the Abrary!" (LIBRARY)

My kids love a visit to the library.  Our local Children's Centre is fun, engaging, there's always extra activities to do like colouring or lounging on the couches, and best of all, it's stuffed full of free things that they can take home to do too.  Every day if they want to!

Our local library runs special activities over the holidays (and during term-time) for the kids, storytelling, rhyme times and even games clubs for older children.

Here's an idea of what goes on at our particular 'abrary' via their always-updated Facebook Page.

As someone who works there, I know just how much time and effort goes into thinking great and imaginative things for the kids to do and we want them to come back for more!

Drop into your local library to see what goes on - I bet you'll find there's a lot more than just books.

Why not focus on a project over the holidays to give them a little bit of focus? Let your librarian help you with some books on your chosen subject.

There are some really cool books about Space - this one has lift-up flaps that keep Tom occupied for ages!

I think we are going to choose Space; there's tons of lovely books on that topic, we could make a Space model out of old recycling, we can watch Space themed movies (hired free from the library of course!) and we can visit a very special place...


2. "I really really REALLY want to go to the Observatory!  Please, please, please!?"

Check out Mills Observatory!

We are very lucky here in Dundee - we have an old Observatory  where families can visit either during the day to see all of the different instruments, or even better, late at night when the sun has set to have a look through the massive telescope.
  It's set in the middle of a huge park too, which is great for running around in after a visit, to let off even more steam.

Tom's been asking to go for weeks, and the holidays is a perfect time, as a later bedtime won't interrupt our early school mornings (and might get mum and dad a lie-in!)

Have a look and see if there's anything near you of a similar interest.  It might not be an Observatory - it might be an Earth House , a Secret Bunker (speakers down for that link!) or even something like a Camera Obscura.

Camera Obscura magnifies the surroundings - you can see for miles!  Kids are fascinated by it!

Make a point of visiting the smaller, less time-consuming bits and pieces around you.  A lot of them are free, spark a lot of interest for the kids and chances are, you'll learn something new too!

3. "My like the castle with the animals and the café in it Mummy!"

McManus Galleries, Dundee, Scotland

O.k, it's not a castle, but when you are 3 years old, everything looks huge and impressive, and our local museum is just that.  And yes, it does have stuffed animals and a rather nice café in it.  Buying our kids a slab of chocolate cake and a lemonade at the end of our wander around the exhibits basically earns me superhero status for the rest of the day too.

Check out your local museum during the holidays - most are cheap enough or even free, and they aren't the old, stuffy places that we went to when we were kids.  A lot have installed some amazing interactive displays and have added new media to keep the exhibits modern and fresh.

Our world has become so small through the internet that now a lot of kids know more about what is going on in a completely different continent than what has happened in their own back yard.  So make the most of your local history!

4. "Yeah, I wanna make a massive Happy Street!"

We have been blessed with a huge amount of Happy Land toys.  My lovely auntie saved them all for me from when her kids were small and I really appreciate it.  They are great - loads of wee people and houses and road and stuff that all amalgamate together into a land of long happy playtime.

We are really big on our play sets in this house, and I'm sure you all have some figurines and stuff too, just waiting to create their own tales.  In the holidays, we throw aside any ideas of keeping the house under any kind of tidiness and go for day-long, even two-day-long play set-fests that grow in size and shape.

Happyland and Tomica, with a dash of Chuggington Interactive!

The key is here to give your kids a platform to jump from and let them go mad with it - let the In The Night Garden toys mix with the Sylvanian Families and the superhero action-figures.

A kid's best gift is their imagination.  Warning though; as I have discovered, certain husbands get a bit too proud of their creations!

We mix it up a lot and move them to different environments - build caves out of stones in the garden, cut tunnels out of cardboard boxes, make track out of masking tape on the carpet.

Not my living room - beige wouldn't last long in our house!

When everyone is fed up, we just spend a scheduled day tidying up (my boys strangely enjoy this - might be easier said than done!) and chilling out with a reward, such as a DVD and some popcorn.  There's something nice about organisation after chaos, and sticking them all away again keeps the play fresh for next time.

5. "Can we play the game where you lift us up and throw us on the couch one on top of the other?"

Spinning around and around in a huge field!

Yes, I am always hoping our kids don't ask us this in public, as I am aware it sounds sketchy.

Rough play however is great for kids.

We do all manner of stuff for and around our children, but the truth is their favourite play is the rough stuff -because it's time that we are interacting, we're all laughing, we're monkeying around, and generally just having fun.

We build forts in the house out of sofa cushions, we go to the park and roll down hills, we go tree-climbing, we feed the ducks, we swing high on the swings, we have races, we get down and dirty with the kids.  And nine times out of ten (presuming we don't get too carried away and someone gets hurt) these are the best days.

And who cares how muddy you get?  Mud washes!  There's nothing better than having a 'who can make the best bubble-beard' competition at the end of a long day!