Review of Weston Park

The school holidays rolled around and we started searching for places to visit as a family. We had been intending to visit Weston Park for a while but until now hadn’t quite made it.

Weston Park

Weston-Under-Lizard

Shifnal

TF11 8LE

http://www.weston-park.com

Park and gardens ticket: adults £7, children aged 4-14 £4.

Weston Park is a huge parkland set around a stately home. We managed to visit on a day when the house was closed and I was a little concerned about how we would occupy ourselves all day long in the gardens. This turned out to be a completely unfounded worry. There was lots to do and in a day we didn’t manage everything! Below are our three highlights of the day.

The Enchanted Glen

This augmented reality trail is new for 2018 and we headed straight for it. I had downloaded a free app onto my phone before arriving. As we discovered each magical home, we used the app to scan a symbol and up popped different creatures. This trail was the highlight of the visit for Little Lady and it encouraged her to walk further in search of the next code to scan.

Woodland Adventure Playground

We spent a lot of time on the playground. There were some more unusual pieces of equipment and plenty things to do. As an adult, I felt that the equipment looked a little tired and worn in places but this did not seem to impact on the many children playing there! We ate our picnic at one of the tables in this area and it seemed many families were doing the same. We supplemented it with a proper coffee from The Granary, which includes a deli and café.

Stuff

We really enjoyed our visit to the ‘Stuff’ room, which is open in school holidays for various craft activities. There was no extra cost to take part, but we did need to book a space in a set time slot at the entrance. This is actually a sensible system to make sure that the room and resources are not overrun. There were a range of crafts to choose from and lots of lovely materials to use.

The gardens were extensive and alongside the above activities we saw a deer park, explored lovely warm greenhouses, tackled a complicated maze and walked around the lake. There was a lot to do and we all headed back to the car with tired legs.

Weston Park has a lot of competition when so much woodland and parkland is free to enter. However, it is fairly priced and has a huge range of things all on one site. My advice would be to take a look at the website and see what’s on for families so you can tie your visit into something special.

Comments

Review of Gangsta Granny by Heartbreak Productions.

In 10 years time, my children won’t specifically remember the occasions that I picked them up from school, cooked our favourite pasta dish or watched their swimming lesson. But they will remember some of things that we did that were out of the ordinary. They will remember some of the memories that we made together. As we headed out of the door on Friday evening, I knew we were making memories. I was just hoping it wasn’t going to be because the whole family had got soaked to the skin sitting in a park on a Friday night watching a play. We had a flask full of hot chocolate, a box of malteasers and some large umbrellas borrowed from a neighbour. We were heading to a Heartbreak Productions outdoor show in Walsall Arboretum. It was pretty exciting heading out in the evening and walking through an empty park to get to the bandstand where the show was being staged. When I told Little Lady what we were going to see, she was extremely excited. In fact, we all were because ...

Ocean Odyssey in Times Square

Hitting New York as a family, we were full of excitement and anticipation. We were waiting outside a store for it to open at 9am! We took selfies and videos of the famous sites in Times Square. But soon after that legs were tired. Temperatures were rising and humidity was close to 50%. It was with a sigh of relief that we entered the cool of National Geographic Encounter. Little people will only walk so far and look at so many famous buildings. Ocean Odyssey is an immersive experience that uses the latest technology to take you under the ocean. Our expectations were high as we ‘took the dive’ to our first location- the shallows of the South Pacific. Fish swam under our feet and adults and children jumped around as the creatures interacted with us. Jellyfish responded as we moved our arms and got up close. We loved the fact that Ocean Odyssey isn’t a show that you sit back and watch but an experience that you can interact with. Those tired little legs suddenly weren’t tired anymore...

I didn’t plan a six year age gap between my girls. Once Little Lady‘s first birthday had passed, it was time to try again for a second baby. I knew it was going to take a while because it had been a long road the first time. As I had packed away each set of baby clothes all clean and labelled with ages, I had prayed that I would be able to use them again. When I actually discovered that I was pregnant again for the second time, it was coming up to Little Lady’s sixth birthday. I was in a state of delighted shock and struggled to believe it could be true. I paid for a scan around seven weeks because I just needed to see that there was actually an embryo inside, growing and safely beating away. Thank goodness for my morning sickness confirming that it was all true! We had left the baby stage behind long ago. Now we were able to leave the house with just a set of keys in our pocket. We had envisaged having children close together, them playing with the same toys and being b...

Capable Child

Search This Blog