Our Summer Adventures part 1

The summer holidays are upon us, and I'm determined not to let the computers win. So I have been looking at things that we can do as a family that are different and hopefully memorable. My favourite motto of the roaring 20s is definitely "Making Memories" and as somone who loves to print out all her photos (and we do spend time sitting down looking through our albums on a regular basis, even if my reasoning is frequently to compare the size of my thighs), I want to have an array of pictures to print and not the same old same old each time.

Now that lockdown is easing, we've upped our game and taken the plunge on a few things. Today I'm going to share with you our Drive In Theatre experience, Kew Little Pigs and a good old favourite, Chiltern Open Air Museum.

Henley Festival, Car Park Party- Horrible Histories

Well this was a gamble, booking tickets for a) a show we have already seen, in b) our car from which we've never sat to enjoy a show in c) still partial lockdown and early days of easing.  But the tickets were a good price, and we paid for the car and not the people in it. I think it was £32 for our car.

Armed with snacks and not too many drinks (we didn't want to risk the toilets there) we drove to Henley and simply parked up in a field next to the river.  We were told what radio station to tune the car to and were asked to provide all passenger details before travelling in case of contact following an outbreak.

I must say this was really well managed and we arrived to see lots of children climbing onto the rooves of their parents cars. Having not preempted that, we only had a pretty grubby dog towel in the boot for the kids to lie on, and it took Lucy a while to build up the courage to climb up. Molly on the other hand loved her new sunbathing post and happily got settled to watch the show.

It was brilliant.  As all HH shows are, and also different from the last time we saw it, as it's adapted to include current news and most definitely keep parents entertained too.

There was a huge screen to watch the show on, although if I moved my head a bit I could see the live stage and we had the volume cranked up on the radio so that the kids could still hear it loud and clear too.  Instead of clapping, we hooted, which in itself was a lot of fun, and everyone was respectful of the noise so the actors were not drowned out.

The kids loved it and so did we.   Although we were asked to bring the kids down from the roof after a while (apparently someone at the back complained) it was still an awesome and new experience and a great price for a few hours of solid entertainment.

 The following day (yes how spoiled are the children) we hopped in the car and drove to Amersham to visit

KEW LITTLE PIGS

Kew Little Pigs, believe it or not, is a pig farm. It doesn't advertise as anything else, there are no rides or dinosaurs or hot dog stands there. It's simply a pig farm, but an awesome one.

You have to book in advance for your piggy experience, and we bought 4 tickets for a one hour pig play package at £24 a ticket. Not the cheapest, but again this was an experience and one that we absolutely loved.  The farm is lovely and the welcoming was great, full on health and safety and covid aware.  We were greeted along with about 7 other groups of 2-4 people and given a tour of the pens, introduced to the pigs and explained some of their history. This was really good and informative.  There are about 10 pens there in total, but we were allowed to go into 4 of them, although allowed to stroke the piggies through the fence in the others.  There is of course a reason for this. Some pigs were pregnant and not wanting people all over them, some were in quarantine ready to go to their forever homes and other reasons.  If you remember that this is a live working farm and not a pure tourist attraction, that makes total sense.

The pigs we could go in and play with were of varying sizes from really miniature to medium dog size (which is still classed as miniature in pig terms).  We were given free reign to go in and sit with the pigs, stroke them and brush them. They are very sociable animals and love to have their tummys brushed.  It was just a really lovely experience and quite therapeutic too. An hour is a great amount of time to spend with them too. Remember, they are just piggies in a pen but really cute and friendly and cuddly. Number one rule though, do not lick the pigs! Yes that's a real thing. We abided by the rules.

Chiltern Open Air Museum

Ok, so this one isn't a new experience for us, and the girls have been on multiple occasions with school, guides and brownies but this is one of our new favourite chill out picnic places.  For a £5 donation (and they really need donations right now), we booked our tickets online in line with social distancing and turned up with the dog, children and picnic to this beautiful chiltern setting.  The nice thing about COAM as it's abbreviated to is that you can do as little or as much as you want.  The history lessons are immense and give a great understanding of how things were over hundreds of years.  From the Iron age house, which despite not being in use all lockdown, still smells of the firepit last lit probably in February, to the prefab 1950s houses that were put up in an emergency after the war to provide quick accommodation.  There are orchards and veg patches and all of this is so nicely laid out with clear descriptions of what you are looking at.  There are sheep and goats here too for the animal lovers, and previously we've seen horses, but they weren't out this time.

Becuase of Covid, some of the buildings were closed off, but we could still see through the windows are there were still some lovely volunteers to chat to about the history of these amazing buildings.

The picnic area is spaced out, there are tables or grass area for blankets and the little drinks fridge is open for purchases too, as is the shop too.

Don't forget we have this amazing place right on our doorstep (if you live near me). 

School holidays and Lock down! What are we going to do with the kids?

Good mid week to you all,

I'm late this week as I've been really busy back at work now that I'm unfurloughed. It's been so so good to speak to people who aren't in my family again and get involved with projects that affect other people, who are generally more grateful and appreciative.  And this leads me on to this week's topic...

It's just hit me that the kids break up this week for 6 weeks of, well nothing really.  Having had such a great structure in place for the past 4 months, I'm in no way prepared to let the children loose with Roblox and TikTok for all the hours they are awake and so I'm planning daily objectives, and maybe if I'm really nice, I'll add them to their RoosterMoney apps and even reward them.

So now the emphasis is changing from set lessons as on the school websites and homework sites to something more fun and engaging! What ideas have you all got?

Music practice of course has to continue, and whilst Lucy will still have piano lessons, I'm hoping that the skills and chords Molly has learned will encourage her to listen to a few more 1994 rock songs and put them into practice for her own enjoyment too.

Definitely Duolingo is one that we'll continue over the summer, although I'm not entirely sure how much the girls have actually learned in French, but I imagine it's a case of words and sentences sinking in the subconcious, so that when they are presented with them, it'll all come back in an "oh yeah" kind of moment.

Talking of RoosterMoney, I will definitely get them to do the free kids worksheets on the app to get them money savvy, then they can use their skills when we go shopping and on our holiday outings.

And then to top off my addiction to learning (whilst it lasts), of course they will be reading. One of the teachers at Lucy's school has created an amazing Book Bingo worksheet for the children. It's fun, it's free and it's educational. They'll get recognition at school for their input and again, maybe if they're good, we'll add it as a reward receiver on the RoosterMoney app too.

And then whilst they're busy learning whilst hopefully still having fun, I can sit back with my PIMMS, lying in the sunshine, watching the world go by.... oh hang on.  We've had our summer already! It's back to work and back to the diet drinks.

RTFQ

A ranty blog today, and although the passive side of me would like to apologise in advance for that, the feisty, had enough of people side of me is shouting “Go me!”

Maybe this won’t be a rant actually, but more of a lesson, because it’s something I’ve definitely used with my kids when they are preparing for tests, especially for Molly’s SATs last year.

So, RTFQ – Read the Fucking Question. Simple right? Apparently not so for everyone. And this is where I would love your contribution if you have the same experiences.  You ask a question or post a statement on social media, text, WhatsApp or wherever, and the response you get no only doesn’t answer your question, but leads you down a path you didn’t even consider going down, had no interest in or even were avoiding on purpose.

Here are a couple of examples, nod if you agree.

Scenario one – Hey guys, can anyone tell me if there are still roadworks at the top of the hill on the way to Watford?

Answers from non RTFQers

-          I went to Uxbridge and sat in traffic, it was awful

-          I don’t know but I want to go shopping in Watford and do you know the price of shoes?

-          Well, driving emits gasses that kill the environment, so you should walk the 6 miles each way

-          Oh that hill, we love sledging down there in winter

Multiply that by about 8 and that’s the average response you get on a local fb page. Sweet that people really want to connect, but seriously how annoying that no one has actually answered the question for you, to the point that you turn off comments and then people post about your being rude by not letting them have their say.

The other type of not RTFQ or S (statement) happened to me just the other night.

I ordered a takeaway to support a new local business. I paid online and got my confirmation email. I went down to collect only to find that they had no knowledge of my order and it transpires that their system was down. In a bit of a rush to get eaten before I had to work (no one wants to see their WW coach stuffing their face), I suggested to the manager that we’ll have it the next night. So in order to forewarn other locals who might be less patient than me, I post on FB “If you are ordering from *** tonight, call them don’t order online because I turned up to collect my food and it hadn’t gone through the system (sad face – because I was looking forward to my takeaway) so I guess I’ll have to have my takeaway tomorrow.

Factual right? I ended up deleting the post because of the comments bad mouthing me for slating a new business, not supporting local and being unkind! Firstly it made me laugh, and I started to defend myself (er actually I am helping said business, but letting others know there is an issue), then I got annoyed with the commenters, and was very close to going through each and every post on that particular page to provide a not RTFQ/S answer. The irony would be lost with them though, as they’re only there to fight and I wouldn’t want to start a pretend fight, only to become either a hero or get my house torched. Neither of what I want from this scenario.

Why can’t people be more like my children, who have RTFQ (minus the F for the 8 year old) drummed into them every single time they start a home schooling task or prepare for a test. You don’t get points for writing a lot if it doesn’t answer the question. You don’t get points for being cute or being a tosser. You get points for answering correctly and allowing the poster to read that and say “Oh that’s informative thank you so much” or “Glad I could help with the information and happy to help further”

If you've read this and want to comment something really random that doesn't relate to this at all, I'm going to bite my tongue and let you get away with it this time. But next time you're bored and want to contribute to life, do everyone a favour won't you and RTFQ (otherwise start your own post!)

Much love, hoping that you're all still well and actually feeling good today as I was able to go to the hairdresser.