A magical weekend

In the lead up to this last bank holiday weekend, I wanted to do something every day with the kids. It didn’t have to be anything big, but take them out somewhere and do something nice. There were a few things on my radar to go to and I made sure we did all of them. The weekend could have easily been a bad one if we’d let it, one of the mornings Squidge was acting up (Sat morning), and over the weekend Dot was really unhappy, crying a lot, after his failed dairy challenge (more on that soon). But we didn’t let it put us off, and as per usual, both kids were complete poppets when we were out.

Friday

I don’t work Friday’s, and I usually treat a Friday as a cosy day at home with the kids, just me and them, I love Fridays. But this Friday I had errands to run, I had to go to the post office to return some things, I wanted to get Squidge measured for new school shoes, and Dot measured for his first shoes. And ideally, I wanted to go to Caerphilly castle to see the new maze and dragon’s lair. We managed to get the post office done, and the shoe shopping, but then it hammered down, and I didn’t fancy the castle (outdoors) in heavy rain. So we popped to the bakery, got some nice bread and headed home. I promised Squidge we’d find time for Caerphilly castle over the weekend.

Saturday

To make the most of the weather, we decided to do this on Saturday as no rain was forecast. Squidge loved the butterfly zoo (he was too young to remember the first time we took him (maybe about 8 months old). But as much as he loved it, he was bored after 15 mins, he is only 3 after all, and was excited about the hedge maze. So off we went, he wanted him and Daddy to go left, and Dot and I to go right (me knowing I can’t get to the middle of the maze if I go right…), so off we went! Well, it went as well as you can imagine, Squidge and hubby found the middle of the maze in about 5 mins, I was stuck in there for 16 mins until they came to find me, lol. After that we sat down and had our picnic. It was still pretty early, about 1:30, so we decided to head back to Caerphilly and go straight to the castle (as I’d promised) to do their new maze and visit the Dragon’s Lair. Squidge loved it! He listened to the dragon’s story in Welsh and English, and then ran off to explore the castle to find the maze. He particularly loved the bit where he got soaked with water, he’d have stood there all day getting soaked if I’d let him.

I recorded a vlog of the day, you can watch it here :)

Sunday

We wanted a quieter day on Sunday, so after lunch we packed ourselves off in the torrential rain and headed off to a new-to-us t-rex themed soft play. Both kids had an absolute blast! It’s set up along one wall, so parents can sit and have a cuppa, while the kids play and you can keep your eyes on them. There was an area for smaller kids, and Dot loved that – his first experience of soft play, and playing with other kids. He was nervous at first, but then just wanted to go down the slide again and again and again : ) It was a pretty terrifying drive for me, I don’t like driving down country lanes at the best of times, but when I have to force the car to drive through puddles that look like we could swim through, I get very scared!

Monday

We knew we wanted to go somewhere, probably a national trust place, but we didn’t know where. Squidge had been to our favourite NT place twice in the last week or so, and the weather wasn’t looking great. We were tired from the weekend and didn’t want to do anything big. After a bit of Googling I found the Royal Mint Experience (in Llantrissant, 25 mins from us). Perfect – a tour of the mint, strike a coin, and back home. It was great! Fun to see them being made in the factory and Squidge loved it. We had a picnic sat outside on the benches after, and then headed home (via Tesco so I could buy what I needed to make an apple crumble for pudding).

All in all a lovely weekend. Kids were happy, in fact, so happy from the weekend, it took them an age to fall asleep Monday night, hopefully they’ll sleep better tonight as GBBO and a cup of tea is calling : )

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