One word? When seven would do…

After a really good day trip to the British Wildlife Centre last year we’ve been meaning to go back for ages. They have ‘school’ trips for the bargain price of £5 per person which looked like a good way to go back with friends.

I’d hoped I could reach the minimum number of 20 people just between friends but reluctantly had to open it out slightly to other local people too. I’m always cagey about doing this, particularly when it involves people I’ve not met before and sadly there was, as always, a couple of children who were not as impecably behaved as I would have liked given my name being on the booking form and us being ambassadors for Home Ed in the eyes of the woman running the place, but hey ho…

My Mum came with us – I’d really wanted my Dad to come as he is really into nature, specifically foxes and birds of prey, of which there were plenty of both, plus I thought it might be a good bit of pro HE marketing. Sadly he couldn’t make it but Mum decided to come along anyway. It all helps with my Good Daughter score board tally but she seemed very much to be along for the ride, didn’t pay me back for paying to get her in and did lots of monopolising Ady and very deliberately sat between me and my friends at lunch meaning I was rather out on a limb at the end of a picnic bench where I couldn’t hear anything being said. She did entertain the kids in the car both ways I guess 😆

Mum arrived a good 10 minutes later than I’d told her to, failed to bring sandwiches for Davies and Scarlett despite her agreeing she’d bring the sandwiches and we’d bring the cakes, but did bring more cake :rolls: which also happened to be a chocolate swiss roll – not very picnic with no cutlery friendly really! As it happened, predictably we were running late too but I’d factored in a massive buffer of about 45 minutes to allow for general lateness and traffic so we still arrived in plenty of time.

Mich, Kirsty and kids were already there so we all stood together in the carpark welcoming the new arrivals. It was all a bit ‘two worlds collide’ with local friends, scattered around the country blogging friends, local people I don’t actually know, HE acquaintances and family in the shape of my Mum and Ady who several people had not met before which all felt a bit strange. I was really proud of Davies in pulling off a similar oddness really well when he had both Toby and Marcus there and the 3 of them seemed to really hit it off and played together all day :).

The staff were very good at ‘crowd control’ and did lots of ‘here are the rules’ ‘put your hand up and don’t shout out’ and ‘let’s all sit down in a circle’ stuff but actually it all worked really well. We had someone assigned to us for the day and she took us round all the animals, told us about them, answered questions and generally gave us the guided tour. We saw the foxes, wildcats, red squirrels, deer (muntjac and fallow), otters and birds of prey.

We then had an unfortunate period of faffing where I later realised they expected the ‘teachers’ to have a cup of tea but it seemed silly when it was only half an hour til lunch and I was aware of not letting all the kids loose in the gift shop with was adjoining the tea area anyway.

We then watched a film which was probably the lowlight of the day – I’d selected the KS3 film on the basis I’d rather appeal to the highest rather than lowest common denominator and the subject was animals from ice age to present day in the UK – so starting when we were still adjoined to mainland Europe and bears and wolves were native to Britain. It took us through various ages including iron, bronze ages, roman times and industrial revolutions and the impact of the climate and man had on the wildlife and countryside. It could have been done very well but the narration was delivered in a flat monotone and the graphics were of a very poor powerpoint presentation style. One of those things you think no one has taken in although I suspect we all did learn something from it actually.

We broke for lunch then before going back in for the smaller animals. They have a mock barn which houses rats – both black and brown and a pair of barn owls. The male who is on display in the foyer at weekends and is very tame indeed was brought out for us all to stroke, much to the consternation of his mate who was going mental in her cage.

Next we saw the rabbits, various small rodents including mice of different varieties, polecats,weasels, a mole who thoughtfully tunneled up while we were watching, and a one eyed hedgehog who came snuffling round the circle the kids sat down and made while Michelle impressed us all with her vast knowledge of hedgehogs ;).

I was expecting to see the stoats, badgers, snakes and other few things we’d seen last year but the badgers have cubs (a likely story ;)) and it looked like a lot of redevelopment work was going on in various areas which made me wonder if there would be more to see another time.

We finished in the gift shop which while having fair amounts of tat was at least sensibly priced tat so there was purchasing happening while I collected monies from everyone and thanked the woman for a great day. I’d like to do another session there, either later this year or next year and maybe try really hard just to fill it with friends and see if we couldn’t fit more into it – I’d be happy to pay double for a longer day with more time including some free time just to wander round watching the animals ourselves.

It was really good though, a success :). Photos are on flickr but still being uploaded so I may come back later and add some in.

We headed for home with Mich and Kirsty in our wake. Ady and I debated things to do with everyone in the afternoon but aside from a field trip to Sainsburys for Kirsty, Michelle and I we stayed home in the end. Mum finally left and we all drank tea til it was wine o’clock. Ady did sterling work being a host and providing refreshments for us and kids and very effectively making beds and bedding appear.

There were some minor scuffles and settling in issues between the children but I was incredibly proud of both Davies and Scarlett and particularly Davies in his fantastic work in coordinating a dvd that everyone was prepared to watch at bedtime. He’s a top negotiator that lad :).

The kids were really good at bedtime; Chloe and Alex came back downstairs to sleep with Michelle and Kirsty but the other 3 went to sleep pretty much as soon as Ady went up to bed and there was very little in the way of noise disturbance or repeated appearances back downstairs from them. Of course we were being fairly rowdy ourselves which may have drowned them out / scared them off 😆

We had a very nice evening, loads of laughs, some amusement at the expense of Michelle which I won’t be sharing in any way, shape or form 😉 and a conference call with James reciting lines from Men Behaving Badly which always makes a party :). He and Marcus were missed!