One word? When seven would do…

We did indeed go today 🙂

I do enjoy it there, it’s a really good day out. The first time I went was with the school when I was about 12 and I remember loving it then. This will the fourth year I’ve been with the children I think and both of them recalled it from last year. Definitely our most expensive trip yet as Tarly is now fee paying being over 5 and of course as I went on my own with them I paid for the petrol and the whole entrance fee myself whereas my Mum normally goes halves with me on that. Still well worth the £23 it cost to get in IMO and we barely spent the remaining change out of £30 either, only buying ice creams and a quid each for the children to do a Cats Protection League prize every time thingy where Scarlett won a little black kitten (cos we need more soft toys ;)) and Davies got a little catnip mouse which he has been trying, and failing, to get Candle interested in :lol:.

We had a very straightforward journey, it’s about an hour but the traffic can be hideous on show days but we left home after 10 and were there before 11am so that was good. We talked about driving and how it is more than just the physical act of driving as in operating the car but you need to be alert and aware of other things around you outside the car too.

First port of call (after the loo) was the foxhounds which are just inside the entrance. Scarlett was enchanted and would have happily stayed there all day patting the many dogs wagging their tails at her and giving her doleful looks through the bars of their cages.

We decided to try and stick to a logical route around the stalls although I very much doubt we saw everything and we definitely deviated from our path a few times. We started walking and the first thing that caught our attention were some amazing wooden sculptures. Some were roughly finished and some highly sanded and polished and treated but all had utter charm and beauty. There were various animals – sheep, owls, cat and so on, some still life type stuff like an apple core and flowers and a couple of fantastic lifesize humans including one entitled Motherhood of a pregnant woman with a baby on her back. The grain of the wood went all round her swollen tummy and breasts and almost gave her facial features too, so cleverly had it been worked with. I thought it was beautiful. We chatted to the stallholder for a while and learnt it is a family business and he showed us a video of a couple of the sculptures being done – all with chainsaws! The rougher finished ones are completely chainsawed but some of the more finished ones have sanding done at the end. He was saying what a great spectator activity it is with the noise of the chainsaw, the danger element and all the smells of freshly cut wood and chainsaw oil etc. Sounded excellent :).

We moved from there to the Bee and Honey tent where we tasted various honeys, looked at pollen under microscopes and finally sat down to watch the beekeeping demonstration where they dismantled a hive and talked us through it. It was fascinating and we got to see drones, workers, the queen, larvae, pollen and honey and honeycomb. The children were really rapt and Scarlett particularly asked loads of questions and made good observations. I learnt quite a bit I didn’t know too.

We visited various stalls including Red Cross (I was given a free parents child first aid cd rom), NCDL, Cats Protection League (where they got their toys), NCDL, an independant school stand where the children paused to play giant noughts and crosses while I sniggered and accepted the leaflet when the bloke tried to tell me how bright they were (noughts and crosses?! :shock:) and had I considered their schooling! We stopped at the Peugeot stand where they had a mini driving school set up, similar style to the one at Legoland which was free so they had a nice long go at that which was timely after chatting about driving in the car earlier. They both got their driving licence lanyards to say they’d passed and we moved on.

We stopped for ice cream and sat at the main arena where horsejumping was going on which was exciting to watch and then we debated what else we wanted to see. Whenever we go with my Mum the main attraction for her is the stalls selling things (my Mum loves to shop, *really* loves to shop!) like shoes, handbags, posh jumpers and jewellry so it was nice not to have to bother with any of them. We all wanted to see more animals and I wanted to go to the food fayre and the NFU stand.

We spent quite a while at the local agricultural and farming college stand as they had a variety of animals such as tortoises, ducks and hens and were very keen to chat to the children and bring the animals over to be petted. Scarlett petted the hen she was offered and then asked if the students could catch a duck for her to feel. The ducks were in a smallish created pond and it took 3 of them but they persevered and caught one each for her to stroke :). She learnt that these particular ducks had curly tails if they were male and while the student was struggling to think of the word Scarlett provided it for her ‘breed’ which made all the surrounding students and visitors giggle :lol:. We moved on to the Soil Association stand next where there was an activity to draw a farmyard animal and stick it on their giant farmyard background. It hadn’t been very well patronised (not many children around yesterday really) so they welcomed Davies and Scarlett very warmly and told them to draw as many animals as they could. Scarlett drew a sheepdog which she then decided was a poodle and was training to be a sheepdog and she followed that with a chick

Davies got utterly carried away and urged on by me and the Soil Association woman clearly sharing a love of the surreal and fanciful to rival his own created ‘Sheepy the Supersheep’ who baa’d loudly to create visible soundwaves to distract onlookers while he changed from his mild mannered sheep alter ego into Super Sheep with a cape, eye mask and pants on the outside. He drew an open mouthed cockerel (called ‘Cocky’) to look in wonder at Sheepy flying by, a pointing farmer (who would of course be asking ‘is it a bird? is it a plane?) and a fox to be the baddy stealing chicks who Supersheep would rescue. He then wanted to draw one last animal and chose a pig, which by then as things had gone to ridiculous levels he adored with spectacles (and yes, Davies did call them spectacles too :lol:) and said he was a teacher in school. The SA woman and I liked this idea and could see the merits of highly trained pigs doling out prescribed curriculum in bitesized chunks but we then quickly realised the pigs would revolt and get power crazed and take over. But of course Supersheep would save the day anyway.

As we bade her farewell she had changed her ‘patter’ from ‘come and draw a farmyard animal to stick on our background’ to ‘come and create a superhero farmyard creature!’ so I think we left a lasting impression along with Davies and Scarlett’s artistic masterpieces :lol:.

Food fayre was next and in that weird way that children will try all sorts of things off toothpicks or crackers that they’d never dream of eating at home they tried a wide variety of sausages and cheeses, fudge (gorgeous red hot ginger one), ginger wine, smoothies, honey, lemon curd and more. They each bought a tiny jar of honey for 50pence of their favourite sort.

We moved onto animals next; sheep, cattle, pigs, rabbits, chickens, ducks and geese.

I managed to capture on camera the very moment Scarlett disolved into tears after ‘that one’ sheep rammed her fingers against the bars having taken against being petted 🙁

As usual she quickly recovered though and was petting the next cage down again 🙂

We walked past a fur covered car which rather delighted them both:

I told them about there being a furry mini driving round our town when I was a little girl and also having seen an astroturf covered car before too. They liked that idea 🙂

We walked round the Flower Show and they both loved the idea of bonsai trees and demanded I take this photo of them infront of one of their favourite gardens:

It was getting on for 330pm by then and we were starting to flag slightly plus I wanted to leave before the mass exodus and traffic jams all the way home so we worked our way towards the exit. The NFU stand is right next the exit so we went in there. As we walked in Davies said ‘oh I remember this stand last year, they had this big union jack all made out of vegetable…..ah!’

I chatted to a woman about the Year of Food and Farming and Home Education while the children tried smoothies from the dairy association stand. They’d wanted to grind their own flour like Davies got to do last year but that stand was unmaned so we tried some rapeseed oil and sunflower seed oil instead and talked to the farmer about his business pressing oil. He had a machine there doing it and the seeds are pressed so the oil comes out and is drained, as is, into bottles for sale while all the ‘waste’ is shaped into pellets by the machine which is used for cattle feed. Excellent for the children to see the produce of the amazing golden fields we were admiring a month or so ago.

They then went to the grain stand and got to make hedgehog bread rolls

We were told to come and collect them in half an hour so we wandered off for a final look round the nearby stands where we got free samples of hand cream and a free croc-shine by a leather polish selling stall :). Finally we went back to collect their rolls freshly baked, which they ate on the way home in the car 🙂

(Davies is enjoying the freshbaked bread smell).

They both practically skipped back to the car saying what a fab day they’d had and thanking me so much for taking them. It was great, possibly our best trip there yet :). The traffic was fine and we were home just after 5pm where we spent ages out in the garden with our own chickens and looked through the bagful of goodies and leaflets we’d brought home :).

The children had a bath, Ady arrived home, stories for them and then bed while Ady and I watched I Am Legend which we thought was an ok film made watchable by Will Smith but still had us both jumping in fright fairly regularly :oops:.