Our last day here, we leave tomorrow afternoon, and there will not be time to do any tourist things due to the cleaning and packing to be done. So today we picked another place that should be fun for the boys and adults alike: Coleman's Petting Farm.

Not long after we arrived it was the scheduled time for egg hunting - they use real eggs and hide them in and on various hay bales in an area that was closed off by hay bales. Between them Ethan and Owen collected about a dozen eggs with no breakages! A bit different from Easter, instead of candy they got a bag of bread for the ducks!

Grandma bought them each a bag of feed that could be given to goats among other animals, so next we headed out of the central barn to feed some goats outside, after first feeding the ducks with the bread. In addition to goats they had a couple of wooly pigs, a couple of llamas, a couple of dwarf ponies, and various ducks, geese and chickens.

Next we headed back into the main barn as it was time to stroke and feed the rabbits and guinea pigs. They had a lop-eared rabbit called Angel, two guinea pigs called Honey and Jet, and another rabbit called Chilli. Both Ethan and Owen enjoyed stroking the soft fluffy animals.

It's sooo fluffy!

Then the boys were allowed to bottle feed some lambs. If I understood correctly, the lambs were from triplets and essentially they were orphans - presumably the runts would not be fed by the mother, so they have to be bottle fed instead. Despite a school party going ahead of us to feed the lambs, they were a hungry bunch and drank pretty much all that was offered.

There was a play barn that had an indoor zipline, and so we had some fun playing on that until it was time for the hayride. The hayride was pretty much the last thing we planned to do there and we all went along. At a couple of points around the ride they have a passive infra-red sensor, or perhaps a break-beam sensor that activates a water sprayer, so everyone got a good dowsing as we went around.

After looking in the shop we headed back to the caravan for lunch and so BOTH boys could take a nap, they both really needed it!

Dinosaur Isle

We went across the island to Dinosaur Isle today.  It is a relatively small museum-like place with a few fossils and a few models.  Most of the exhibits and texts were aimed at older children, certainly school age, so we didn't linger too long.

We had brought along a picnic to have on the beach, since we were at Sandown, which is one of the sandy beaches.  Grandma and the boys paddled a little at the sea edge - I wasn't prepared to venture into the undoubtedly frigid sea but after, Ethan, Owen and I dug in the sand for a while before we had lunch.  The tide was definitely coming in - where they first paddled at the sea edge was now underwater.

Walking along Culver Parade beachfront

There was a really nice set of parks next to the Dinosaur Isle building, one had sports equipment aimed at adults, one had a roundabout, swings, a rubber-tyre zipline etc. and yet another had some interesting almost space-like sculptures for climbing on and around.

We had fun there for a while before getting an ice cream cone for the boys and eating it at the seafront.  There was an amusement arcade there, so Alison and her mum played there while the boys and I went back to the zipline for more turns.

One last time on the beach, again with me digging with the boys.  We made a couple of small sandcastles and small holes together before heading back.  The sea air seems to be good and helping tire the boys out.

Gurnard/West Cowes beach

After such a full-on day yesterday, we thought that we would have a more relaxing day today.

The plan was to walk or drive down to the shore that is accessible from the campground park here (Thorness Bay).  When we got there the tide was out a fair way and it exposed a large area of smelly seaweed on a shale/stone beach, no sand and not very pleasant.  However, since we went in the car (to help rest Grandma's legs, after yesterday), we just drove out of the park and on to Gurnard, which has a beach according to one of the guide books.  The first place we stopped was not much better than what we'd left behind, but we carried on and third time was the charm!


We were virtually back at West Cowes, but there was a beach area with public toilets ("loos", as we often say here), chalets (you know, the little beach hut thingys), and a really nice playground. (Interesting fact: Cowes is the starting place for the Around The World Yacht Race)

The play area had a wooden construction boat in the centre that had a rope-chain & wood bridge and cargo net to get onto it with, and a large basket swing like those we had encountered at Riverside Park in Bitterne and Hundred Acres Wood.

There was also a challenging log walkway made of three long logs that were still round and an even more challenging log "balance beam" that was a single log mounted on springs!  I could only make it halfway across as it was very windy, and it is no easy feat to walk on a wobbly spring-loaded, rounded surface!

We detoured at a pottery barn (I think it was this one), almost literally this was a building that probably had been converted from a barn, and now was used for pottery crafts and selling such wares, not to be confused with the American company/store Pottery Barn!  Then we headed back to the campsite via a Lidl store (a discount store of German origin, known for budget shopping, but not too bad and a fair selection of fresh produce and refrigerated items).

After lunch we went to the on-site indoor pool for about an hour until it was closed due to a potty mishap in the baby pool - unfortunately caused by Owen, we were rather embarrassed.

Despite being "an easy day", we still managed to cram a lot in!

Blackgang Chine

Blackgang Chine was on the agenda for today.  No it is not a Triad Chinese Mafia group, it is an amusement park on the Isle of Wight! :-)

There really is quite a lot packed into this park, they seem to have made most of their seaside cliff perch location with nicely landscaped gardens and lots of amusements dotted throughout.  One of the first things we did was walk through a maze, a proper "English" hedgerow maze - Alison, myself and the boys did this together, and it started to rain so we got faster and faster to try to get out before it might really pour on us!

One big drawback is that the site is anything but flat, and I was thankful that we did not enter the park with anything that had wheels (like the cart, for example)!  We initially explored an area that had some of the older attractions, such as a Fin Whale skeleton you could walk through, and also various steam engines, such as this one:

We thought that we might be disappointed, but then we realized that we'd only seen a tiny portion of the park and all that it offered - we found a restaurant where we had a cup of tea and stayed out of the rain for a short while before going on to explore the rest of the park.



We had our hands stamped on entry (like at Legoland) so that we could leave and return as needed during the day, and this was great news since we had brought along a picnic.  We initially left the picnic in the car, and then later we found a large play area with a Pirate ship and lots of picnic tables and benches, so we left grandma with the boys while Alison and I collected the picnic.

Being such a full day, and as I was running around with the boys, I did not take many photos, so we only have a few to share, like this one of the boys sat on a bench with talking dwarfs either end:

I found it slightly ironic that they had re-created the American Wild West here, there was even a Davy Crockett figure - I thought we'd left that behind in Texas. Here are myself and the boys driving a stage coach:

We went on to the "Snakes and Ladders" area that had just re-opened (it had been closed due to weather in the morning, but deemed dry enough to re-open). Some rather steep ladders to climb and steep slides to come down again!  Then we walked through a fairy-tale area with fairies, mushrooms and even a castle.

After Sleeping Beauty's Castle we went to "Rumpus Mansion" - a real house that had been converted into an "attraction" - something of a haunted house with animatronics, but rather tired and a bit too scary for the boys.  I took Ethan and Owen into the Smugglers' Cave while Alison and her mum started to head back to the exit/shop.  I found the rest of the smugglers at Smugglers' Rest:

That was pretty much the last area apart from the gift shop that we spent time at.  The boys selected one gift for themselves each that they spent their own money on (with Mummy & Daddy's approval), and then bundled back into the car for another head-shakingly bumpy ride across the island (we are staying pretty much diametrically across the island from Blackgang Chine).

The Needles

Today the weather was supposed to be not too bad so we planned to visit Alum Bay and "The Needles" - the west 'point' of the Isle of Wight (ha ha).

Although it didn't rain it was pretty darn cold!  We arrived at the Needles Park before anyone else it seemed. We took the chair lift down to the beach and got off for a short stroll.

It was even colder on the beach, which was mostly stone at that point.  I took to trying to skim stones on the sea but there was a distinct lack of of flat round stones.  Owen tried to copy me, but his efforts appeared to consist of finding the largest rock he could hold in one hand and hurling it into the sea - I'd say that the results were about the same, I was not very successful in skimming!

There was a cafe where we stopped briefly, and also the Alum Bay glassworks store, but we were not inspired to buy any glass ornaments or keyfobs etc.

We decided to head to Yarmouth where we would buy fish & chips and sit on the beach front or pier to eat them.  Owen had fallen asleep, and the one Fish & Chip shop in Yarmouth did not have what Alison wanted. So Owen was loaded into the cart in and under blankets and Ethan and I pulled it onto the pier where we waited in the freezing cold for what felt like forever for Alison and her mum to get back from another fish and chip shop.  It was very welcome to have hot food at the end of the pier!

Next we though we'd go to the Garlic Farm and shop, so back into the car for another bouncy ride on the IoW's fantastic roads (...um, not!   Some roads appear to be a a series of well mad potholes with the occasional well-meaning bit of road to interfere with the otherwise undriveable surface). Also, despite an apparent physically imposed top speed limit of 40 mph (as well as being the actual legal speed limit on many parts of the roads), the locals seem to delight in going at 50 mph or more.  The book I'm reading now, Roadside Crosses by Jeffery Deaver, springs to mind frequently!  We sampled some interesting chutneys and other savoury concoctions made with garlic, and learned a little about garlic in the process.

Last stop was the campsite indoor pool again for a very short swim, since the pool closed at 5pm.

Owl and Monkey Haven

Today we decided to go to the Owl and Monkey Haven on the outskirts of Newport.  It was a really nice place, very new with nice enclosures for the monkeys and owls. Many of the monkeys and owls had been ostracized or attacked within their groups while at previous zoos, though some had been rescued from being illegal pets.

There was a really nice play area for Ethan and Owen to play in while we had a cup of tea/coffee.  At 11:30 they had a "meet the keeper" event with the owl keepers and we were allowed to stroke the chest of a Tawny owl (I think, we were a little late joining the presentation, but the keeper was saying that the eyes are large and all dark indicating that it is a nocturnal animal).  Then the boys were allowed to touch an Eagle Owl owlet, which was 6 weeks old today.  He/she was already developing flight feathers and had tail feathers (they can't easily sex birds of prey).  It was one of a brood of 3 bred in captivity, and they are handling it and training it for things like school visits (and this encounter).

Across the road is a Lavender farm and teashop. Since we had brought a picnic and drinks we didn't visit their tea room, but we had a look (and sniff) around their gardens and gift shop; very nice, we all liked the scent and aromas of real lavender.

It started to rain proper as we were returning to the car (it had sprinkled a little all morning). So we decided to stop there and eat our picnic in the car, while we planned what to do next.  We decided to head back towards the campsite in Thorness Bay, via the supermarket on the other side of Newport.

After returning to the site we changed into our swim stuff and went to the pool.  Alison sat on the side watching and we all played in the pools.  Ethan liked the water slide!

We had a lovely dinner of filled pasta in a creamy tomato sauce, with Caesar salad on the side with olives and garlic bread.  The boys ate really well, especially Ethan, who later also had a slice of bread and butter and an apple too.

Boys in bed by eight o'clock and we watched "Popstar to OperaStar" on TV - some interesting participants including Midge Ure (of Ultravox fame), Cheryl Baker (Bucks Fizz - previous UK Eurovision Song Contest winners), Andy Bell (Erasure), and Melody (from the PussyCat Dolls) (those are half of the 8 that I can remember).

Not bad for our first full day on the island!

Red Funnel Ferry

We are about to leave for the Isle of Wight, we are loaded on to the Red Funnel ferry and they have a Wi-Fi hotspot so I thought I'd take the opportunity to create a short post. It is bright and windy and for now we are sat up on deck. We are looking forward to our week on the Isle of Wight. I hope that we can find another free wifi connection later!

Hundred Acres Wood

We went to Hundred Acres Wood again today, at West Walk in Bere forest, Wickham is the nearest village. We arranged to meet with Alison's cousin Clare, her children Jessica and Nathan, and Alison's Aunty Sheila (& Uncle Mike). Alison, her mum, the boys and I went (Gareth was working).

We took a picnic and arrived at about 10:30 which was early enough to grab a picnic bench and table - a good thing too as it got very busy, much busier than it was on Sunday, mostly due to the weather as it was a much nicer day today. It is "half-term" week here so the schools are out.

The kids pretty much kept themselves amused so the adults were able to sit and chat without needing to chase around after the children too much. It was a really nice day, but the weather is very strange, oscillating between bright warm sunshine and cold windy cloudy times with occasional light sprinklings of rain!

Memorial Day

We arranged to meet with my sister Helen, my brother-in-law Darren and their 2-year old son Josef. We went to Play Shack, an indoor climbing and play place for the children - the weather forecast was for a high percentage chance of rain all day, and it certainly was very overcast and gloomy, though not raining, when we arrived.

Ethan and Owen took off like rockets in the play area; Joe was a little less certain but soon got into it.  Darren and I went in with the boys and followed them and chased them around, it was very much a good workout for us while the ladies sat and chatted.

From here we proceeded to a cafe at the local supermarket, really quite good, and this was a good choice as both Helen and Alison needed to also get a small amount of shopping done.  We had a lovely meal with Helen, Darren and Joe one last time before they needed to set off for home (a long car ride of about 3-4 hours).

I'm not sure if we are doing anything else today, will update when I get a chance.

Sunday picnic

Today we planned a picnic and gathering in the forest - we changed the location from the New Forest to Hundred Acres Wood in the forest of Bere as there is a great play area there, so there would be more for the children to do.  We arrived first, perhaps a little shockingly, and grabbed a picnic bench and table.  Again it was very windy, but this time instead of the gazebo we brought along a windbreaker that we staked into the ground next to the table - this allowed us to have a couple of the camping chairs set up out of the wind.

The playground was a bit like a mixture of what we found at Moors Valley country park and at the local Riverside Park, lots of solid wood structures with either wooden planks or chains to climb on, cargo nets and swinging baskets.  I took a few pictures of the boys (notice how they are dressed for the English summer):

Ahhh, lovely brothers

Ethan is a basket case!

Owen is a cheeky monkey!

They played hard and then it was time to eat the picnic and meet with the various folks that had arrived while we were playing.  The play area was relatively sheltered, but the picnic table and bench were exposed to some very cold blowy conditions.  After the picnic we went for a long walk in the forest to try to stay warm and out of the wind!  When we got back grandma had a drink and a snack for the boys and cups of tea all around for everyone! (We took along a single-burner stove and camping cook set so that we could boil water for tea, great planning!)  The kids had great fun and even built a makeshift teepee/wigwam structure:

Isabelle, Alex and Ethan in their wigwam

After such a busy day and long walk we felt sure that Ethan and Owen would fall asleep in the car on the way home, but amazingly neither did.  Unfortunately this meant that they were very tired and grumpy when we got home and in much need of a bath.  We had tried to arrange meeting with my sisters again and the plan was that we would go and meet with them after we got back.  However, due to their need of an early night, it was agreed that Alison would stay behind to feed and bath the boys and put them to bed while I went to meet my sisters.

I had a nice evening with my nieces and nephew, and my sisters and brother-in-law, they had cooked chicken wings and potato wedges which we had with salad (and a beer for me :-) ). Time flew past as we chatted and also tried to make arrangements for the coming days.  Before I knew it, it was time for me to leave so that I could come home and go to bed.

Friends and family

On Saturday we were invited to a family friends' house for lunch.  Since there were so many of us, the plan was that we would set up a gazebo in the garden.  It was so windy and it was very hard to put the gazebo up, and because the side panels of the hexagonal-shaped structure were all mesh, they did very little to cut the wind down.

We had a lovely lunch, there was plenty of food.  Despite the cold, we thought that we could take the children to the local park to help them burn off some energy.  So Alison's cousin Simon and I took their two, Isabelle and Alex, and Ethan and Owen to the park.  Here are all the pictures I managed to grab that day:

Owen on a bouncy rocking dog at the park

Ethan and Owen trying to balance things out

Later on, after we left, we headed back to Southampton where we were going to meet up with my sisters and their children.  I hadn't realized that I needed to book somewhere and so a last minute arrangement had us meeting at an Italian restaurant, La Fenice, in Eastleigh.  Despite all the children being tired from the travel, they played nicely while we waited for the food, and again after they finished eating. We all had a nice meal and it was nice to be able to sit and catch up.

Legoland, Windsor

It was a little cold and overcast when we set off for Legoland though we hoped it would brighten up and warm up. We arrived at about 11am and queued a little to get in.  We had some "2 for 1" deal vouchers that allowed us all to get in for about 116 pounds (about $185) - not bad for 3 adults, 1 senior citizen, and 1 child (Owen goes free because he is under 3 still).

One of the first things we saw was a small wooden play set with a slide, and then these Easter Island statues:

Then there was a cool dragon being captured by Lego men - we could look at this while Alison, myself and the boys queued for a parachute drop ride.

This was the first ride and it was good fun, we could pull ourselves up with a rope and then when you let go the carriage dropped (not too fast).

Unfortunately the next ride was not so much fun for Alison and Ethan (we split up so that I had Owen). It was a rubber dinghy water flume ride - Alison and Ethan went first and Owen and I followed.  When we got to the bottom we were dry but we found out that Alison had been absolutely drenched, and Ethan slightly less so.  It was still really overcast and not sunny at all, and being soaked through like that was not going to be any fun at all!  Luckily we could leave the park to go to the car, where we had a change of clothes for Ethan (just his jeans and underpants needed changing).  Since we know the area we knew that there would be some shops not too far away, so it was decided that I would take the boys back in to Legoland while Alison, her mum and Gareth would go out shopping for clothes and lunch.  I took the boys to lunch with me in the park, and about an hour later the rest rejoined us.

We walked amongst some cool models where Ethan and Owen were giants!

They've got that Leuven feeling!

St Paul's Cathedral

There were lots more, but I didn't want to go crazy taking pictures of everything, besides, some of the models were a little 'tired' looking, too much sun exposure?

 

Big Ben & London Eye

Buckingham Palace!

Later on it started to warm up a little and we headed over to the Lego driving school where both Ethan and Owen could separately drive cars for their age group.  This looked like fun!

One last ride on a "hot air balloon" with me, grandma and the boys and then we were almost done.

The shop was the last visit where we tried not to buy too much (it's all so expensive!), but at least come away with a couple of mementos of the trip.

Not surprisingly both boys fell asleep in the car on the way home!  It was a fun and action packed day, and overall a big success!

Nothing to report

A really dull day, both figuratively and literally. It was overcast for most of the morning and rained on and off for some of the afternoon. I played a little with Ethan on the Wii, Lego Batman - it is cool and fun to play, and he is certainly able to "keep up", if not actually lead the way!

A family friend dropped by and we chatted to catch up. The boys watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks (I think?) since it was not really nice enough to play outside.

What a difference from yesterday where we had lunch out on the patio with the umbrella up for shade, to today where we had long sleeved tops on and two layers and ate lunch inside.

Yesterday we had half of the strawberries after lunch (the rest were eaten after dinner this evening) and we also had a rhubarb fool, yummy!

We have a big day planned tomorrow, so I will sign off now.

Playing at the park, feeding swans and strawberry picking

This morning we went back to Riverside Park to play for a while, the park is really cool, as I mentioned earlier, here are a couple of pictures we took this morning (note the bright sunshine, we are having great weather at the moment!):

Next we went on to feed the swans, ducks and seagulls (not intentionally, but they are so cheeky and can even catch the bread mid-air, stealing from the swans and ducks!). This is a short walk (1 minute) from the park, so it is not far to go.

Then we went to a cafe for a cuppa (tea for Alison and I, coffee for grandma and "Capri Sun" juices for the boys) at a church near by.  We did not stop there too long though as we had another place to go; strawberry picking at "Pickwells", one more picture and I think I'm done for the moment:

Marwell Zoo

Today Alison took the boys to Marwell Zoo which is fairly close. She arranged to meet her friend there too, so she had some adult company in addition to the cheeky monkeys. Here's their logo which is cool and nicer to look at than just text (in the interests of copyright etc., all rights reserved and copyright of the image owner is acknowledged, please don't sue me for potentially advertising the zoo).
 


Alison took two whole pictures so I had my work cut out for me when I download them all off the camera, it took me many seconds, here is one of them (they are both very similar, so only one photo to share really):

Visit to the library

Monday mornings is often coffee morning at the library for grandma, so we all went to the library for this, and some books, of course.

I walked down with Ethan and Owen, and as we arrive at the library we see the side view first:

Side of Cobbett Road Library

Alison and her mum drove down since there is a car wash very close by and our car very much needed a thorough cleaning:

Our car, a little dirty!

We boys got to the library first since we can take a slightly different route walking.  It was a good plan to have the car cleaned while we picked out story books and had some tea (or coffee) and cake!

Here's the library from the front, though it is not very exciting:

Front view of Cobbett Road Library

This was a great activity for a slightly cold, overcast Monday morning!  We were able to borrow a couple of DVD's too, so that will help to keep the kids occupied.

That's it for now, Lawrence out...