Visiting National Trust Properties (Dorset) in Summer 2020 with Phased Re-openings

Over the last few weeks, the UK has started to lift restrictions and more of our favourite places are becoming accessible again. National Trust has opened more than 100 of their parklands and gardens but visits need to be pre-booked so they can limit the number of visitors.

Tickets can be pre-booked each Friday via their website and you can pick a slot which suits you. The more popular locations such as Stourhead are getting fully booked almost immediately but we have managed to book tickets for Corfe Castle and Kingston Lacy here in Dorset without any problems. Members and non-members can pre-book but non-members will have to pay in advance. For us as members, we just had to enter our membership number and our spaces were booked. When booking you have to pick a 30 minute arrival time but there are no restrictions on how long you stay, although they cannot guarantee entry if you're late for your slot.

Kingston Lacy

Our first place we visited was Kingston Lacy (we've been twice recently) and we love it here, the grounds are so pretty and the kids love the space to run around! When we arrived in the car park there was a member of staff who ticked our name off the list and that was it, we didn't need to show our membership card.

Our timeslot was 2pm and it was very quiet, although there were cars in the overflow too. We followed the path in and there were clear signs regarding the walks around the garden and woodland trail. There was a one-way system in place which worked well. There were lots of families enjoying the sunshine but it was very easy to maintain a distance, even on the paths.

The Kitchen Garden is currently closed but we still had a pleasant walk around, passing the Japanese Garden and the beautiful meadow area. I've never actually seen the meadow in bloom like this, the daisys were so pretty.

The children enjoyed climbing trees, rolling down the hill on the front lawn, and best of all, playing hide and seek in the long grass!

The cafe was open on both our visits but just as a takeaway, there is no seating in the stables and the picnic tables have been moved onto the grassy area near the entrance. The toilets were also open and there was extra sanitiser available.

Corfe Castle

Corfe Castle is another favourite of ours and we were so excited to visit again. We arranged to meet some friends there and we both booked our tickets on the Friday before with no issues.

When we arrived in Corfe, I did notice that the carpark was very quiet and I assume this was because of restricted numbers in the castle. The visitors centre and toilets were also closed.

It's a really pleasant walk from the carpark, the path takes you around the foot of the castle and it's away from the road so alot safer for the children. There's a great little trim trail to climb along too which my kids love!

Once at the castle, we gave our names to the member of staff at the ticket tent and we were ticked off the list. Like Kingston Lacy, we didn't need to show our tickets or membership number. 

Our visit to the castle was much like previous visits however there is a one way route to follow around certain parts. This worked well and due to the low number of visitors, we didn't feel rushed. The children were able to explore and have as much fun as normal!

If you fancy a treat after your visit, the National Trust tearooms are open (public toilets too!), We decided to order fish & chips from The Greyhound pub which is right outside the entrance to Corfe Castle. We weren't able to sit in the beer garden as there were still restrictions in place when we visited, but we were allowed to take our food back into the Castle grounds where there were tables and chairs available.

Lunch with a view! 

It's fantastic that the National Trust have put all these measures in place so visitors can still enjoy a day out at their many properties. If you are thinking about booking a visit then I would definitely recommend going online as early as possible on a Friday morning to give you more chance of getting tickets.

For more information, please visit https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/

Our February Half Term

January seemed to drag on forever and it felt like half term would never arrive! But finally it was time to relax...I say relax in the loosest sense as we had an action packed week planned. But still, there was no school run!

Here's what we got up to..

Abba Workshop / Upton Country Park

The first day of the holidays saw us having a split day - I spent the day with my choir on an Abba Workshop which was brilliant fun! The children had a day with Paul which was nice as they don't get to do it without me very often. The weather was a bit drizzly but he took them out for a long walk to a place called Upton Country Park. It's somewhere we love visiting and it's great because it's walking distance from our house, and there is always something fun to do!

He did make me laugh though, he packed a picnic for the kids but said they were still hungry and wanted something else....welcome to my life hah! Always blimmin hungry! 

Winchester Science Centre

This is fast becoming Elliot's favourite place to visit, in fact he's been there three times since December! We went along to review the half term activities and we had a brilliant day. There is so much to do and is definitely a full day out. Erin loves it too, she's too young to understand the science behind the experiments but give her a button to press and she's happy! 

Jawsome Sharks at Weymouth SEA LIFE Adventure Park

We've recently become Blogger Ambassadors for Weymouth SEA LIFE and it's somewhere we really enjoy visiting. The kids were looking forward to taking part in the Jawsome Sharks event and I was looking forward to seeing the Fairy Penguins - who are extremely cute by the way! 

We had lunch in the nearby pub too and they had a soft play area which was fab - more pubs should have this! It meant the kids weren't getting bored waiting for their food, and I got a few minutes of peace while they were off exploring. Not so easy getting them to leave though ;)

Dodging the showers at Kingston Lacy

Kingston Lacy is very popular at this time of year with thousands of people visiting to see the beautiful snowdrops. It certainly seemed like most of Dorset were there the same time as us judging by the number of cars in the carpark and queues in the cafe! 

It was a funny old morning with lots of sunshine and torrential showers but the kids didn't care about the rain, they just had lots of fun playing with their friends. We did have a muddy incident though...Erin decided that stomping in it wasn't enough and she ended up sitting in a very thick muddy puddle!

Looking for Zog at Moors Valley Country Park

Moors Valley is always a great place to visit as there are acres of forest to explore with lots of play trails along the way. There is also the brand new Zog trail! We didn't do the full trail which involves purchasing an activity pack from the information centre but we enjoyed spotting the Zog pictures along the way. 

We went with a couple of our friends and the children had a brilliant time playing on the wooden play areas. Thankfully we had no mud incidents although Elliot did manage to split his welly boots! 

Seaside Fun in Swanage

The weather looked lovely for Friday so we headed down to the seaside town of Swanage with some friends. Unfortunately the weatherman got it wrong and we drove into Swange in thick mist! It was pretty chilly too so not quite the warm Spring day we were hoping for. Never mind, we had lots of fun playing in the park, spending all our 2ps in the arcade - we even went to Wimpy, how retro! 

After lunch we decided to let the kids have a play on the beach - but it took them all of 5 seconds to get wet in the sea! Elliot's legs were drenched and his brand new wellies were full of water! Fortunately we had spare clothes and hypothermia was averted. They loved it though!!

Geocaching in our local area

On the last day of the holidays the sun was shining again so we decided to head out for a bit of Geocaching. If you've not heard of Geocaching before, it's a great activity that goes on all over the world and is basically a bit like a treasure hunt! 

We drove to a nearby village and followed a very muddy track that led us to several caches. Elliot was really excited to find his first geocoin too! 

The weather was absolutely gorgeous - mad to think that this time last year we had snow! 

So that was our half term holiday -nice and busy just as we like it! We did have a couple of days where we didn't go out and just chilled out at home - we all needed to recharge our batteries and it was nice not to have to rush out anywhere. 

We're on countdown to the Easter holidays now! 

Spooky Half Term Fun - October 2018

I think the October Half Term is one of our favourite times of the year. For a start, Halloween is just around the corner but there just seems to be so much on in our local area - this year was no different, and I think I could have filled 4 weeks with activities and days out and not just one week! Usually I try and pace ourselves by scheduling quieter days at home but not this time - our week was busy, fun, full on and I wouldn't have changed a thing!

Pumpkin Picking - Saturday

We decided to go and pick some pumpkins at a local pumpkin patch at the start of the week - usually we just pick up a couple of cheap ones in Asda so this was a bit different for us! We've never been to a pumpkin patch before but it was such a lovely morning and I'm really glad we did it. The kids loved finding all the different shaped pumpkins and Elliot took great pleasure in finding the biggest one there to take home with us!

Autumn Fun at Kingston Lacy - Monday

The Monday began with a visit to one of my very favourite places in Dorset - in fact, my National Trust Membership is pretty much made up of visits to here! The grounds are beautiful but especially at this time of the year with the stunning Autumn colours. It's a fab place to take the children because there's no traffic and they can pretty much run free! We met up with some friends, Elliot dressed up as Dracula (standard half term attire!) and we had a lovely walk followed by a picnic while the children played on the ride ons.

Corfe Castle - Tuesday

Another National Trust visit, this time to the spectacular ruins of Corfe Castle. This is another brilliant place to visit in school holidays because there are always special events on for children and plenty to keep them amused. We loved spotting the pumpkins around the castle and the children had lots of fun doing the creepy creatures quiz. We sent our teddies down the terrifying zipline and we also managed to catch the trebuchet being fired. All in all it was a great day!

Pumpkin Hunt at Moreton Walled Garden - Wednesday

It took us a while to decide on todays activity. We discussed visiting the Shire Hall Historic Court Museum in Dorchester but in the end the weather was lovely again so we decided to head outdoors.

We met up with our friends and spent a wonderful morning in the sunshine following the pumpkin trail and exploring the beautiful gardens. We even found a brilliant play area that we didn't even know existed so that kept the children amused for ages!

Spooky Fun at Lulworth Castle - Thursday

This was probably our favourite day of the week - we had so much fun! The castle and grounds had been transformed into a spooky attraction and honestly, the effort that had gone into the event was fantastic. As we walked through the entrance we were greeted by a friendly ghost and then there were lots of spooky themed games scattered throughout the walk up to the castle.

Once inside the castle we were directed through the basement where there were spiders, witches and all kinds of scary things. But still tame enough for the gaggle of 1-6 year olds we were with! We stumbled upon a disco in one of the rooms so the kids had a good old boogie to bat out of hell - we could have stayed in there longer but we were itching to see what the rest of the castle held for us!

There were spooky crafts and even a magic show which was great fun. It was a nice dry day too so we were able to sit outside at lunchtime and enjoy the Halloween themed music blasting out from the castle! After lunch we went to explore the haunted forest and for those that were brave enough, there was a zombie infested area....Elliot and I wimped out of that one ;)

It was such a brilliant day and when we finally managed to drag the kids away, we realised we'd been there around 5 hours so we definitely got our moneys worth!

A Weekend in Brighton - Saturday/Sunday

Our fun packed week ended with a lovely, if a little cold, trip to Brighton. I'd forgotten what a vibrant, fun place Brighton is and we had a really nice time exploring on the Saturday. We loved finding the giant snail sculptures that are scattered around the city too!

On the Sunday we woke up the sounds of the sea right outside our window (we stayed at the Holiday Inn Brighton Seafront and it was a fab location) and fortunately the kids weren't awake too early with the clocks going back. After a big breakfast we headed to the Old Market theatre nearby to see our favourite kids band, Andy & The Odd Socks!

It was a fab show and it was brilliant to hear their newest song, Choose Respect which has been written for Anti-Bullying Week 2018 . I think it's fantastic that Andy his using his celebrity platform to publicise such an important cause.

The kids had so much fun dancing to their favourite Odd Socks songs and at one point I thought Elliot's arms would fall off because he was so flossing so fast!!

After the show we were lucky to meet the band again and Elliot was able to give them a drawing each that he'd spent ages doing. Erin did her usual trick of screaming when Andy spoke to her....I'm wondering if she will ever grow out of this!!

A big thank you to Odd Socks HQ for inviting us down to Brighton for the show!

We hope you had a fun half term break too! 

WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO OVER EASTER

I thought I'd do a little catch up post and talk about what we've been up to recently. It's been a busy week - whenever Elliot is on school holidays we always cram so much in because I feel like I need to make the most of it!

Easter weekend was a bit of a drizzly and cold one but we visited the Sea Life Centre at Weymouth on Good Friday which was fun. Although the weather meant we couldn't play in the amazing playground which Elliot was a bit gutted about!

We didn't have much planned on Easter Sunday but made a last minute decision to go along to a Moo Music messy play event that was being held locally. The kids had a great time getting messy, Erin's favourite play station featured chocolate cake and cornflakes and she pretty much didn't move from there!

We popped into my parent's house in the afternoon for the annual Easter Egg hunt. It's become a bit of a tradition since Elliot was little and I've told my Dad he'll still be doing it when the kids are in their teens!

check out Erin's very cute easter dress!

We had a bit of a double whammy with Elliot's fave Andy Day this week. Not only did we see him do some dino raps down in Dorchester but we also had a day out in Bristol to see him and his band The Odd Socks. Erin came along to this one too and it was so cute watching her clapping and dancing. She's definitely a fan! We just love this band, the songs are so fun and they are always so friendly.

We dodged the showers and headed out for some fresh air this week and ended up at the same place both times! Kingston Lacy is a stunning National Trust property with beautiful grounds that we return to again and again. We met with friends, did an easter hunt, waded through muddy puddles, had a picnic, climbed trees, found painted rocks...we had lots of fun.

Pretending they were in a band! 

The kids have had some new toys this week which have gone down well. Elliot is really into cuddly toys and he was sent some Flintstones Itty Bittys which he loves! He's never seen the Flintstones so we immediately had to watch the film - the toys are now taking pride of place in his bed :)

The weekend ended with an impromptu visit to Bournemouth Gardens to hunt for rocks. We're getting a bit addicted to this new hobby - we love painting them and hiding them but we love finding them too! Our local rock page on Facebook organised a big rock drop yesterday in Bournemouth so we woke up and decided to go down. The weather was terrible and we got drenched but we found loads of rocks and even managed to squeeze in an ice cream!

We have a few things planned for the week ahead but it all depends on what the weather decides to do. I'm sure we'll be out and about hiding rocks at some point!

What have been your Easter Holiday highlights? 

THINGS WE'RE LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS EASTER!

Despite the cold and wet weather, apparently it's now Spring.  I'm not convinced...our heating is still on and I'm no way near ready to give up my winter boots yet! Elliot has now broken up for the Easter hols and we are looking forward to two weeks of fun. And some nice weather would be nice too!

Here's a selection of things (in no particular order!) that we are looking forward to:

CATCHING UP WITH FRIENDS
This is the big one! I have a lovely group of Mum friends and our children have grown up together after we met at our under ones class back in 2013. We don't all live in the same area though so unfortunately some of Elliot's friends go to different schools. It's so hard to meet up in term time as we are all so busy at weekends so it's really nice in the school holidays to catch up.

ANDY'S DINO RAPS
If you read this blog regularly, or follow me on Twitter, you'll know that Elliot is a huge fan of Andy Day from CBeebies! Andy is bringing his dino raps show to Dorset on Easter weekend and we couldn't be more excited. Erin is going to my parents for the day so Elliot and I can have a day together which we don't do very often these days. He's got his Andy costume ready to wear and we might even pop in and say hello to Dippy while we're in the area!

Weymouth Sealife Adventure Park
The first day of the Easter holidays will be spent here, a favourite local attraction of Elliot's! We are looking forward to taking part in the new Octonauts Shark Mission which runs from March 30th til April 15th. We'll be able to follow the trail around the park and even meet Shellington - Elliot loves a character meet and greet!

ROCK PAINTING
This is a pretty new thing for us but we've really got the bug! I'm guessing it happens all over the UK but people paint rocks and hide them, and then people find them and post on Facebook. We found our first rock in February and have since then painted lots of our own to hide. It's quite exciting when you see one of your own creation pop up on Facebook!

ANDY & THE ODD SOCKS LIVE SHOW
Another Andy event (we're not stalking him I promise!!) - this time a visit to Bristol and tickets to see Andy and his band The Odd Socks. They are a great kids band and we always have a fab time at their shows. The CD is on in our car all the time and the songs are just so catchy!!

CADBURY EASTER EGG HUNTS
This combines two of my favourite things - Cadbury's chocolate and our local National Trust properties!! This has become a bit of a tradition for us and we always head over to Kingston Lacy which is a beautiful stately home set in stunning grounds.

NATURE WALKS AND OUTDOOR FUN
We have some beautiful scenery here in Dorset and we're looking forward to visiting some of our favourite nature reserves. One of the prettiest is Arne and it has a lovely mix of beach, heathland and woods plus a pretty cool wooden playground! Will keep our fingers crossed for dry weather :)

MIGHTY CLAWS ADVENTURE GOLF
We love a bit of crazy golf and Mighty Claws is one of the best we have been to. Featuring large scale animatronic dinosaurs, an erupting volcano and even a purple waterfall, it's a great place to visit if your children are as dinosaur obsessed as mine! Elliot is excited to visit again :)

What do you have planned over the school holidays?