Three under four?

A few weekends ago, we looked after Culturebaby's best buddies for the weekend. As our house is in no way toddler proofed yet (think antique glass fronted cabinets and precarious plant stands), we thought going out might be the best option.

Saturday

First stop bowling. This was a treat for the four year old who had never been before. Other than the rather cool Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes, designed for adults and serving alcohol and diner food in 1950s style surroundings, I hadn't been to a normal bowling alley for a long time. It seems that they now resemble an unhappy marriage between an amusement arcade and a disco. I've never been very good at bowling. Shamefully, albeit with the help of side barriers, both the four year old and two year old beat me.

Zip Wire at Wrest Park

Success with the little ones? The four year old really enjoyed herself; the two year old seemed to enjoy her turn and spent the rest of the time looking vaguely confused; and Culturebaby got over excited and then promptly fell asleep. This only took an hour. We had to think harder. So we consulted the Culture Bible (our combined National Trust and English Heritage Guides).

Next stop, English Heritage's nearby Wrest Park. What a find. They have a fabulous cafe and adventure playground, which entertained all three children for hours. There was something for all of them - from swings for Culturebaby, through to a zip wire for the four year old. They had so much to occupy them that we didn't even make it into the gardens.

Sunday

http://gouk.about.com/od/freethingstodo/

It was a bit drizzly, but we headed off to Whipsnade Tree Cathedral to explore. We had CultureUncle with us too. One child per adult: much easier! The site is made from trees, shrubs and plants and is roughly laid out like a cathedral, with chapels and cloisters to explore. It was created after the First World War in the spirit of 'faith, hope and reconciliation'. It's a fascinating place and in a moment of creative genius, Culturedad suggested we play hide and seek. This was the perfect game for this location and kept us occupied for ages. Everyone enjoyed it, including Culturebaby who giggled as she was carted around in her Baby Bjorn. Despite some seriously soaking feet (meaning kids had to be carried round in socks for the rest of the day), it was good old fashioned outdoorsy fun. And free. (Though I might not wear my bright red coat next time...)

Hide and Seek at Whipsnade Tree Cathedral

Next stop, the nearby Dunstable Downs. They have a great cafe, which amongst other things serves comfort food, and has spectacular views. There's also a shop with a selection of classic bargain books for kids. It seems to be rather a popular hang out with families, who come there to fly kites or walk across the downs. While it rained we snuggled up, got our feet dry, and the kids coloured in nature activity sheets provided by the National Trust. When it stopped raining we wandered, watched the kites and bounced on the bouncy castle.


With the help of our trusty friends EH and NT, three under four was not only manageable, it was great fun. We had a fabulous time, and it just shows that the classic (and often free) games are still in many ways the best.

Trust-worthy?

I suspect the National Trust will feature rather prominently in Culturebaby's travels. I (shamefully) have thus far failed to learn to drive, so when my parents come to stay we pack the Baby Bjorn, jump in the car and go on heritage adventures. Now we have a baby, my husband and I have also decided to take advantage of the fact that Culturebaby's luggage for a weekend trip requires a vehicle with the capacity of an articulated lorry, and holiday in England this year. We love England anyway, it is beautiful and there is so much to explore; and frankly one of the best things about England for me is The National Trust.

When I was young, my family fell victim for a time to one of the failing northern industries in the 1980s and early '90s and my Dad had a stage of being in and out of jobs. We were skint. However, whatever our family went through, my parents always ensured that they were able to retain our family membership to the National Trust. This may seem on the face of it to be wildly decadent, but it in reality ensured that we always had something wonderful (and educational) to do together very cheaply. The Trust was good to me, I believe that it made me who I am, and I feel very loyal to it in return. And I've recently seen yet another, hitherto ignored, dimension of its appeal - it is great to visit with babies.

Culturebaby started her journey with the National Trust at Benjamin Disraeli's house Hughenden Manor, appropriate as the long suffering husband believes she'll be the next female PM (though I think I'd rather she avoided climbing that greasy pole...). She was rather little at the time and permanently hungry, had an unsavoury nappy incident (known to the initiated as 'Poomageddon') in Disraeli's study (perhaps she questioned his imperialist politics?) and we had to make a hasty retreat to the babychanging facilities with her yelling loudly. This wasn't quite how I envisaged our first trip to a NT house, but frankly I was very impressed with the staff throughout. To a chorus of, 'we've all done it' and 'not to worry at all', the staff gave me a seat to feed the hungry little lady and made us feel really welcome.

Our next (fortunately less scatologically oriented) visits were while we were travel-cotting in the wolds (our first family hols). While the boys were playing golf, my mother in law and I snuck off with Culturebaby to Chedworth Roman Villa. Chedworth is one of the largest Romano-British villas in the country and it has some great mosaics, surviving hypocausts (underfloor heating systems - the Romans really were rather clever), and a selection of baths to rival any modern spa. There is a new building with raised walkways, and Culturebaby was really impressed with the projected images on the walls and the various items to touch. (Don't forget your baby carrier - prams are a bit tricky to navigate for this and the next property). We also visited Snowshill Manor. We already mentioned in an earlier post how the founder Charles Wade took his family motto 'Let nothing perish' rather seriously and restored an entire Cotswold manor house to display his huge collection of over 22,000 objects, and lived in a tiny building next door. I recently read that this quirky collection sparked one person's love of museums forever, and I can see why. It was an odd, sometimes oppressive, always fascinating, collection of handmade items. Culturebaby didn't know where to look there was so much to take in, and she chatted away at the various objects until she encountered the collection of (rather frightening) japanese armour which made her cry! I was impressed that the guides in the house took the time to talk to children and actually provided items for them to handle.

Chedworth Roman Villa

Snowshill Manor

 A few weeks later Culturebaby and I went to The Red House with Grandma and Grandad. It is the only house commissioned, created and lived in by William Morris, founder of the Arts & Crafts movement - rather a fad of mine. (N.B. for THE most amazing Arts and Crafts house visit Blackwell in the Lakes). This small property is accessible from the centre of London (you stumble across it in a residential street in Bexleyheath) and has a friendly little cafe (with highchairs) that feels rather like you are sitting in somebody's front room. It also has a lovely small garden, which provided Culturebaby with her first encounter with a scarecrow (I rooted out The Dingle Dangle Scarecrow from the recesses of my brain for an impromptu song) and a collection of fabrics and print blocks we were able to touch. The bold and colourful arts and crafts patterns really caught Culturebaby's attention. We combined this trip with our first visit to English Heritage's nearby wonderful Eltham Palace (one for a future post).

Finally, one of our best visits so far was to Dunham Massey, a favourite from my childhood. We visited with Culturebaby's Godmother and her one year old and there was so much for us to see and do. As one of the seemingly popular hangouts of northern yummy mummies, it is well prepared for little visitors. It is a great house and gardens anyway, and has a 300 acre deer park, but this time we encountered a family of tiny ducklings, chickens, deer on the lawn, stunningly coloured bushes and flowers, and the always exciting myriad of waterfeatures. The gardens are also very pram friendly, though be careful of the narrow bridges over the river - we narrowly avoided wet calamity on one of them! In the house we were offered a buggy park and, for the toddler, a hip baby carrier. One single annoying moment featured a guide telling Culturebaby not to touch a column (oh come on, we were hardly going to break it!), but in other rooms we were welcomed and given items to touch. Culturebaby was fascinated by a marble table with playing cards painted on the surface, which she tried to pick up... Best of all, we were able to play on the Grand piano in one of the rooms, and try on various items of dress in an area designed for younger visitors.

We have so much more to report on the National Trust, but we'll try to make it bitesized... and we'd love to hear about the properties and places that you and your little ones love too. If you haven't discovered the Trust yet, never fear, you can join in the fun here. I'm sure you'll soon agree it's one of the best value things you'll ever buy for your kids, and eventually forgive (or join) my evangel-trust-ism.

Happy Horniman

It looked a bit grim outside again yesterday. I'm a hardy northerner, brought up on the rainy side of the Pennines. My Grandma tells me that that's why the cotton industry was located there - it's the dampest place in England. I recall my mother putting a catchy tune to the poem Weather, presumably in an attempt to create a motivational anthem for our (often wet) treks around the countryside as a child:

 Whether the weather be fine, 

Or whether the weather be not, 

Whether the weather be cold,

Or whether the weather be hot,

We'll weather the weather

Whatever the weather,

Whether we like it or not!

   (Author: unknown)

I've found myself resurrecting it in recent days and teaching it to Culturebaby. Will this rain ever stop? (We're supposed to have some perks for the long commute and high prices in the South East). Anyway, it seemed like a day of museuming might be a good antedote to our precipitation-induced cabin fever. Culturebaby's little buddies suggested The Horniman. It's been on my list and we'd never been.

Frederick Horniman was a Victorian chap with a vision. He travelled the globe collecting natural and ethnographic items. He wanted to 'bring the world to Forest Hill' and educate and enrich the lives of the local community. My aforementioned long suffering husband no doubt rather relates to Frederick's wife who reportedly said that 'either the collection goes or we do'. They moved house soon after (and the museum stayed). The period seems to have produced a number of these eccentric/devoted/quirky/visionary (*delete as appropriate) individuals. We recently visited Snowshill Manor in the Cotswolds run by the fabulous National Trust. There, the founder Charles Wade, took his family motto 'Let nothing perish' rather seriously and restored an entire Cotswold manor house to display his huge collection of over 22,000 objects and lived in a tiny building next door... Anyway, thank you Fred (and your understanding wife) for your rather diverse and fascinating collection.

 The museum gets great reviews from kid's activity websites, and rightly so. It is varied (to be honest it is seemingly rather random), and very child-centric: hands-on, sensory and engaging; and there are also thoughtful touches such as paper and drawing equipment all around the place. One of my enduring memories of my childhood was my love affair with the Manchester Museum. Its Egyptian collections were the singlemost significant influence on my subsequent academic and career choices. (Mummies beware - no pun - museuming could set your child up for a fabulously happy but financially challenged future...) It also had a great little vivarium, and it was this that I remembered fondly today as we discovered the wonderful aquarium at the Horniman. I think I expected a few small fish tanks, but the collection was impressive. Culturebaby has never been to an aquarium and she was absolutely fascinated.

We have one waterproof bath book. It's about a helpful starfish. We clearly need another as both I and my husband know it by heart and are rather bored with it, but it came in handy today as we peered into a tank of them. Lots of familiar characters from our other books and squirty bath toy collection were also there to greet us! We moved through areas with glowing jellyfish, bright blue poison frogs, butterflies, tropical fish and seahorses. Culturebaby particularly loved a huge tank of bright tropical fish with a special curved glass (making you feel almost inside the tank). She was so excited, I videoed her reaction. She also loved the seahorses as they floated and curled around strands of seaweed. At one point we were invaded by an excited school party, which was rather hectic but actually added to Culturebaby's interest (she loves watching other children), and then at other times we were left peering into the tanks, surrounded by other fascinated babies of a similar age. It's clearly another NCT group hang-out.

A second area of note was a fantastic collection of musical instruments. They come in all shapes and sizes. There are some important pieces, some odd, some enormous. It is impossible to imagine anyone being able to play some of them. My husband, who always seems to champion the quirky, large and bassy instruments in a band or orchestra (and I think rather wishes he had learned to play the double bass, baritone sax or tuba, probably because they look and sound rather funny) would have been suitably impressed by some of the giant pieces in the collection. Highlights of the music gallery for the kids were several 'sound stations' where we were able to select an image of a particular musical instrument and hear it played. We danced to the rhythm of an African drum, to an Irish reel, a Sioux war chant, and heard what many weird and wonderful looking instruments sound like... and nobody told us to shhhhhh! Fabulous! We then made the exciting discovery of a nearby Hands-on Space; a room we had to ourselves full of unusual musical instruments for us to try. Culturebaby enjoyed herself immensely banging on the drums and other more simple instruments, and then watched (and bounced) happily as she watched her toddler buddies demonstrate some of the others. A rather fascinating item was a set of pipes that appeared to be operated by hitting them with a flip flop...

 

A third hit with the toddlers was the Nature Base. The honeybees appear to have been on holiday, but there was a live mouse, stuffed animals to stroke, discovery games to play and a particularly clever display about animal activity at times of the day - with stuffed animals and a brilliant clock which, when turned, played the sounds associated with certain times, such as the dawn chorus. The associated Natural History collections also held a number of areas of interest with a giant stuffed walrus and other exciting animals. Culturebaby seemed most interested in a rather disquietening collection of dogs heads that were looking right out at the viewer. This part of the museum is rather traditional, perhaps a little tired, but there was still a lot to engage little ones.

Finally, the museum has some rather beautiful outdoor spaces, ideal for kids. The park is undergoing a £2.3m redevelopment and is set to be excellent, with features such as a music garden and live animals. The highlight here for me, however, was the rather unexpected and magnificent view across London. Forest Hill is indeed a proper hill, and I can think of fewer places in London better suited to a summer's day picnic. And if it rains, there is a stunning large Victorian Conservatory set aside as a picnic area.

We had travelled a long way to the museum and I was particularly annoyed with myself for missing the Egyptian collection as we charged down the hill to catch the last off peak train (clutching a new stash of fabulous baby-friendly musical instruments from the shop). But as we now have a year's membership of the aquarium (rather bargainous at £6), we have the perfect excuse to return.

"Those who use their eyes obtain the most enjoyment and knowledge. Those who look but do not see go away no wiser than when they came." (Frederick Horniman)