Another one of the cool places that Abbie & I visited on our trip to the UK was Nottingham city…
Ok I confess that I exaggerate a bit when I call it a cool place – Nottingham itself I can totally pass on – {it’s just another dirty great big city}; it was cool more because it was the people we went to see, not the city!…
Neil’s two brothers live in Nottingham along with their wives & children, so our first weekend in the UK Neil’s Mum drove us across and we spent 4 nights there visiting everybody. We have 3 nephews in total; ages 5, 3 & 2 and we were lucky enough to time our trip for one of their birthday’s.
To celebrate we spent a family day out at Manor Farm, Castle Hill. {Technically it’s Leistershire, but only a short drive from where one of Neil’s brothers lives in Nottingham}.
Wow do I highly recommend Manor Farm for a visit if you have small children!!!
Seriously, it was the best place for a relaxed family outing ever!! Mind you it did help that the sun was shining in one of the best British summer days ever! (The general consensus seemed to be that we brought it with us from Perth because it got to 31 degrees that week. Almost unheard of!)
It’s just a small farm in terms of size & numbers of animals to see, but it offers so much more than your typical farm visit place does! Firstly it’s so picturesque, but secondly it has the most impressive array of children’s play areas to choose from. I believe there must have been at least 5-6 different areas, each offering different stuff for the children to do as well as the animals to see as well.
We arrived at about 10.30ish am and left about 5pm and there was not a single tear shed from any child (or parent) in our party that entire time!! Nice!
The first play area we came to had slides, a cubby complete with cooking stuff, push around cars & bikes, a picnic gazebo, and more. We hung out there for an hour or so until it was time for a picnic…
Next it was off on a slow trip down to the bottom, visiting all the animals on the way.
There were goats, pigs, ponies, owls, peacocks, ducks, geese, sheep etc. etc…
A few donkeys to ride…
Also a few potheads happened to be in residence, watching the goings on around them…
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| Photo courtesy of my Father-in-law |
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| Meet {some of} the family. I’d show you more pics but I haven’t asked permission… |
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| Photo courtesy of my Father-in-law |
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Looks like a pretty perfect day to me too. Though I do want to know if you made it across the tight rope.
If that’s you application to the Leicestershire Tourist Board (if they have one!), then you’ve got the job! x
Yay, so glad you got the fab weather for the visiting part of your trip, looks like a fun place to visit :o)
Cool – we go there quite often, how weird to read a review of the place on a blog!! x
That Farm sounds like the place to go! Wish we lived closer to it. i’ll have to ask my Uncle if he’s been. =D
Last day to enter my giveaway. If you haven’t entered already today is your last chance =D
http://ibescheraldine.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/official-150th-post-giveaway.html
Heeeeeeeeeyyyyyy, quit badmouthing Nottingham!! 🙂 I live in Nottingham, PA and I was offended until I read that you’re in the REAL Nottingham! Beautiful pics!
What a fun place to play!!
I just love the “daisy” pics of Abbie. 😀
I still like to go to petting zoos, where you can get up close & touch all the critters. Glad you had such good weather that day!