In our final guest blog for our Staycation 2010 series, Naomi from Baby Loves Disco shares her experiences of holidaying in the UK!
I left the house on a wet and windy Monday morning at the start of the summer hols for Lytham St Anne’s. Kids check, bucket and spades check, picnic check, umbrella double check… St Annes on Sea is a town north of Blackpool which is a traditional English seaside town. I arrived in tow with a group of mums from our local school after a 45 min journey from Manchester. Having found a free parking space kids ran to the lovely gardens and ponds by the promenade and sand dunes. There is a park on the promenade which has enough to keep the kids entertained for a short while. With the rain continuing to pour down unfortunately some of the other activities they have on the promenade such as the trampoline’s and the paddling pool. Luckily the promenade shelters kept us dry while we ate are picnic and the kids desperate to get onto beach braved the weather with raincoats and wellies and their buckets and spades! A trip to the Victorian Pier finished off the afternoon and while the mums had a coffee the kids got stuck into ice creams and ice lolly’s (best to avoid the blue ice lollies though!). As we drove away from St Annes the sun finally came out – oh well there’s always next time!
The Family Friendly Film Festival in Manchester gets bigger and better every year. Usually I’m taking part with Baby Loves Disco but this time it’s in my capacity as mum! The Waterside in Sale was the venue for the FFFF High School Musical Day, it’s a fantastic venue which has a wide range of family friendly activities throughout the year. The crowd of parents and children were split up into 3 groups and we all get the opportunity take part in craft activities (making pom poms and HSM flags), dance routines and watching HSM2. The day was great fun and the dance routines the kids performed before the film started really got spirit of HSM! Sale Waterside has a wide range of activities throughout the year for families. http://www.watersideartscentre.co.uk/
The other FFFF day we went along to Frogs and Toads at Manchester Museum. I was slightly nervous about this one as it was a Dutch film with subtitles but the FFFF team had thought of everything and had someone reading the subtitles through the film for the younger audience. The film was brilliant and the kids really enjoyed it. After a short break we had Manchester Museums resident Herpetologist Andrew Gray who had the kids enthralled with his knowledge of Frogs and Toads. He had brought in some of the museums Frogs and Toads for the children and parents to see as well a few snakes and lizards. It was fascinating stuff apart from the bit where one of the frogs jumped out of his hand and everyone jumped out of their skin (well maybe only me!). Andrew has a great blog about the Frogs and Toads so be sure to check it out! http://frogblogmanchester.wordpress.com/about/
Having been a patron of last years Family Friendly Film Festival in Manchester I can’t say enough about how amazing some of the events they have organised over the weeks of the festival including Night at the Museum, Harry Potter Days at John Rylands Library and a whole host of films for all ages. Make sure you come next year if you didn’t this year! http://www.familyfriendlyfilmfestival.org.uk/
