Vertical drop slides and go-carts

One of the last places we went to was the National Forest Adventure Farm near Burton-on-Trent, where we met up with Di and Ry. This place is great, well worth the money, considering the local wacky warehouse place costs about 4 quid to get in, this place cost a couple of pound more and you can easily spend all day here without getting bored.

Inside is a big soft play structure which include a place for under 5's, some giant Lego and vertical drop slides and yes, they really do have a vertical drop. Ebi-kun being well, Ebi-kun was straight up there, it didn't cross his mind to try the smaller of the slides first, oh no, straight on the big one! These slides are not for mothers with a weak heart, I can tell you. Apparently adults can go on too but I didn't see any try it out, Di and I did venture onto the bumpy slide but that was about enough excitement for us.

Even the ball pool slide starts with a vertical drop! When we arrived it was virtually empty, it got a bit busier later but not manically so. There is also a big area to eat lunch, the food was homemade and lovely and very reasonably priced.

Outside they have a load of things to do, there are go-carts, free tractor ride, in the summer they have a maize maze, animals to visit, play areas, football shoot-out, little tractors to ride...

It is a perfect place to go, whatever the weather. We also discovered that it is not far from where my cousin lives, if we had known beforehand we could have met up with them too!

They also have a giant bouncy pillow, crazy golf, water gun area (for the warmer months!), beach volleyball and fossil dig plus lots of activities going on throughout the year. We had loads of fun, it would have been better only if it had been a tad warmer, it is definitely somewhere we would like to go back to next time we are over.

Just one UK tour blog post left and that will wrap it all up! Today feels like the first day back at work proper, finally the jet lag has subsided, I am still waking up at at 4am but at least I can make it through the day now without crashing! Ebi-kun is back at school and it is time for me to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in with my work.

Introducing Toby...

Close to moms house is a little farm, it has a few animals to pet and a few small shops so on a day when we had nothing planned we popped by. The farm is onto a good thing, they sell you bags of food so you can feed their animals! 

I grew up next to a farm and feel totally at home surrounded by animals but Ebi-kun gets a bit nervous, it took this poor donkey several attempts to get the carrot.

We dropped lucky, we just happened to be there when they were bringing in Toby the pony, Ebi-kun knows that I have always been able to ride, I had a pony, similar size to this one when I was just 18 months old and I can't actually remember learning to ride, just as I can't remember learning to walk. Anyway, we had hoped to visit a friend who has ponies but it basically rained the whole time we were in the UK but as we were patting Toby the owner asked Ebi-kun if he wanted to ride him into the stable, of course he said yes. 

He had no saddle or bridle, just a head collar and Ebi-kun had no helmet, this didn't even cross my mind as being dangerous, it is how I grew up. The funny bit was when the pony got in the stable he decided to have a roll in his fresh straw, luckily the handler grabbed Ebi-kun before he got squashed! 

It all added to the excitement and Ebi-kun couldn't wait to tell daddy about it all. It was a shame the weather was so crappy, I would have loved to have given him a proper lesson or two.