A Big Day Out

Hi there everyone 😀 

We managed to have a bit of a big day out last week. It was half term and we got to spend the day taking Bobby and mum to The Children’s Country House at Sudbury, a National Trust property in Derbyshire.

It was a cold, but glorious day and the plan was to spend the morning exploring the property, have some lunch … and then head over to Melbourne, where a Treasure Trail was on the cards, with the option for swapping the Treasure Trail for a Geocache depending on how long we had and how achey our knees were …

We parked in the car park, which is a short walk from the hall, but we opted to make use of the buggy service to make things a little easier for Martin and save our legs for exploring …

As it was half term the property was fully booked and there were plenty of people about as we went into the grounds … Bobby heading straight for the big chair …

We decided to start with a look round the Museum of Childhood, before it got too busy …

… and it wasn’t long before we were interacting with all the bits and pieces there were to do …

We didn’t seem to be inside for that long as it was actually already quite busy and there were lots of areas closed off and marked … coming soon. It was still good though … with lots of interesting things for us all to see and do …

Outside we were soon off on a hunt for the grasshoppers. There were six to find in total and a short walk around the back of the hall soon had them all ticked off …

We had a walk down to the lake where there was an artist doing a talk and demonstration on some kind of printing and we had a sit for a while before moving on …

There was a quick visit to the play area …

… before stopping for lunch … yes … outside … in the sunshine … in February. It was a real treat, though I have to say the National Trust’s lunch offering was nothing to write home about, which was a shame … Bobby was quite happy with his hot chocolate though …

We thought we’d seen everything and were about to catch the buggy back to the car when we realised we could actually go inside the house at the front. Now we’ve all been to the hall before and none of us have ever realised the house was also open for visiting so we cancelled the buggy driver and headed over.

There was quite a lot more to see inside the house. A real mixture of where the past meets the present and a little bit of future thrown in for good measure.

Bobby said his favourite bit was the shadow theatre where he spent ages, playing with every prop available, racing up and down on the hobby horse, digging holes with the spade and flying ducks back and forth. He was really funny to watch …

Having explored the house ... that really was it ... and it was time to head over to Melbourne. As we were running a bit later than expected we decided to save the Treasure Trail for another visit and opted for a bit of Geocaching instead.

We did a caching trail that took us on a walk for about a mile, looking for clues around the village that gave us what we needed to find the final hide. It was a lovely walk around the village, down lots of hidden ginnels/alleyways, with lots of beautiful old buildings to look out for  …

Bobby was in charge of writing down all the answers we found and we stopped for another drink at the coffee hut near Melbourne Hall whilst we worked out where we would find ground zero.

It wasn’t too far away and we got to have a wander alongside The Pool after we’d found what we were looking for …

Although the cache itself was a bit damp and grubby Bobby was very happy with the treasure that it held ...

It was then time to take the little man home … he had to be back for swimming. Mum, Martin and I were ready for curling up on the sofa.

We’d had a lovely day and will definitely be back to Melbourne to complete our Treasure Trail and maybe have another visit to Melbourne Hall and Gardens on another day 😀

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