An Ah-maze-ing Summer 🌻

Hi there everyone 😀

It has become a bit of a tradition for us to spend a couple of days taking Bobby, my 9 year old nephew, out over the summer holidays.

As time goes on, and he gets a bit older, more time goes into thinking about what we can do or where we can spend our day.

It needs to be something that we will all enjoy, including mum, as she often comes with us. We tend to like it to be outside, weather permitting, not too expensive and, ideally something we haven’t done before.

None of us had ever visited a maize maze and this year that seemed to fit the bill perfectly. In fact, we liked it so much we did it twice. 

Our first visit was to the Lichfield Maize Maze at Wall and what a fabulous day we had. We arrived on a beautiful day and it all looked very nice and quiet. None of us really had any idea what to expect but we were all pretty excited to start exploring …

We were given a very warm and friendly welcome and a maze map. There were two mazes, both set out in a rain forest theme … the larger one in the shape of an orang-utan and the smaller one in the shape of a parrot. There were information boards hidden within the mazes and we had questions that we had to find the answers to. It all looked like great fun …

Before heading into the maze we had a look at what else there was to do and there were plenty of brilliant simple outdoor activities for kids of all ages …

There was a fabulous looking sunflower field that we looked forward to exploring later …

… and plenty of opportunities for instagramable shots … or in my case photos for the blog … though Bobby was not interested in photos at this point … he just wanted to get in the maze …

We started with the larger of the two mazes …

Now … Bobby did have a plan … and we did let him run with it … for about five minutes 😂😂😂. He wanted to randomly wander around the maze with no map … just hoping we would find what we were looking for … and our way out. It didn’t take long to realise that was a bonkers strategy so we did have to insist on Martin just tracking where we were against the map so we didn’t just end up going around in circles …

We did have a couple of ‘moments’ when we weren’t sure where we were … but we just happened to come across a landmark each time which helped somewhat. There was ‘bench Number 1’ …

… the viewing tower …

… and the escape route signs …

We stumbled across Bench Number 2 when we’d lost our way again and, as it was hot and we were pretty knackeroonied, mum and I decided to have a pitstop whilst Martin and Bobby went off to find the last clue we needed. Martin left a trail with his walking stick on the ground so they could easily find their way back to us …

It was then the final leg and we managed to exit with no further incident 😜

It was then time for our picnic lunch, in the shade of the marquee … where Bobby found his favourite activity of the day …

After lunch we left mum sat in the marquee whilst the three of us completed the smaller maze … with Bobby being totally in charge of the ‘mapping’ as he called it …

He actually did very well and we found everything we needed with no problem at all …

… along with some cool photo opportunities …

Once back out of the maze Bobby was more amenable to posing …

… before we grabbed ice creams and headed to look at what else there was to see … starting with the sunflowers …

… some of which were mahoosive …

It was then down to the wildflower patch …

… and a final play for the Bobster before we headed on our way …

We all agreed that it had been a brilliant visit. Really good value and so much to keep all of us occupied for the best part of the day.

It was then back home to wash our legs and feet (it was dustier than we realised in the mazes) 😲 and to cool off in the garden …

I put lots of photos of our visit on Facebook and I was more than thrilled when the Maze complimented me on my photos and asked if they could use some in their social media. All of us featured in their reels for the rest of the summer. How exciting was that …

The following week we had another day with Bobby and we had all loved the maze so much that we found another one to visit. It was just the three of us this time though … it was a bit too much walking for mum. 

We headed for the Dove Fields Maize Maze at Draycott in the Clay. It was little bit further from us than Lichfield but only about 40 minutes from where Bobby lives so not too bad …

This time Bobby was on the ‘mapping’ from the very start …

… and apart from one or two ‘blips’ …

… he did amazingly well and we found everything we needed to complete the challenges.

Whilst there wasn’t quite as much going on as there had been at Lichfield … it was still really good with two mazes and a huge field set up with all sorts of simple play activities for children.

After our picnic Bobby and I left Martin sitting at the picnic bench whilst we checked out the games. We had so much fun …

I laughed so much playing swing ball that I nearly had a middle aged lady accident. I know it sounds bad but I just kept hitting the ball and Bobby wasn’t quick enough to return it so it kept hitting him on the head. I know … evil auntie or what 😂😂😂

There was a pirate ship …

… and an old tractor …

We could easily have spent all day there just playing … but we decided to head off to the garden centre at Bretby for Crazy Golf …

… and milk shakes …

We’d had another fabulous day and I can’t wait to go back to the Lichfield Maze for Halloween … just need to make sure Bobby puts it in his calendar 😜

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻