Visit to Cafe Dolce Southport

 

We've popped into Café Dolce a few times now, usually because the kids need the loo and I'd rather enjoy a coffee than spend time hunting for a free loo.  

I'd rather spend my money in one of the independent cafes than the big names, I know there's a slim chance of getting a bad coffee but I don't believe people set up cafes unless they love coffee and care about at least trying to serve a good quality cuppa.  At least with an independent café you have a better chance of getting something with a little atmosphere and maybe find a little gem like this one.

The café feels really spacious inside which I find is pretty rare.  I like how simple and airy it feels.  And these big comfy sofas are fab, the kids can sit back and relax with a nice low table for their drinks.

The coffee is perfectly nice and always appreciated but the real highlight is these epic milkshakes.  Loaded with cream and ice cream, the kids love them.

They also do real fruit smoothies which are delicious.  

The service is really nice too, the waitresses don't pester, it's quite a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.  I don't feel the need to rush my children, or try to make them sit still or be overly quiet.  Obviously I don't let them run riot, it's a café not a playground, but I don't restrict them from giggling or moving around within a limited area.  

My kids have this thing for asking for two milkshake flavours in one glass and the staff laugh and comply with their request amicably.  

I think another reason we keep coming back here is that the toilets are large and very clean.  I can put my bag down in one corner and we can all go in together so there's no need to leave my children or our bags and coats unattended.  The sink is low enough for them to reach as is the soap.

Here's the link if you want to check them out:

https://www.facebook.com/caffedolcesouthport/

Trip to Kings Gardens Southport

 

We love Kings Gardens in Southport.  It's a large adventure playground which is almost entirely made from wood and other natural materials.  There's lots to climb onto and over.  It's quite a challenging park for my 3 and 6 year olds.  There is a smaller park just next door for younger children.

This trip my Little Pickle has mastered the "big" slide.

It's accessed by a climbing wall.  Little Pickle struggled a bit with this at first.  But after a few attempts he'd gained his confidence and was going up quite quickly.

The rope bridge was challenging at first too but he's got it down now.  He often crawls across it still.

Of course the slide is the main attraction. 

There's a bit of a turn near the bottom, which has caused a few friction burns.

He's finally learned to clear the bottom of the slide.  His typical comment is "again, again".

Little Pickle's First Hair Cut

 

Little Pickle has had long hair for a while now.  I asked him a few times if he wanted it cutting shorter but he'd always say he wanted his hair to be long like his sisters.  I figured that trying to force a toddler to sit still for hair cut they don't want was way more hassle than I want in my life.  Then the hairdressers shut down and it wasn't an option anyway.

I've been trimming Little Miss's hair myself and doing a poor job of it, just enough to keep her fringe out of her eyes.  Now that the hairdressers have re-opened and we're on holiday with time to spare I thought I'd treat Little Miss to a proper hair cut.  

I asked Little Pickle if he wanted one too and to my surprise he said he wanted his hair short like his cousins.  

So off to the hairdressers we went . . .

He was a perfect angel and hardly wriggled at all.  He did need a little distracting towards the end but for the most part he seemed to quite enjoy himself.

Here's the after picture.  It was quite a shock to see him like this at first, I think it took me about a day to get used to it.  

Trip to Southport Beach and Pier

 

We took a trip to Southport on the west coast.

I took the kids for a day at the beach.

The tide goes unusually far out leaving these areas of poodles which are shallow enough that I was happy for my kids to paddle in the them without needing particularly close supervision.  They do leave the beach very wet and almost muddy.  There is a dry area that doesn't appear to get much sea but it is absolutely covered in millions of shards of shells.  

Little Miss cut her finger quite deeply on on of the shards so the kids are reluctant to go back to the beach which is a real shame.  

Kaisercraft Paint By Numbers Uniron Castle Craft Kit Review

 Little Miss was given this paint by numbers set for her birthday.  I saved it for our summer holiday as it's always handy to have some new toys to keep the kids occupied while we're on holiday.  I particularly like craft kits like this as often many of the materials are disposed of after the craft project has been finished, so I don't have to worry about bringing them home.  And to be perfectly honest at 6 and 3 years old the resulting craft project are often disposed of too or sometimes played with until they fall apart first.

Despite completing this kit without any assistance what-so-ever Little Miss has actually produced a piece that she'll be proud to display on her bedroom wall.  She carefully went though each colour and matched the numbers.  She had to go back and do all the colours she'd missed.  

It kept her occupied for a good hour and she's really proud of her work.

There was enough paint leftover for both kids to have some serious fun finger painting.  

City Great Vehicles LEGO 60253 Ice-Cream Truck Toy Review

 

Little Dude with given this Ice Cream Truck Lego set.  

According to the box it's for children ages 5 and up.  Little Dude is 3 years old but he's long since grown out of putting little things in his mouth so I'm happy for him to play with "big kid" Lego.  He's been sharing his sister's for quite some time now and the only issue is that he does tend to lose it more easily than I'd like but that's manageable with a little close supervision.

He can't build the Lego set, I have to do that for him of course.  But that's OK, I quite enjoy it.  Most Lego set instructions start with the characters or smaller accessories so it's easy to assemble these quickly and give them to the children so they can start playing while I build the main structure for them.

I'm really impressed with this Lego set, it's the first Lego city set I've assembled in decades.  The side of the Ice Cream truck is hinged so that the kiddos can get in to play.  The side window also slides open which is a great feature.  

Little Dude is entering the role playing stage so this is perfect.  He doesn't just push the truck along like any toy car, he actually plays with the Lego characters.  The little skater dude begs for ice cream at the truck window.  

The best bit about these Lego models is that Little Dude has free reign to pull them apart and see how they are assembled without anyone telling him off for "breaking" his toys.  He's developing a fascination for how things work and just loves to investigate.  I'm looking forward to watching him re-assemble them after dismantling them, his big sister is really enjoying this phase and it's become a fabulous outlet for her creativity.

When I asked Little Dude to pose for a photo with his new toy this was the face he pulled.  I couldn't not share it.

Trip to the West Lancashire Light Railway

 

We took a trip to the West Lancashire Light Railway for their Summer Gala Day.

It was a lovely little place with unlimited rides on the mini trains.

It was a short journey, just 10 minutes to the end of the line and another 10 minutes back, just right for littles.

The volunteers were fantastic, carefully cleaning each carriage after each and every trip.  Each carriage took about 6 people so basically one family per carriage.

There was a little fun fair on site.  Just one ride and one fairground game but the kiddos were quite happy.

There was also an event tent with several volunteers showing off their model railways.  I expected this to be an area that wouldn't be of much interest to my small children but 3 year old Little Dude was fascinated and kept asking to go back in.  He probably spent over an hour just watching the model trains go round their little tracks.  I suspect that Hornby will be making some money from me over the coming years.  I can't say I mind, I love the idea of helping my little one's build all the scenery and buildings to go with their tracks.  

The standard price for our family of 4 is £12 but I booked the tickets in advance and got a discount so it was just £8.  I think this was excellent value for the three train rides we had.  https://www.tickettailor.com/events/westlancashirelightrailwaytrust/415966/

Kids Glass Painting Kits from Dovecraft

 

Just look at the concentration on his face!!  

The kids really enjoyed these little kits.

GALT Rainbow Lab STEM Toy Review

A young science kit to encourage early STEM learning and scientific thinking while having fun.  This is how my Little Miss did with the Galt Rainbow Lab Science kit.

She was totally engaged right from the start.

She struggled to use the pipettes but you can see how hard she was concentrating.

She loved watching the colours change as she mixed them.

After a 15 minutes or so she got the hang of it and was happily mixing colours with very little supervision.

This is a fab kit and we'll definitely be getting some of the others in the range.  At just turned four Little Miss is just barely old enough to enjoy this kit and use it safely - outside I should add as the food colouring will certainly stain.

Children's Educational Activity - Classic Lego

My just turned 4 year old exploring her very first Classic Lego set.

Little Miss got a Lego set for her fourth birthday.  She loves Duplo but this is her first "big girl" Lego.  

My parents were big fans of Lego and I'm in total agreement.  It's educational, creative and great fun.  What's not to love? - stepping on the stuff and clearing it up of course but hey, it's worth it to keep the kids happy screen free for 30 minutes, and yes I've got a full 30 minutes of peace thanks to Lego . . . and my parents love of this plastic building material suddenly makes perfect sense.

I emptied the contents of the box onto a tray to keep all the teeny tiny bits better contained.

She engaged with the picture instructions straight away.  Just look how excited she was to start.

And the concentration on her face.  

First she needs to find the piece pictured in the instructions by matching the colour, shape and size.  A perfect exercise in early maths.

Then she needs to make careful use of spatial awareness and some more counting to assemble the pieces as shown in the instructions.  

She run out of steam after one model and asked for a lot of help with the subsequent ones.  This set was clearly a challenge for her.  

When the rest of the models were finished she immediately began role playing with them.  

Family Day Out at Blackpool Model Village, Lancashire

Hmm, I think this is going to be my first negative post about a trip. 

Don't get me wrong the model village was nice enough, the models were sweet and it was a pleasant place to walk around.  

I was expecting the models to be a bit more accurate and informative.  Such as models of iconic buildings in the area along with information about them, like a micro tour of the area.  Or a mini trip through the history of the area or the country in general.  But the models appeared to be quite random with no information about them at all, not even how old they are or who built them and why.  

The vehicles were entirely toys as were most of the props.  I appreciate it takes a huge amount of skill to build these accurately and it may be necessary to cut some corners but in my opinion they cut a few too many.

The plants were really badly chosen too, either that or they haven't been as well maintained as needed.  The scale of the plants was totally off and it ruined the effect.

They did a little quiz in the way of a guided tour.  Some of the questions were clearly about parts of the models that weren't there any more.   Or maybe they intended to test their visitors general knowledge.  

For younger visitors there was a gnome hunt.  12 little gnomes to find hidden in and around the models.  Little Miss really enjoyed this.  They were the perfect mix of obvious and tricky.  

My main bug bear with this place was the price.  We got a discount voucher from the tourist information centre but it still cost £18 for our family of 4.  Full price was £23.  Had it been a few pounds a person my expectations would have been lower and I wouldn't have been disappointed.  Parking was an extra £2.50 which really bugged me on top of the high entry fee.  We took a picnic and stretched the visit out to about 2 hours but even Little Miss was bored.  We had planned to spend the whole day here.  Thankfully there was a park next door with a large playground and a cafe which rounded our day off nicely.  

I feel really bad criticising the Blackpool Model Village.  It's a family owned business not a big company and I know from personal experience how tough that can be.  I have no doubt that the family work their butts off to make the village the best it can be.  

I felt the place needed more investment but more importantly more skill and enthusiasm.  Perhaps sponsorship from local businesses to have their buildings modelled.   Some places like this have volunteer groups who help maintain the site and exhibits.  The model village has been there for decades and should be a real asset to the area.  

The Blackpool Model Village could and should be a wonderful day out for a young family or pensioners.  I really hope they are able to turn it around and find a way to make the models more interesting and upgrade the facilities whilst bringing the price down to something more realistic.  I do understand that this is incredibly difficult to achieve.  Even more so when the business has been handed down through the generations along with problems and a lack of innovation.  

It's such a shame to say that we won't be coming back.  The tickets are available as part of the Blackpool Resort Pass perhaps that brings the cost down enough to make it worth a visit.  But I'm afraid I can't recommend it at the current price.

Family Day Out to Fairhaven Lake, St Annes, Lancashire

I took the kids for a day out at Fairhaven Lake in Lythm St Annes.

There's a fabulous play park. 

With a big pirate ship climbing frame and slide.

As well as a little one for toddlers.

And a sandpit.

Swings of course.

We went for a walk around the lake.

And had a look at a model spitfire.

We said hello to the ducks.

And did some colouring at the RSPB Discovery centre.

We also went for a boat trip.

And got very, very wet!!

Of course the sun came out as we left.

It was a lovely day out and we'll definitely be going back next time we're in the area.