Days out in Leicestershire

Still looking for cool days out in Leicestershire? There are a couple of weeks of the summer holiday left now. How do you keep the kids entertained? Luckily we have some really fun days out right on our doorstep here in Leicestershire. Take a look back over the blog for some ideas. And here are a few places I have taken Bam Bam recently.

Cattows Farm

Pick your own is a great way to get out in the fresh air with the family. Cattows Farm is an OK cafe with an OK farm shop and an awesome seasonal PYO offer. Most people know them for their incredible acres of pumpkins in the autumn. However, you can pick the most awesome strawberries there too.

The season will be nearly over as I write this unfortunately, so head over there quickly. Bam Bam absolutely loved this and crammed as many sweet strawberries in her gob as her pudgy fingers could grab. We did manage to get a decent punnet to take home wrangled away from her though. You are just charged by the kilo for what you take so it’s very reasonable and you can spend a very nice afternoon there.

Mini Meadows Farm

A new place to me was the Mini Meadows Farm. We were camping just a couple of miles up the road this week. It is £6 for adults and a little less for kids and it’s really worth it. We went on an absolutely blazing afternoon so we weren’t really properly prepared, although thankfully we had some water, sun cream and a hat for Bam Bam. I would take more reinforcements (and a pushchair) if we went back.

Therer were a huge number if different animals to visit, and for older kids I really liked how the feed buckets were colour coded so you knew which treat was appropriate for who. There were some extremely cute pygmy goats in particular that I recommend you try and find. Bam Bam also like the big cages you could get into to get up close with rabbits and guinea pigs. Although she kept accusing the guinea pigs of being bunnies. “BUNNY!”

As well as the various animal enclosures, there are many other entertainments. The obligatory cafe, an extensive playground, an indoor “beach” complete with large grapevine growing happily in the greenhouse. Be prepared to lose important body fluids whilst playing in there on a hot day. Finally there was also an indoor adventure playground complete with a toddler area, although it was still a bit overwhelming for Bam Bam. She was much happier outside playing on the little push along tractor – the tractor obsession continues.

New Walk Museum

Finally I took Bam Bam back to one of my old places of work today, with a quick pitstop at New Walk Museum (or whatever they call it nowadays.) We only had limited time, so although I know she’d love the animals in Wildspace, we ran through the travelling animal photography exhibition to get to German Expressionism, which she absolutely loved. Then we popped our heads in to meet the Rutland Dinosaur for the first time. Free and fascinating for smalls, they still have a booking system in place so make sure you drop them a line when you want to visit.