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Monday, March 21, 2011

The trouble with 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey', is that it always leaves you wanting more...

Kiss My Ass
It's just a shame we left the tea towel at home. We could have been slamming her head against that fence all day.

Anyhoo, that's Amelie in a stable situation on another all-expenses-paid outing with her parents. It goes without saying that previous Gardner Family Fun Days have met with somewhat limited success, so we kept this one strictly to a short afternoon, and headed straight up the A23 to Washbrooks Family Farm in Hurstpierpoint. We've not been there before, but from the moment we arrived, the signs looked good...

Free Range ChildrenI like anywhere that seems to be expecting emergency vehicles. I presume the orange silhouettes are crime scene outlines from previous accidents.

Entry to Washbrooks is free for the under-threes and £5 per adult, so I was tempted to send Amelie in on her own. To be honest, I was also tempted not to go in at all, as she had a whale of a time chasing a chicken around the car park for free, but in the end we decided that having spent a month's wages on petrol just to get there (it's about ten miles away), we might as well go the whole hog and pay to see the pigs.

And I'm glad we did. Here we are having the time of our lives in front of the Shetland Ponies...

Farm Family
It's surprising I look so chipper, because two minutes earlier I was feeling a little horse.

Anyhoo, having spent a couple of hours sampling all that the place has to offer, I can honestly say that I dig Washbrooks Farm...

Life's a Beach
I've always promised Lisa that I'll take her to a faraway place where she can feel the soft sand beneath her feet before she kicks the bucket. She never dreamt it would be Hurstpierpoint.

As it transpired, the farm has a lot more than just animals. Which is just as well, because Amelie got bored with those pretty quickly. She's the only girl I know who can walk up to anything from a llama to a sheep, take one look, and say "Try something else now". If it wasn't for the café, we'd have been out of there in five minutes.

She momentarily liked the baby goats though...

Get My Goat
... and here she is checking that no one's looking before she does a runner with that lamb...

Rack of Lamb
But ultimately, she was more taken with the extra-fauna activities. The Toddler Play Area was particularly good, with slides, trampolines, climbing frames and sandpits. As I said to Lisa, "We've just paid five quid each to go to the park". But hey, it's not every park that has tractor trailer rides. For an extra 50p. So we paid for those too.

Lisa's favourite ride was the one where you sit in a wooden seat while music plays in the background and someone serves you food. So we spent an enjoyable half hour in the farm café, drinking tea and eating bacon paninis. I'm sure there was one less pig in the enclosure by the time we left.

All in all, it was a surprisingly successful Gardner Family Fun Day. Admittedly, Amelie spent a disproportionate amount of time asking where the kangaroos were, but while she was busy wasting her breath, I was able to work out how much money I'd spent, using this handy cowculator...

Holy Cow!
It's great for doing maths on the hoof.

I think I need to stop milking these puns. There's too much at steak and I can't afford to mince my words. So I'll beef up my repertoire with an udder joke...

I say, I say, I say, why did the chicken cross the road?


To get away from Amelie.

7 comments:

A Passer-by said...

Having visited Toys R Us after the last outing, I'm surprised you didn't call in again and buy a trampoline for you and Amelie!!

Phil's Mum said...

Was the cow imported from Milton Keynes?

And I expect Amelie thought the lamb was a slightly larger edition of Chloe.

Phil said...

That's tomorrow's blog post.

Dave said...

You can get arrested for feeling horses.  And for some of your puns.

jon the bassist said...

Looks like it would have been nicer if it had been a little otter?

jon the bassist said...

Phil's mum. Thats definately not one of the Milton Keynes cows because it is way too pretty. Our cows are like giant roots of ginger with paint thrown over them. They definately wouldn't have numbers on, but might have some choice words.

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