Last week on a day off work the girls and I spent a really lovely day at Walton Hall Gardens in Warrington.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous so we decided to take a picnic and go.
We parked up and walked over the bridge, watching and waving to canal boats passing below. Then we arrived at the playground, which, if you are a 3-year-old or thereabouts is VERY impressive. Lilly’s absolute favourite being the helter skelter style slide – plenty of exercise was had climbing up there time after time after time!
After that we spread out our picnic blanket under a shady tree and enjoyed our lunch – I was really pleased that Isla ate some soft cheese sandwiches and had no choking issues, and also seemed to enjoy them and feel full up without me having to heat anything up for her – hallelujah! Isla also had her first taste of strawberries:
… as you can see she wasn’t too sure at first, but she enjoyed holding it in her hand and biting into it, so I’m counting that as a success!
Then we went for a look at the pond with some HUGE fish in – one even flipped out of the water while we watched with very much entertained Lilly. And the flower gardens there were looking beautiful in the sunshine, especially this one which was planted with hundreds of lovely purple tulips:
After that, it was back to the playground for a bit then a look around the ‘children’s zoo’, which basically comprises of lots of rabbits, guinea pigs, peacocks and things, and then Lilly had a little go at pottery painting which was taking place next to the playground
She chose a little aeroplane to paint (£3.50) and I was actually really impressed by the detail she put into it. Usually painting at home is a bit of a messy business, with LOTS of paint applied and all the colours mixed together. But at the pottery painting they had a big box of fine paintbrushes, and the children were using one paintbrush per colour, then putting the used brush into a tub, so no colours were mixed up. Lilly took a good ten minutes carefully adding little dots of colour to her plane before declaring it finished. Then we left it to dry while we sat down with an ice cream on the grass.
After that we had one last play in the playground – and strangely enough, bumped into a group of children from Lilly’s nursery on a day trip! Then we collected Lilly’s aeroplane and came home.
All in all I think we were there about five hours – not bad for somewhere that’s free (car parking aside). The weather obviously helped, but if you live anywhere near Warrington I’d thoroughly recommend Walton Hall Gardens for a nice day out with the children.
