Fairies, superheros and picnics

Similarly, to many children born to archaeologists, Number One Son starts to live the life of an archaeological scale bar. See, here above Number One Son and his dinosaurs do a section of Fosse Way south from Narborough where one could actually park without being in danger of being flattened by very large lorries, which could easily happen on Watling Street. Below he found the fact that there was a naked bum in an information board in the Roman baths of Wall totally hilarious. “Mummy, mummy, look, a naked bum!” However, what managed heritage sites are really good for are picnics, the main stay of summer holidays.

The second picnic of the week took place with countless other families with small children in the gardens of Belgrave Hall in the ‘fairies and superheroes’ activity day. I have never seen so many Tinkerbells in one place, not to mention Spidermen. This is an annual fixture in the Leicester Museums holiday programme and it is no wonder it is so popular. The gardens used to be a botanical garden, so there is a pond, plant houses, formal flower beds, even a fox hole to marvel. There are spacious grass areas where people can have their blankets for picnics and there is plenty of space for gazebos and tents.

There was a ‘fairies and superheroes’ orientation route – we did find all the fairies and superhero stops. A good way to do sounding exercises, even if I had to do the writing. Then one could do masks, batches, wands and mobiles in the crafts activity tent. Half of the tent also served as a running around area for smaller children. Number One Son is not normally so keen on crafts, but as in ‘Medieval Mayhem’, he wanted to have suitable attire and have his superhero mask.

The formal garden with its rectangular paths allowed children to run around in a relatively safe environment inside the walls of the garden. The garden was slightly outgrown, which added to the excited environment. They also had a small cafeteria so day’s ice cream and flake ration was easy to purchase. Most importantly, it was a sunny day with occasional overcast spells, so it was a perfect English summer day!