days – Page 3 – Mediocre Mum

Nausicaa Sea-Life Centre only an 1.5 hours from London!

I had no idea there was a Sea-Life Centre, in Boulogne, which in only 1.5 hours from London. We hopped onto the Eurostar at St. Pancras International and within an hour we were in Calais. The Sea-Life centre is only 20km from there. The journey through the tunnel was enough excitement on it’s own for a 4-year-old. The journey was a breeze, still stunned at the lack of immigration control on the other side we just strolled right into France!

On the face of it, Nausicaa looks like any other aquarium that you would find at the seaside in the UK with giant aquariums and underwater exploration. However, they’re absolutely passionate about conservation, education and raising public awareness of the need to live in harmony with the sea. In 1997 they were awarded the Centre of Excellence in recognition of their work.

‘They’ve been into conservation long before it became fashionable’.

To celebrate Nausicaa’s 20^th Birthday we were treated to a behind the scenes tour by the Aquarium’s Curator, in his flamboyant fish shirt, to meet the baby animals that have been born in the centre and their parents such as Sharks, Rays, Lumpfish and Guitarfish. You could feel his passion and commitment as he spoke to us about pollution, global warming and the threat to fish stocks.

My favourite was the Sea Dragon as it looked mythical. My daughter squealed with laughter at the unicorn fish and we both came to the conclusion that the large shark looks rather grumpy! We also watched the Sea-lion training, visited the penguin enclosure and we even got to stroke a ray. They were almost puppy dog like.

As it was a gorgeous day we finished off the day with a quick visit to the beach. My daughter played in the sand while I digested everything that I’d learned with the sea as a backdrop.

It was a fantastic day out and I would highly recommend it. To keep the costs down you may want to enquire about a Ferry Crossing.

Entry into Nausicaa when booked online:

Adults £14.60

Kids £9.40

Family Ticket (2 kids and 2 adults) £39

If you want to learn more about being a responsible fish consumer, including information on selecting seasonal fish visit the Mr. Goodfish Website where you won’t find any lectures but good solid advice.

Disclosure: all expenses, inclusive of lunch, entry and travel were covered by Nausicaa.

Butterfly World

If you haven’t been to Butterfly World, near St. Albans, in awhile you may be surprised at some of the improvements. When it first opened it was a bit of a disaster; very overpriced, including the café and it was pretty much a building site.

It was nice to see all the improvements yesterday, they’ve obviously listened. The gardens are in full bloom and are absolutely stunning. Madame and her pals had a whale of a time climbing on, over and through all of the sculptures. If you go, do seek out the playground, it’s a bit tucked away behind the café. My photos don’t do it justice.

To save a few pennies you could take a picnic as there is a dedicated picnic area. I wasn’t organised enough so purchased lunch for us and it wasn’t too expensive (£7).

Do bear in mind though that it is still a work in progress and the large dome isn’t finished yet.

I’d love to know what you think.

If you’re struggling for ideas of what to do with your kids this summer these posts may also be of interest.

Kite Flying Dunstable Downs

Free things to do with kids near St Albans

Havilland Mosquito Museum

Win tickets to a Kid’s Festival in August!

Thanks to the lovely people at Lollibop I have a family ticket (4 people) to give away on the blog (value £80) for the Festival on the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th of August in Regents Park. We’re gutted we can’t go as we will be at a family reunion in Canada but it looks like a great day out. We had a sneak preview last month. It’s a mini Glastonbury for kids!

If that doesn’t tempt you, here is a video.

As always I like to make my competitions as simple as possible.

1.) To enter all you need to do is reply in the comments section of this post describing your child/children in one word. For example my daughter is ‘insane’.

2.) The competition will close, Sunday the 10th of July at 6 pm.

3.) This is a UK based competition.

4.) The winner will be chosen randomly.

5.) Please leave me some way of identifying you whether it’s your Twitter Username or use a valid email when commenting.

If you don’t manage to win, there is a discount code in the side bar of this blog.

Good luck and thank you for entering!

Congratulations to Joe who has won the family ticket. Please do get in touch so that I can arrange the tickets for you.

I used Random.org to choose the winner. As you will see it came up with 35, so I then counted and recounted, to double check, that in fact it was the 35th comment on the post. Thanks everyone for taking part!

Twelve Days of Christmas! Kiwi Style

Next contacted me to help promote their Twelve Days of Christmas, it immediately reminded me of New Zealand. I originally trained as a teacher in Canada but there wasn’t a lot of work for teachers. At the time, NZ had a shortage of teachers and were offering $3000 to relocate. You didn’t have to ask me twice. So, I moved out there for 18 months before coming to the UK. Originally, I was going to turn down the job as I skint but my mum and sister said ‘over their dead bodies’ as they knew it was an amazing opportunity so they persuaded me to go.

I had an amazing time, learning and experiencing loads. One thing I vividly remember was their version of the 12 days of Christmas. It was hysterical. I loved shouting 5-big-fat-pigs and 4 huhu grubs creased me up!

On the first day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
A pukeko in a ponga tree

On the second day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
two kumera
And a pukeko in a ponga tree

On the third day of Christmas
….
and so on, until…

On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love gave to me
Twelve piupius swinging
Eleven haka lessons
Ten juicy fish heads
Nine sacks of pipis
Eight plants of puha
Seven eels a swimming
Six pois a twirling
Five – big – fat – pigs !
Four huhu grubs
Three flax kits
Two kumera
And a pukeko in a ponga tree!

Disclosure: apparently I will receive £30 worth of Next vouchers for this post.

Dinosaur Days!

We accidently had a Dinosaur themed weekend. Someone recently suggested ‘theme-ing’ your week with your kids (e.g under the water, at the Zoo, etc.). However, to be honest I thought it sounded a bit wanky and far too organised for me. Nonetheless, in this case it worked out well.

Last week a friend recommended Knebworth House and said it had a fantastic Dinosaur Trail. So, Saturday morning I decided that’s what we would do. I sat Madame on my lap and showed her all the pictures of the dinosaurs and the adventure playground. She was very excited, until I flipped to the opening times and realised it closed in September. Doh!

Quick change of plans, with a bit of gentle persuasion I convinced hubby, who is a London Commuter, to go to the Natural History Museum in London. It was brilliant! As it was a Saturday we drove in, no congestion charge on weekends, we have a diesel, parking was only a tenner and the museum is free! Madame’s highlight was the robotic T-Rex. She also liked these guys. They reminded me of @chickenruby and me.

She was fascinated by the blood around their mouths and reckoned they needed some baby wipes!

Then, today, thanks to @zooarcheologis, we went to the local museum where they had a Dinosaur Day. Madame made a miniature dinosaur and giant wellie boot dinosaur foot prints. I wasn’t there, so I’m hoping Claire jumps in and tells us how they’re made. I think they look fab, even though they do look a bit phallic (rotate footprint 90 degrees clockwise)????

All in all a great weekend!