Tag: st

Performing Stories

Went to Story Tent put on by the Local Performing Arts Centre with my daughter yesterday morning.  It’s absolutely brilliant.  I’m assuming the lady who tells the story is an actor,  as she orated it magnificently, not a book to be found.  Then the children get the glue, scissors and paper out and create props for the story.  They finish by acting the story out together.  This week the story was Little Cock Feather Frock, one I’d never heard before. I did try to google it but it wasn’t one of my better ideas!

I really hope they aren’t affected by the governmental cut backs.  It would be sad to see these type of things disappear.

Giant Monopoly St Albans 2010

On Sunday, St. Albans was turned into a Giant Monopoly Board.  It was the brainchild of the Arts, Sports & Health Team.  The whole idea was to get people exercising whilst taking in some of the local sites.  There were 3 routes to choose from with a number of checkpoints along the way.  We chose the shortest, the yellow route which was 2.5 miles as we had toddlers with us.

We did it with @annieqpr and family, as we are both incredibly competitive we thought it safer to team up than to compete.  Our first stop was Crazy Golf in Verulam Park.  On the way we accosted Mr. Monopoly for our Chance Cards.  Then we were off to the Verulam Museum for a quiz.  Dads and kids strolled around the museum taking in the history while Annie and I ran around like loons, ignoring everything except answers to the quiz.  Next stop was perfect for Annie’s family, Watford FC Speed check, you had to kick a ball into the net and it measure the speed.  Then we wandered back through the park for some duck races.

Unfortunately, we didn’t calculate in the proximity of two pubs to the route so we never managed to finish the course, which meant we didn’t get to collect our Chance prizes, nor did we get to see the St. Albans Jail, which is something we all wanted to see.  Oh well, there is always next year!  Oh and FREE parking in St. Albans…now that is funny!

Butterfly World

We went to Butterfly World this morning near St. Albans as they were having an Open House and it was free! Frankly, we’ve never been before because when it opened last year I felt that the prices were extortionate.  In fact, I emailed them about it but sadly never received a response:

Dear sir/madam,

My family was planning on coming to Future Gardens this weekend as we were excited about the gardens and wanted to support a local project.  Sadly, we were put off by the price (£12.50 per adult), especially in the current climate.  I don’t normally contact companies about such things but felt you may appreciate the feedback. Hopefully, if you have a family or open day with reduced prices we may get a chance to come and enjoy the gardens.

When we arrived today we were greeted by a lovely, personable lady who was obviously passionate about the site.  She showed us a video and gave us some bumf about memberships etc.  I noticed a drastic drop in prices and asked her about it.  She said that since it was privately funded (£10.5 million), they used consultants to help them with the pricing.  Being new to it all they trusted them and in her words ‘last year was a disaster’.  She is now backpedalling trying to get people in.  They are now only charging £6 and under 3s are free, which I think is perfectly acceptable.

As it is winter, we had no expectation of seeing butterflies and if you could look past the barren flower beds and the construction site it’s going to be amazing and I can’t wait to go back in the spring!  They have individual gardens, Very Hungry Caterpillar feature Garden, pond dipping and a Play Zone.

We did only see one butterfly but it was rather impressive!