A Day Out at Hatter’s Farm

In the continued spirit of October, we made our way to Hatter’s Farm, an activity-clad farm which we’d occasionally spotted signs for while heading to the next city over. It had been the Corn (Maize) Maze that had originally caught our eyes – as there aren’t too many of them around this way, but it turned out that they actually had a couple of things going on beyond the opportunity to get lost in a field.

Corn Maze

I’d never actually been to a Corn Maze before, and neither had the kids (although, Jupiter, being from the United States, had been in dozens), so it was a really cool experience to finally manage to get along to one. It sounds really silly, but it’s very bizarre being dwarfed by corn, although the farm staff had done a great job of cutting wide paths through the field. Rather than just being a maze cut from crops there were also nine signposts which, together, served as an anagram for a mystery word. It gave an extra reason to explore all of the dead ends, which was welcome. The place was a bit muddy, with small feet getting stuck here and there!

Continue reading “A Day Out at Hatter’s Farm”

Carving Pumpkins is the best part of Halloween

What’s a good blogtober schedule without a dive into carving pumpkins? It certainly isn’t much of one. We’re getting later in the month now, and with that, we’re growing closer and closer to the big, capital-h Halloween on the 31st. I don’t know about you, but one of the most integral parts of Halloween is the carving of pumpkins, almost more so than trick or treating or making everything pumpkin flavoured. Of course, in 2020 Halloween’s trick or treating (at least where we live) is looking increasingly unlikely, and even Halloween parties are – in certain parts of the UK – to be done under a lot of heavy restrictions.

As I wrote out earlier in the month, we went out to a relatively local pumpkin patch (Marsh’s Farm) earlier in the year. We had a great time, and there was a massive variety far beyond places where I’ve been along to before. For a start, it was great to see more than just the standard orange pumpkins – and with supermarkets stocking various squashes and munchkin varieties, it was great to see much more. Size of pumpkin was definitely a major influence on the children’s decisions when it came to grabbing their squashes, and that certainly gave us a bit more to consider when it came to the design and execution of our carvings.

Continue reading “Carving Pumpkins is the best part of Halloween”

Willow & Wild October Sibling Box | Review

Earlier in the year, I wrote about the August Sibling Box for Wild & Willow. I’ve only really been writing about one of each of these activity subscription boxes until now, but there’s a solid reason for breaking that habit. The Wild & Willow October box was absolutely brilliant.

To be doubley honest with you, I nearly wrote about it last month because it had a fantastic, simple idea in there which revolved around conkers. You took the conkers, wrapped them up in tissue paper and then threw them as missiles. Conker Comets was the name, and it was incredibly simple but a really, really smart idea… especially when schools (and workplaces, I’m sure) tend to look down upon the classic lunchtime conker fights.

The October box actually looked quite light when first opened. There were less crafting activities in there than previous months, and there was visibly less produce and flowers sachets in there. That’s understandable, really, because it’s getting into the colder months now and there isn’t much hardy flora to be included now.

Continue reading “Willow & Wild October Sibling Box | Review”

Mozart Chocolate Cream Pumpkin Spice | Drinks Recipe

As it’s October, you can now get almost everything in orange, or in Pumpkin Spice flavour. As it turns out, alcohol is no exception to that. As it’s the season we decided to pick up the Mozart Chocolate Cream Pumpkin Spice edition when we spotted it online. I’m going to talk about it for a little bit today as part of our highly Halloween-themed Blogtober challenge.

Firstly, although it’s tough to see on the label, it is a dairy-based alcohol – like Tia Maria and Baileys. If you don’t like those – or have severe allergies – then just stay away. It’s got quite a lot in common with those two brands, however, it should definitely be noted that the flavour really, really comes through in this one.

That said, I’m actually not the biggest fan of pumpkin spice. But this is definitely not to the extremes that we see in other things (Coffee). Sipping it straight you almost immediately get the creamy texture coming though, this is actually almost syrupy. Then, rather than just the flavouring, the bite of the spirit comes through at the same time, with the bite dying away and leaving the taste. It’s nice, and it’s not bad drinking straight, although as with it’s dairy-based cousins I find that it’s better mixed with something else.

Continue reading “Mozart Chocolate Cream Pumpkin Spice | Drinks Recipe”

Blue Coffee Box Subscription | Review

[Ad- gifted product] We’ve been trying out the Blue Coffee Box monthly subscription, a box which includes two large bags of ethically sourced, gourmet coffee as well as lots of well-thought-out extra information included.

I know a lot of people who are very particular about their coffee, be that how it’s made, where it’s from, what it’s served with or, of course, what it tastes like. I’d never really lump myself into the category of being a coffee enthusiast, but I do drink a lot of the stuff and we have recently acquired Vietnamese Coffee Makers/Phin Vietnamese Filter following a great experience out at a pho restaurant. I’ve tried a lot of coffee over the years, be that from vending machines, instant or coffee grounds, and had a decent variety of it too. With that in mind, I was very interested in what kind of flavours we could expect from a box like this.

Blue Coffee Box

Continue reading “Blue Coffee Box Subscription | Review”