A Fun Free Activity This Summer

I have felt so much guilt in the leading up to this school holiday. P1 was offered another place in the holiday school. We always sign her up even though it is not compulsory. It benefits her hugely by receiving extra lessons, extra fun and chances to see her friends and even make new ones that she wouldn’t necessarily talk to on an every day basis. But that guilt that she’s missing out has been overwhelming this time. I feel cheated myself of a break from school runs and the other two girls miss their big sister when she’s gone.

Thankfully it’s not a full week of holiday school. We have just three days of it this time and so we have tried to plan some activities for P2 and P3 to enjoy and keep them busy. When we went to Bluewater Shopping centre during our child free Saturday I saw advertisements for a new nature trail. I even picked up the leaflet for it. I knew this would be the perfect activity to do with the girls and coincidentally we needed to get P3s iPad fixed. I headed for The Bluewater Nature Trail whilst Hubby headed for the Apple Store.

The entrance to the nature trail is located through the exit near Zizzi or Pizza Express. You head over the bridge towards the car park and follow cute paw prints that have been painted on the floor. The leaflet includes a map of the trail and also some questions to answer on your way round. Sadly I didn’t have a pen to fill it all in so the girls couldn’t get their prize at the end but I still asked them the questions on the way round.

So the nature trail takes about 45 minutes to walk around which is pretty accurate actually. It goes around the outside of a beautiful lake. The area surrounding it is super clean and there are little Sidney Squirrels to watch out for on your way round. He stands near sign posts full of information about various wildlife that can be found in The Bluewater Nature Trail. The girls were actually really interested in our walk and I was quite surprised by that. I think they enjoyed the fun activities on the way round like the mosaic tunnel and the play area.

On the way home we picked P1 up rather early from her holiday school. She technically finished at 2pm but then goes to the holiday club which is just full of toys, games and fun until 6pm. But we were missing her, the girls were missing her and it felt just too strange doing things without her during half term. Weirdly, she was a little annoyed she hadn’t had much time in the holiday club but soon settled in with playing with her sisters and the new baby guinea pigs. We had a lovely day, and spent absolutely no money at all which is always a win!