Loverly jubilee…crowns at the ready - Skipton gets ready to celebrate!

As bunting springs up across the town and the finishing touches are put to parties, jubilee fever is in full flow. It’s not an exhaustive list but we’ve got a run down of just a few of the things lined up over the bank holiday weekend to keep your little prince and princesses entertained…


It wouldn’t be any kind of jubilee without a street party and alongside the village dos planned in the area, there’ll be a fabulous celebration planned on Skipton High Street. From 10am till 10pm there’ll be live entertainment and family fun. If you’re looking for something to bake with the kids to take along to your nearest celebration then we love these Queen of Hearts tarts.

Queen of Hearts Tarts!

If you want to get out in the fresh air and celebrate then the jubilee treasure hunt at Bolton Abbey looks like a right royal treat. You’re invited to test your knowledge of British kings and queens as you take a walk in the beautiful Bolton Abbey countryside, looking for the queen’s missing crowns. Park at Bolton Abbey Village Car Park to follow the clues which begin as soon as you leave the car!

There’s also the Uptown Skipton Jubilee Treasure Hunt on June 2nd and 3rd. Find the hidden royals in 30 shops and businesses. There’s a treat for everyone who completes, plus a prize for the first correct entry pulled from the hat. You can pick up an entry form at any of the shops at High Corn Mill on Chapel Hill between 9am and 4pm.

Malham Safari

For more outdoor fun you could try the Malham Safari – this year with a jubilee theme. From 10am each day there will be crowns to look for around the village as well as the ‘safari train’ and royal barge ‘Gloriana’. They’ve got morris dancing, coconut shy, stream dipping, an archery and rifle range planned too as well as duck races every day!

Skipton Castle, with its royalist past, will be hosting a recreation of a medieval campsite in its grounds from 2nd to 4th June. The garrison will demonstrate their arms and armour as they bring the castle to life! 10am - 6pm (Sunday 12 noon - 6pm) The standard entrance fee applies with no extra charge.

Settle Play Barn is holding a teddy bears picnic on Sunday 3rd June 2-4pm with lots of fun for everyone! And if you fancy a break from queens and crowns, take a trip out with the king of the tracks – Thomas the tank engine himself at the Bolton Abbey Steam Railway (2-5th June) or learn all about tractors at a special event at Thornton Hall Country Park 34rd-4th June.

Enjoy!

SELFA celebrates years of fantastic work!

When I was a little girl, there was nothing I liked more than baking with my granny; she was a great cook and taught me to make many of the treats I like to bake with my own children.

I remember on one occasion we were going to bake scones (my Granny was born in Belfast 1913, and she never used to bother much with weighing and measuring ingredients), she made a hole in the middle of the flour and told me to put in ‘just enough buttermilk to fill the hole’. So I poured…. and poured…. and poured some more – as most 6 year-olds would! When she saw what I’d done, she didn’t get cross. She just thought for a moment and said “oh well, we’ll just have to make pancakes instead”

I suppose that’s the attitude we like to think we have at SELFA. We have been established for 5 years now, and during that time we’ve had many occasions when we’ve had to deal with situations we weren’t expecting and work out a solution on the spot!

SELFA is a children’s charity based at Christ Church School, (opposite Tesco in Skipton). We work with schools and professionals working with families to provide out-of-school and holiday activities across the area, with a particular focus on services for vulnerable, disadvantaged and disabled children.

I was initially employed as the Extended Schools Co-ordinator for Skipton, but when the Local Authority made the decision that funding for all the posts across the county would end in March 2011, we decided to go it alone!

Suddenly I had a ‘scones to pancakes’ moment, but 2 years on and SELFA is still here; and going from strength to strength!

What we deliver today is very different from what we did two years ago, never mind 5 years ago, but we have stuck firm to our principles and always keep the children we support and their families at the centre of everything we do.

We run a popular holiday club for 4-11 year olds. Any child can attend, from any school in the area and we offer flexible sessions from 8am until 6pm for parents who need childcare while they are at work or just a short break for both parents and children. There is a cost for holiday club and bursaries are available for families who need it.

Karen is our lively and enthusiastic Play Leader, she works for SELFA all year round and runs the holiday club, she has lots of great ideas and she has a team of Play Workers who provide a high level of care whilst ensuring everyone has fun! My own daughter goes to holiday club and she loves it, that’s the best endorsement that I could give the club.

The other main area of our work is providing free holiday workshops for children and young people. These always book up really quickly and are open to everyone, including children who are disabled. We usually run these activities on a Wednesday during school holidays; however we hope to expand this provision in the future as they always book up really quickly! Recently we have held Arts & Crafts workshops, Circus Skills, Dance & Drama and Samba & Percussion to name but a few.

Then there are the ‘Special Projects’ that we co-ordinate through SELFA, which tend to be one-off after-school or holiday projects. Over the last year this has included ‘Skipton: The Musical’ a joint project with Skipton Camerata for Year 6 children and we have plans for a film making workshop at Aireville over the summer holidays.

We also offer volunteering opportunities for ‘Skipton Holiday Helpers’ at our clubs and workshops and we are always keen to find out what parents want through feedback, and find how we can improve the service we provide to local children and their families.

Anyone who wants to contact us or find out more can do so by the links on our website: www.selfa.org.uk

By the way – the pancakes turned out just fine, they nearly always do!


Thanks to Emma Pears, Co-ordinator of local Children’s Charity; SELFA (Skipton Extended Learning For All) for writing this fantastic guest blog for MooBaaKids!

We LOVE Hesketh Farm Park!

Hesketh Lamb

As far as ringing endorsements go, we can’t chime loudly enough about Hesketh Farm Park, near Bolton Abbey. Both halves of MooBaaKids and our families headed there on separate days out recently and agreed that it definitely warranted a bit of a tribute without further ado.

We’ve both been before with our kids and were literally counting down the days till this delightful farm re-opened for the season and could enchant (and wear out!) our enthusiastic little ones again. Every aspect of this picturesque hands-on day out has been really well thought through with something to captivate short attention spans at every turn and keep little visitors happily bouncing from one thing to the next.

The piglets

From doe-eyed calves to feed, to the hairy pigs who love a scratch with the brushes provided, Hesketh has it all! Our little girl was smitten with a Limousin calf called Lottie and fascinated by the tiny piglets. Alongside the calves and pigs, there are sheep with lambs and smaller animals to pet and feed.

Grooming the gorgeous Guineas!

The cheeping chicks had even the dads there cooing and the children couldn’t contain their delight at the guinea pigs to stroke and the bunnies to watch skitting about. The giant African tortoises Samson and Delilah were also a big hit and we were transfixed by them happily munching on a banana!

Samson or Delilah?

Once you leave the animals behind inside, there’s still indoor fun to come with slides, a straw bale maze, sand pit and toy tractors to ride. A welcome pit stop for the grown-ups too. We won’t lie – among our collective highlights of the day were the cappuccino, lemon cake, ginger biscuits and caramel short-bread!

Petting the chicks

We were both lucky with the weather on our visits so headed outside to see more of the animals – including chickens, goats, sheep – our daughter’s favourite was feeding carrots to the woolly donkeys who couldn’t wait to snaffle them up! She also loved the swings, slides and tyres in the play area.

Only minutes old!

Other highlights included seeing a newborn lamb stand up for the first time on wobbly legs, and the ride on the tractor/trailer with farmer Chris (it’’s an extra £1 per person in addition to the entrance fee but is well worth every penny in our toddlers’ opinions!) Our little one’s also loved the pedal tractors outside as well as looking for eggs in the hen houses.

Checking out the chickens

We hope we’ve described a bit of the magic for you – it really is a day of smiles and wonderment from start to finish. We can’t recommend it or the friendly helpful staff there highly enough. Whether it’s your first visit or a return trip, Hesketh is a friendly captivating whirl of farm family fun! x


For more information including opening times and admission prices visit www.heskethfarmpark.co.uk

Beat the blues, with local bluebells!

If there’s a more beautiful sight than a carpet of bluebells in the woods, then we can’t think of it at the moment! Spring is officially here, so to put the winter blues well and truly behind you, why not take the little ones for a stroll in a couple of weeks or so round the best local bluebell spots. There are loads to choose from (click here for a searchable database) but we’ve just picked a couple here to get you started…

We know we’re in danger of being Bolton Abbey bores, but we just LOVE the place and with a tearoom and gift shop called Dusty Bluebells, it’s no surprise that the woods on the estate are famed for their spectacular bluebell displays usually from late April (there were some already starting to come out when we went for the egg trail thanks to the early sunshine!) until late May. The woodlands are amazing at the best of times, but become really magical with all the bluebells and the colour-coded nature trails suit all ages and abilities – the green trail is great for prams and pushchairs and follows the west bank of the River Wharfe from the recently refurbished Cavendish Pavilion to the Strid.

For those not reliant on pushchairs, there’s a fab two and a half mile walk round Middleton Woods in Ilkley. Ideal for little legs or babies in carriers, the bluebells here are really spectacular too! The details in the Telegraph & Argus link above are great and it’s well worth a trip (with maybe a little treat at the family-friendly Betty’s afterwards?)

Before you set off, don’t forget to download the Woodland Trust’s Nature Detectives FREE activity sheets , crammed with tips on how to distinguish the native English bluebell (true blue!) from the Spanish invaders and other fun facts and activities.

Enjoy!
x

Much more than sheep at the mart as FOUR top kids' shows come to town!

The words ‘Skipton Auction Mart’ and ‘kids’ brings to mind fond childhood memories of accompanying my various farmer relatives on trips there, toddling around ‘helping’ them show the cows and sheep around the ring.  At the time I thought I was really grown up doing an important job but looking back today I have a feeling I was just there for the cute factor, most likely as a ploy to attract more bids for the livestock.  Nevertheless, I had great times and excitingly, for the new generation of little ones, there are even more ways to create great childhood memories there.  The Auction Mart has expanded its repertoire to include a variety of theatre shows at The Mart Theatre, many of which are aimed at young children and their families. 

The first child-friendly production to grace the stage this year is the Blunderbus Theatre Company’s production based on the Jill Tomlinson book, The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark.   The star of the show, Plop, the baby Barn Owl was afraid of the dark, and so Mrs Barn Owl suggested he venture from his nest to investigate the dark for himself.  This leads to a series of exciting adventures for Plop, which are recreated using ‘an irresistible blend of live music, puppetry and storytelling.’  This production is aimed at 3-7 year olds and their families and is already proven to be a hit with the Blunderbus Theatre Company reporting ‘record-breaking ticket sales at every venue we have swooped along to, including a sell-out run at The Lyric, Hammersmith’.  This review of an earlier production reports that ‘the Blunderbus team consider all-comers, with children enthralled by the action, and accompanying adults chortling at the witty adlibs from this friendly and likeable company.’  Sounds good?  Click here for full event details and to buy tickets for the show on Saturday 21st April at 11.30am and 2.30pm. (Tickets £7.50 adults, £5 Children, £20 Family of 4). 

Given that toddlers love a good race around, it’s rather fitting that the next production, (aimed at children 2-7 years and their families), is an adaptation of Aesop’s fable, named Hare and Tortoise.  The show tells the classic tale of the racing hare and tortoise and ‘opposites, time and friendship’ and promises to bring you ‘this much-loved story brimming with ideas, characters, live music and wonderful physicality.’  This production is a creation of Leeds-based company tutti frutti  whose success with this production on tour last year has lead to a 2012 retour, which kicks off at The Mart Theatre on Saturday 28th April at 11.30am and 2.30pm.  With a review in the Guardian of last year’s show declaring that ‘Catherine Chapman's attractive, brightly coloured design niftily embraces the changing seasons as ice melts, flowers bloom and butterflies flutter, and the songs are jolly’ it sounds like it will be a great hit with the nippers.  Click here for full event details and to buy tickets for the show. (Tickets £7.50 adults, £5 Children, £20 Family). 

Following a sell-out run at the Lyric Theatre last Christmas, Snow Play by the Lyngo Theatre Company is ‘a showdown between Spring and Winter over who gets to stay and who has to go’ when Mr. Green discovers Mr. White has taken over his house and tries his hardest to get Mr. White out into the garden whilst Mr. White busies his self covering the house in snow.  The show is aimed at 3-7 year olds and their families and sounds like fantastic fun as the audience gets to join in building a snowman and can even participate a big snowball fight - which this review describes wonderfully; ‘shrieks of pleasure accompany them ploughing onto the stage to cover Mr White in false snow or pelt Mr Green and his tennis racket with snow balls.  Best of all, there’s no damp, soggy mess to clear up afterwards.’  Toddlers are bound to love the randomness of snow in spring as the show comes to The Mart Theatre on Saturday 5th May.  Click here for full event details and to buy tickets for the show. (Tickets: £5 child, £7.50 adult, £20 family). 

If your toddler is anything like mine, they will be massive fans of anything ever written by The Gruffalo author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler, with The Snail and the Whale being no exception.  We are therefore thrilled to hear that Tall Stories are bringing their stage show of The Snail and the Whale to The Mart Theatre on Saturday 28th July at 11.30am and 2.30pm.  This production retells the story of the snail’s trip around the world on the whale’s tail and their numerous adventures and brushes with danger, (or should we say ‘mild peril’ - don’t worry your toddler won’t be scared)!  Tall Stories promise that this show ‘combines physical storytelling, live music and lots of laughs’.   I’m inclined to believe them given their track record of touring with their various Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler collaborations across the globe from the West End to Broadway, Dubai, Australia and Europe.  This review of one of their earlier productions confirms that Tall Stories bring you ‘a truly theatrical feast that leaves both adults and children fully entertained’.  Click here for full event details and to buy tickets for the show. (Tickets: £5 child, £7.50 adult, £20 family). 

Now the only thing left to do is decide which one to go to - I have a funny feeling we’ll be having several family trips to The Mart Theatre this year!

Blog kindly written by brilliant MooBaaKid, Stefni Oliver!