A day of Mischief and Mayhem – Halloween half term at Lee Valley Park Farms

Two kids bouncing off the walls.

Three Lee Valley Park Farms annual memberships.

Hundreds of pumpkins waiting to be carved…and off we go!

Arriving at Lee Valley Park Farms, we could see it was pretty busy as even the ‘overflow’ car park was close to overflowing itself. That’s pretty usual though, for school holidays, and again as usual, it didn’t FEEL busy even though it clearly was – so we marched on in, swiped our membership cards, and paid £1.50 each for the kids for a pumpkin token. As they dashed off into the farm, the receptionist also thrust a couple of booklets into my hands, which I grabbed without looking before heading on in after them.

Turns out the booklets had a Frighteningly Fun Facts trail inside, and also a ‘halloween house’ hunt, on top of all the usual activities on offer. Something which the kids discovered for themselves as they stuck their hands into the doorway of the first ‘house’ they saw, without even really knowing what they were doing…

D was not too thrilled to get her hands covered in what the kids decided was ‘trolls brains’; equally though she was interested enough in the idea to be pretty keen on hunting down the rest of the houses (as long as someone else stuck their hands in first) – and the same went for Seb.

One quick soft play barn interlude later, and we were back on the trail.

The spooky, scary trail…

We learnt some facts that even I didn’t know – a group of tortoises, for example, is called a ‘creep…and the kids were thrilled to find out how often a pony poos each day too!

Once we got to the top part of the farm, we were able to trade in our pumpkin tokens and get carving. The pumpkins were a bit smaller than I’ve seen at other similar events before, but actually that was quite nice as I knew I was bound to end up carrying them, anyway – and it meant that the scooping out the innards time took less effort too.

Seb and D both got stuck straight in, and some time later we ended up with two fairly friendly looking pumpkins.

Next to the pumpkin carving was the face painting (£2.50) and the craft tables. The kids were both too eager to go and play on the big pillow sitting temptingly in the adjoining field to wait in the (short) line for face painting, but we did make a couple of beady eyed bats to watch over the pumpkins for a while as we resumed our halloween house hunting quest.

Two hours, three meals in the cafe, one pillow bouncing and toboggan riding session later, we went back to pick them up – and found our last house…number six. As we walked back to reception to claim their treat for finding everything on each of the trails, the kids were worn out but happy. ‘What was the most fun thing you did today?’ I asked them.

‘EVERYTHING’ shouted Seb, with nodded agreement from D.

I had a pretty good time too 🙂