Back in July we went to Blenheim Palace for the day to meet up with some of my old Uni mates. Basically this involved sitting in the Pleasure Gardens drinking champagne all afternoon whilst the children had a ball in the maze and on the adventure playground! However, you can upgrade your one day pass for an annual pass, so we did this – planning to go again and see more of what the huge estate had to offer.

Today was the husband’s birthday (43 – although he was convinced yesterday he was only going to be 42!!) – and his destination of choice for the day was Blenheim Palace.

When we got there I immediately upgraded my annual pass to a ‘privilege pass’ for the grand total of £5. You are then entitled to 15% off in the various restaurants and shops – and with 4 kids, this has more than paid for itself in one visit!!

We hopped on the train (rebranded a ‘spooky train’ as it goes through a shed with some halloween gubbins draped around it!) from the Palace Station down to the Pleasure Gardens (it costs 50p for a single journey for over 5s). Again we did the maze – nothing quite instills fear like a 2 year old announcing ‘Mummy, I need a wee’ in the middle of the maze!! Thank goodness for the fold up potty. And the kids (and big kids!) all enjoyed the adventure playground. We also used the sundial today (typical in British weather terms that we could use it in October but not in July!!) and found out that it can’t cope with changing from British Summer Time yesterday – but would have been spot on last week!! We also went through the butterfly house (well, everyone else did – I looked after the pushchair and bags as I’m not a huge fan of flying things!!)

 

 

We tried to go for lunch in the cafe over at The Pleasure Gardens but it was RAMMED (sunny day for the first day of half term meant there were thousands of people there!)

There was quite a wait for the next train back so we walked – and I am so pleased that we did. There are some AMAZING trees in the grounds which all of the children really enjoyed climbing – we got some ace pictures too.

We tried to do an arty ‘everyone throw leaves in the air at the count of 3’ photos – but the 9 year old decided to chuck his leaves directly into the face of his 11 year old sister and so a HUGE strop ensued!!

We made it to the Palace and stopped for lunch there – which was pricey and there wasn’t much choice – but the kids coped with crisps and cake – they have been taught well!! But everyone was tired and bit a grumpy, so we headed home – and STILL haven’t done the palace itself! Oh well – the tickets are valid until July 2015 so plenty of time for a return visit.

It was a lovely Autumnal day out – and reminds us what a green and pleasant land we live in. Thanks for a lovely day Blenheim – we’ll be back!