Ah well this could have gone horribly wrong but it turned out okay in the end. Don’t you hate it when you have it all planned out in your head. “Yes, he’ll fall asleep in the car on the way there, nice half an hour nap so he’ll be in a good mood for when we get there, we can have some lunch and not rush, and get back before he nods off for his afternoon nap so I can enjoy lazing on the sofa watching Made in Chelsea and eating biscuits catch up on all the housework.”
But instead it turns out that he looks as if he may fall asleep any moment, so you carry on driving past the entrance but those slitty eyes carry on pee-poing at you for a good half hour later so you think fuck it let’s just go in I’m running out of petrol anyway. So you go in and you’ve actually come to the wrong place and it has started to rain and the little guy starts to whinge. So you get back in the car and try to find the right place, but you can’t find it so you think sod this let’s go, but you then drive past the entrance, so with a screaming baby in the back you think it can’t get any worse and you turn around and go in.
Hallelujah Coolings we found you!
So that was our journey to Coolings Garden Centre. We didn’t really go for the garden centre. We went for the nature trail and cafe. Freddie is having a love in with animals at the moment. It’s more of the dog and cat variety but he’s not too fussy. Coolings has Wallabies! Sheep! Pigs! Goats! Chickens! Geese! Ducks! Plus a buggy-friendly nature trail that takes a toddler walking in random directions about an hour to walk around. All this plus a really spacious cafe with lots of kiddie meals and a baby change facility. You can either pay £14 for the year or £3.50 per visit (under fives go free).
Freddie cheered up wandering around the nature trail. I cheered up after I’d had a cup of coffee and a fat slice of chocolate cake.