cbeebies Archives - A Little Lyrical

28Jan 2016

Geronimo Festival 2016 – We’re getting excited!

I’m so excited that we’ve been invited to be an ambassador for Geronimo Festival 2016. If you haven’t heard of Geronimo and you’ve got children aged 12 years old or under then you need to keep reading! Geronimo Festival is back this year bigger and better than before and the best news is that it’s now has two different venues. Geronimo Festival 2016 is a family event focused on quality family time, something I’m always trying to create more of, so our boys can have some wonderful childhood memories to carry with them for the rest of their lives.

First Time at Geronimo Festival

This year will be our first time at Geronimo and after hearing and reading so much about last years event I honestly can’t wait to attend and take the boys for some family fun. The two venues this year are Harewood House, just outside Leeds on May 1st and 2nd, and Tatton Park in Cheshire on May 29th and 30th. Both venues are home to two of England’s fantastic visitor attractions and have wonderful woodland areas which will be the backdrop to Geronimo Festival. The festival itself will be an exciting array of acts, amazing experiences and wonderful adventures. Our boys will be 2 and 4 years old when we attend Geronimo and from the line up I think my 4-year-old may just explode with excitement! I’m not telling him until nearer the time that we’re going as I can’t face weeks and weeks of ‘Is it Geronimo yet? Is it Geronimo yet?’ (repeat!)

I think one of the things he’ll be most excited about is Cook and Line from Swashbuckle. He absolutely loves watching Swashbuckle on Cbeebies and is always asking me if he can go on the show (I can’t break his heart and tell him no so I usually just say ‘maybe one day’) His other favourites will be at Geronimo too, Mr Bloom is going to be appearing at the Geronostage Zone so that ‘tiddlers’ can pop along and listen to some veggie stories or play gardening games. Andy Day (from Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures) will be performing his Dino Rap show and Alex Winters (from CBeebies) will be hosting the main stage each day.

When I looked at the information on the Geronimo website I did wonder how they could possibly make the Library Zone exciting but it might not be as dull as I thought, it’s actually going to have dance classes with Bollywood, Zumba as well as a gigantic drumming session. I know a certain 2-year-old who loves dancing! We’ll defiantly be joining in there.

There’s just so much to look forward to at Geronimo this year that I’m going to be writing a series of posts in the build up to the festival as more and more of the exciting line up is announced.

Tickets for Geronimo

Tickets for the festival start at just £18.50 and can be bought on the Geronimo website, it seems like a fantastic price for a full days entertainment and fun and if you’re taking under 2’s along they get in free! I was gutted after last years to have missed it, so I’m really looking forward to it this year and can’t wait to blog about it in the build up to the Geronimo Festival!

11Apr 2015

Easter Weekend

by Lyric ⋅ Leave a Comment

Last weekend was Easter. Four glorious days to spend as a family together. We tried to make the most of the sunshine as well and get out and about. On Easter Sunday itself I went to church with the boys in the morning while hubby stayed at home to get started on a roast dinner for the family. The weather was glorious so we were able to sit outside under the sunsail and eat our yummy lunch. The boy took great delight in serving out to everyone. His portions were questionable with the three peas he put on my plate but he had fun doing it so we let him try! He needs to work on his presentation though, but one thing at a time!

On the Monday morning I went out with just the boy to the cinema to watch Big Hero 6, I’m not sure what I was expecting but I guess it wasn’t that. The film was ok, not a Disney classic by any means but watchable and he seemed to like it. Not sure I’d want to buy it to add to our collection but we’ll see when it comes out if the boys asks to see it again.

Cinema Selfie!

In the afternoon we headed out to the Lowry and media city. This area has seen massive redevelopment in the last few years. The Lowry outlet shopping centre itself never used to be a busy place with many empty units but it’s great to see its rise in popularity. Even more so since media city took residence. We had a little wander in the shops before heading outdoors to soak in some sun. We popped over to the Lowry gallery for a quick look at the request of the boy and found a very interesting exhibition by Rafael Gómezbarros called Casa Tomada. It’s a swarm of giant ants, on first glance it did give me a bit of an itch but after being there a little while longer I got used to it. I love it when an exhibition has already been around the world and this one certainly has. Well worth a look.

Media city was busy with people just enjoying the weather, a bite to eat or a drink. It’s a lovely area and the only thing it was lacking on such a glorious day was an ice cream van selling lovely home made farm ice cream. I would have joined a queue if there had been on there for sure!

Media city itself there’s not much to see unless you want to look at the Blue Peter garden or watch the giant screen. Although sometimes they do hold special events which are worth a visit on the plaza area. Just inside one of the BBC buildings is a small display of children’s characters, including a seat that makes sounds when you sit on it and a mock up of the Furchester Hotel desk which the boy loved as its one of his favourite shows at the moment on CBeebies.

We stayed a little while in the garden area to let the boy have a run around and get Flixster out for a bit.

I forgot the selfie stick so this was the best family shot I got!

I love family time and even when its doing not very much at all it’s still lovely to be together, the sun makes everything seem all that more exciting.

18Oct 2014

Guest Post: Daddy and The Boys Day Out!

by Lyric ⋅ Leave a Comment

Daddy decided he wanted in on the blogging action so I asked if he’d like to do a guest post here and there. He agreed and set about writing his first post, which is below! Thanks Daddy!

The Cbeebies fun day at MediaCity, Salford Quays… Pffft, it was alright I suppose.

What? Are you still here? Do I need to pad this blog post out a bit? Well, here goes…

So, it was a Daddy day for The Boy, previous Daddy days had taken the form of Kids Club cinema visits, trips to Ikea and train journeys into Wigan and Manchester but today we decided to try something special.

We had applied for CBeebies Pantomime tickets when they were advertised, we were sadly unsuccessful but we did make a note of the fun day and events planned taking place in MediaCity for the weekend of the pantomime, and when Mummy and Flixster had made plans for Saturday, I knew that this would make a memorable Daddy day for The Boy.

After chasing The Boy around the house with his clothes for a little while until he finally agreed to get dressed, we got in the car and set off. As there were a few events on at the Quays and we were late setting off, we parked at Ladywell and took the tram to MediaCity.

After a short journey and a good press of the button to open the tram doors, we got off the tram in MediaCity and followed the stream of parents and children who were heading into the CBeebies Fun Day.

The first thing that caught our eye was the pirate ship where they were giving tours and reading stories.

We had a look in the tents which offered a variety of activities and then headed towards the stage where Dr. Ranj from ‘Get Well Soon’ was on stage.

We watched for a little while before The Boy took us into the Lowry Theatre and up the escalator where we looked at Andy Gott’s brilliant BAFTA portraits exhibition (well, I looked, The Boy ran around and looked out of the window).

The Boy then wanted to go for a walk, so we went over the bridge before ‘tiredy’ legs struck and The Boy wanted picking up, carrying and while I was at it, could I get him some lunch too.

We went into the Lowry Outlet Mall and went up to the food court for lunch, then once we’d finished we had a quick look around the Mall and spotted Great British Bake Off runner up Richard Burr having a coffee with his family.

Once we’d finished in the Mall, we had a look for the famous Blue Peter Garden (it’s smaller than I thought it would be) and explored a couple of the BBC buildings, mainly the ones with automatic or revolving doors, as he loves doors!

After a little more running around, we got back onto the tram and headed to the car, after a couple of minutes driving, The Boy’s conversation faded and when I turned around to look at him, he was fast asleep……