The Beesley Buzz: Bristol, Bath and Longleat

It's about time I did my write up on our little getaway for the August bank holiday weekend. I want to do my Mexico write up from our November break but my brain likes things to be in the right order so I know I need to write up our few days away in Bath first!

This was our second break away in the Summer in as many weeks, having not long returned from a week in Lincolnshire. I sometimes wonder if my kids realise how lucky they are given my lack of holidays when I was a kid.

This time it was just a couple of nights away over August bank holiday weekend. Earlier in the year I had won an epic prize with children's STEM themed subscription box, The Curiosity Box. The prize included a subscription to receive three monthly boxes, a bundle of science books and goodies and tickets to various incredible science-themed events including Mark Thompson's Spectacular Science show, tickets to Braving the Elements show at the Royal Institution, and tickets to We the Curious science exhibition in Bristol.

Even though we live many miles from Bristol, I knew it was something we would definitely want to go to. So we decided to book accommodation at the University of Bath (where me and Richard met many many years ago). Over the summer months, they make the rooms available as accomodation and although we've visited Bath a few times over the years, we had never stayed at the University since graduating.

Thinking back to when we had visited Bath and the surrounding area previously and trying to work out when and where...

We stayed on a campsite in Granny's campervan when Daniel was just about 4 months old...so that must have been in 2006. I think it was Daniel's first holiday.

I recall staying at the youth hostel in Bath when the boys were younger...so around 2008.

Then we visited again, probably a couple of years after that and stayed in a little cottage, so around 2010.

Then when Miss T came along, we won a trip to Longleat along with a nights stay at the amazing Bishopstrow hotel. Miss T was about a year and a half so that was in September 2013. Then in October 2013, we had a stay at Center Parcs and also fitted in a quick visit to Longleat.

So I think it is fair to say that we love this corner of the world!

Saturday 24th August 2019

Anyhow back to our day in Bristol. We set off early from Kent eating breakfast in the car en-route. We actually reached Bristol before 10am when We the Curious opens. It made me realise that we probably could have done it as a day trip but it was nice knowing that we had Longleat and Bath to look forward to over the coming days.

that big silver ball is the outside of the planetarium

We spent most of the day there. It really is a great place for kids and adults of all ages. We bought tickets for the planetarium show - that was well worth seeing. There are various interactive demos through the day too. We joined in a chocolate tasting one.

There are so so many hands on exhibits and so much potential for learning - It really is a fantastic place and I'd thoroughly recommend visiting.

Then we headed over to Bath and checked into our University accommodation early evening. We used to enjoy curries at a curry place on Pulteney bridge so we wanted our kids to join in our tradition of having a curry in Bath. So I did a quick search on trip advisor and Indian Temptation ranked very highly. Not quite on Pulteney bridge but very central nonetheless. We booked a table and headed there shortly after. An absolute bonus for me was that this place was entirely vegetarian! But what I hadn't bargained for was that almost everything on the menu was spicier than we are used to.

Back on campus we settled into our rooms for bedtime. Although we had the whole "house" to ourselves with plenty of bedrooms spread across three floors, it was trickier than expected coordinating the unpacking and getting ready for bed with each door being a fire door that kept slamming behind us. And with all the doors looking the same, I kept forgetting which room each child was in!

Miss T settled well into uni life!!! With only pen and paper for entertainment she loved spending time in her "uni" room

There was a double-room for me and Richard but I found myself having panic-attacks and unable to sleep. There was something that didn't feel right about being in a Uni room and then NOT locking my room door at night. Even though I knew logically that the main door to the building was locked and that I needed to keep the bedroom door unlocked in case the kids needed us. But I just couldn't sleep like that.

In the end I gave up and took myself to another vacant room where I locked the door and managed to sleep. I had words with the beautiful moth in the room to stay still and not bother me and it seemed to behave staying still all night.

Sunday 25th August 2019

Having not slept well all night, I realised that it wasn't just the door locking issue that had kept me awake but being back at Uni had brought all sorts of emotions to the fore. I know things are different these days as the University of Bath provides a lot of support for those with ASD but I remember my early days at Uni being very difficult. Adjusting to being in a new place and getting to grips with the timetable and locations of lectures and all the social aspects of making new friends. Although I wasn't, and still am, not diagnosed with ASD, since Joshua's diagnosis I recognise that I most likely am on the spectrum and that was one of the reasons that I found university so difficult at times.

We set off early enough to get to Longleat at 10am for opening time. I'd pre-booked our tickets online using Tesco clubcard vouchers. Previously Longleat tickets would last all year allowing entry to each attraction once. Now the ticket lasts for just the one day. As we were only here for 1 day, that suited us fine. When we had visited previously we used to always start with the safari on day 1 and the jungle cruise on day 2 as they seem to be the two busiest attractions. This time the lady in the ticket booth explained that there were already massive queues for the safari and recommended that we start with the jungle boat cruise first. Which turned out to be a good call.

We left the safari to do towards the end of the day.

We were really pleased to see the change to their smoking policy to make the entire site a non-smoking one (with the exception of a couple of designated areas) and wish that more family theme parks would follow suit. Sadly not everyone respected that decision and I did see several people smoking or vaping. Shockingly one person even had their car window down inside the lion enclosure to smoke! Crazy!

We've seen a lot of changes at Longleat over the years that we have visited. But one of the things that has stayed the same in all this time is the Parrot show. The parrots were noisier and less cooperative this time - a bit like my children I guess!

The koalas are a lovely new addition...Aren't they just beautiful.

Although we had taken our swim stuff with us for the splash area (as it was a scorcher of a day) in the end the kids decided that they couldn't be bothered with faffing around to get changed and have to get dried off afterwards so we gave the wet play area a miss. To be honest the boys are really too old for it now so it would have been most suitable for Miss T's age group and younger.

Miss T did experience her first ever wasp sting. Thankfully it all happened very quickly and undramatically.

As Longleat has been a favourite place of ours to visit over so many years, we tried to get some nice family photos by the fountain...

Turns out it's harder than you think on a really hot tiring day with the sun shining in your eyes...

Boys - next time wear your sunglasses!!!

After a busy day at Longleat we headed back to uni and ordered Dominoes pizza in an attempt to relive our student memories! It would be our friday evening treat to get a Dominoes delivery and watch the latest episode of Friends.

After dinner we took the kids for a little wander round campus. My, how things have changed. Miss T loved hearing our tales from all those years ago. The boys seemed less fascinated by it.

This was where we used to wait for the buses

The Parade - some things haven't changed so much!

The 24 hour library where we used to take shelter when the fire alarms rang in our accommodation

The little lake where we used to watch the ducks and see the tiny frogs

VERY different now compared to 20 years ago!

Our accomodation building where we first met!

Tomorrow we are planning to spend the day in Bath and then travel home late in a bid to miss any bank holiday traffic. The weather is due to be hot, hot, hot again.

Hoping for a better nights sleep tonight.

Monday 26th August 2019

We started the morning by showing the kids a little of the countryside around the University campus. There are stunning hills surrounding Bath city centre. A lot of them now had National Trust signs up which never used to be there 20 years ago so that seems to have made them more popular with people following some of the trails.

Sham castle was a popular place to visit as students

For Lunch we popped into Bill's. Bill's is one of our favourite places for food ever since we discovered it for Miss T 's fourth birthday and her birthday brunch at Bill's. They're always so welcoming whichever Bill's restaurant we have visited and have always tried to fit us in without a booking. There was only one time on a Sunday morning that one of the Bill's restaurants local to us wasn't able to fit us in.

Then we visited Royal Crescent and Royal Victoria Park along with pointing out some of the places we lived when we were students. It was incredibly busy. Far busier than I remembered it. Richard did point out that we are the tourists this time, visiting at the peak time of year rather than students living there when it was the quieter times of year for tourists.