South Lakeland Leisure Village
(near Carnforth)
June 2015
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That (Tuesday) evening, we headed into Lancaster to go to Bella Italia for some family-friendly Italian food. Sure enough, they brought out some colouring apparatus for Daisy, which was obviously right up her street.
Meanwhile was naturally taken with the breadsticks.
Given a completely free rein, one of Daisy's staple choices at such a restaurant is cheesy pasta. It just so happened that it was animal-shaped pasta, which was fitting given where we had spent the day, and with peas too. She was happy with this choice...
...not to mention the donuts with a chocolate dunking sauce.
The next day, we headed to the World of Beatrix Potter attraction, as Daisy is a big fan of Peter Rabbit.
Inside, after a short video about Beatrix Potter and some of her characters, you were free to wander round a mini-tour, a little like Disney, to view lots of meticulously re-created scenes from Beatrix Potter, such as Jemima Puddleduck flying over some foxgloves...
...and getting a bit panicky about a suave fox.
This fox, however, I think is Mr Tod, another one of Peter's enemies.
There were some well looked after gardens outside, around which Daisy galloped to find the answers to a quiz she had been given.
The garden was all in theme - here is a sign warning about Mr McGregor.
In fact, it was so authentic that they had (inadvertently) obtained a rabbit infestation affecting the growing of salad in the polytunnel.
This is faintly sinister, reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project.
This might be Mr Jeremy Fisher (I've resorted entirely to Googling now), but I'm not really sure.
The adventure continued, with Daisy and Lynne looking into a small house...
...and Daisy posing in front of Peter Rabbit and friends.
As we neared the end, Daisy was taken by some of the puzzles on the wall, although they didn't hold her attention for that long.
Not while Peter Rabbit was caught upside down in a net. Watch out Peter!
This is presumably Mr McGregor, to whom we referred earlier.
You could sit in front of a camera to appear in a Jemima Puddleduck scene. The most amusing thing about this was the fact that Lynne didn't quite get out of shot.
After a spot of lunch in the Beatrix Potter café, we drove over to Levens Hall, notable in particular for the impressive array of topiary. Daisy was naturally drawn to the pink flowers, though.
As we wandered along, we caught sight of a number of games of croquet going on. It all looked very strategic.
Gravitation towards the playground and, in particular, the slide was as inevitable as Daisy's exquisite sense of balance shown here.
She was of a size where she was big enough to enjoy it but not so big as to get stuck in this tunnel. Needless to say, I didn't try it.
As I nipped back to the hall to visit the gents, I found another view of the croquet and felt it was worthy of a photo.
It also afforded be the opportunity to snap the hall from the front...
...take a close up of this flower...
...and capture this infinite-looking hedgerow, reminiscent of some of the latter scenes in The Shining (but without all the snow).
It was turning into a splendid afternoon, giving the fountain and overhanging plantation a summery glow.
As I returned, I took a long-range slot of la famille.
The boy is nothing if not optimistic. Needless to say, he didn't make it up here.
That said, considering he had only been walking for a month at this point, this was pretty impressive. I was keen to let him go to see what he could do. Having his shoes on helped with grip but he couldn't get much further. And soon he got frustrated and I had to get him down each time.
So he satisfied himself with sitting and playing with bits of stuff from the floor. Looking generally angelic.
Daisy popped into the creepy crawly corner for a bit...
...but was soon back in the playground, enjoying this big basket swing thing.
On our way in, Daisy had been given a double-sided (although it took my observational skills to point out that there was a reverse side) picture key. You had to find all the objects on the key as part of the challenge. Here, Daisy has located one of the statues on the card.
I couldn't resist taking another one of these with the sun out, this time with Daisy striding confidently ahead.
This clock tower was another on the list.
Meanwhile, I was very impressed with the extent (and size) of the rhubarb growing, making my one rhubarb plant look a bit pathetic really, but we don't really have the land...
Daisy was soon charming a group of four, er, more experienced ladies and asking them if they had seen any of the pictures. They were only happy to oblige.
The gardens were all very well kept, as this picture demonstrates.
At the front of the hall, we managed to find another key item, which seems to be a knob or knocker or something (stop sniggering at the back).
And merrily you may move on to page four.
Of course, there's always the Secret Portal.