A day out: The Harry Potter; Warner Brothers studio tour

Last Friday Jamie and I got to use our Christmas present to each other, a ticket to the Harry Potter studio tour, we were both very excited as we are huge Harry Potter fans.

Fred was less excited.

 Our tour started in the Great hall, the tables were set and costumes from the films lined the walls.

 From the great hall we entered a huge room with many of the original film sets within it. Including the Gryffindor boys dormitory, the Gryffindor common room, the potions class room, and many more.

The huge props that were made especially for the film were really impressive.

Below is the door from the chamber of secrets.

After exploring the hall full of sets and props we ventured outside to taste butter beer. It wasn't as nice as I imagined it would be. It was foamy and toffeey but it wasn't thick enough. I know this is wrong but I also always imagined it would be warm...

What wasn't a disappointment was seeing the Knight bus, it was HUGE! Cool fact- they had to add 4tons of weight to the bottom of the bus to make sure the fullsize triple decker wouldn't topple over!

The rooms with the make up and animatronics were astonishing. They had a full size moving hippogryff that actually bowed. The masks for all of the goblins were really detailed.

 All of the sets had to be made up in card before being created full size,  below is the village of Hogsmead.

  As we walked in the the room with the huge model of Hogwarts people gasped. It is almost silly that a model of a castle can have that affect on people but again it was incredibly detailed and impressive. 

It was covered in 'snow' for the winter :)

We had a good time, but I do think it is a bit over priced. It took us three and a half hours to take the tour. and we paid £30 each. We wouldn't pay that for a theme park that we would spend all day in. 

We also made the mistake of having a light lunch in the cafe we had a sandwich, yogurt and cold drink each and it cost us £18! 

It was a long day, as it was a 3hr drive each way, but it was definitely worth it.

On the way back we stopped at a service station with big mirrors so we took a family 'selfie' :)

Christmas Fun

We are back from our Christmas travels. 

This year we spent 5 days in Southampton, 5 days in Hastings and one day in Cambridgeshire. 

Before we left we were a little worried about how Fred would deal with the long car journeys, but it turned out our worrying was completely unfounded. In total our journeys were 14 hours long and Fred slept for approximately 12.5 hours of them with the worst crying session only half an hour from our house on our way back. He is pretty good at sleeping almost as soon as we put him in the car seat.

The long journeys and the extended time away from home were quite tiring for all of us, but were definitely worth it. Fred has now met all of his Aunts, Uncles and  most of his Cousins. He even managed to woo a few Great Aunts and Uncles.

Anyway that is enough about Fred, this post is meant to be about my Christmas break highlights.

Two of my highlights over the last two weeks are both walks. First was a boxing day walk on Southampton common with Grandpa, Aunty Vicky, Jamie and Fred.

It was lovely to walk in the bright sunshine watching families play, children trying out their new bikes and scooters, sons walking their mothers and toddlers working out how to put one foot in front of another. Best of all was walking with family, Fred slept on Jamie's chest content and peaceful.

My second highlight was a walk along Hastings seafront with Mutti and Grandad, it was also bright and fresh. I love the sea and the sky was beautiful. We wandered slowly, again I watched families playing in the play parks and children bouncing on trampolines. Mutti is wearing her Christmas present from me, a knitted snood. (I'm going to write a pattern for it soon, its only simple but someone may find it helpful!) 

I hope you had a lovely Christmas and are looking froward to the year ahead.

Romsey another idyllic village in Hampshire

Romsey is a little market town just North of Southampton, it has an Abbey, a regular market, permanent bunting, great charity shops, many independent specialist shops and cafes.

King John's House is an ancient building with a little cafe, an independent art exhibition with a wall of knitted bricks and a pretty little garden.

Jamie was sad that I didn't want to have a photo with him in the arch of flowers. 

Romsey comes highly recommended.

Hampshire on Dwellable

A day on the watercress line

Jamie and I are in the middle of our annual summer adventure along the south coast, both sets parents live in the south, which is quite a trek from Chester but quite handy when we have a two week block to see them.

So far we have spent a few days in Southampton exploring Hampshire. 

We had a lazy day on the Watercress Line, enjoying the views and exploring idylic Hampshire villages.

The two villages on the line are Alton and Alresford we parked in Alresford and ate lunch in Alton, Next time we would do it the other way around as Alresford is much prettier, has a lot of independent shops and some lovely cafe's including the courtyard Tearoom with delicious award winning carrot cake.