A (very wet) day of pumpkins at Four Winds Farm and Riverhill Himalayan Gardens

This week has been the first of a two-week half term holiday for us. And it’s been cold, and wet, and a bit rubbish frankly.

Our plan was to take the kids to the local pumpkin patch yesterday.

It’s become something of a tradition, and it gives me something pretty to put on Instagram. Unfortunately it rained so hard that the farm had to close as cars were getting stuck in the mud trying to get out. After about an hour of debating whether it was worth risking soft play (the answer, if you were wondering, is nearly always no), we went instead to a garden centre for cake.

So, plan = get outdoors, get exercise, reality = sitting down, cake. We tried.

This morning looked a lot brighter and it wasn’t raining, so we thought we’d try our luck, stick on our wellies and make our way to Four Winds Farm in Bidborough where, fingers crossed, the mud should be starting to dry out.

There isn’t much to report except that;

a) We acquired our pumpkin,

b) We also got some nicely Instagrammable photos to go with it.

Do you like our matchy-matchy coats? I promise I’m not actually one of those people, but it was too wet not to wear them. They copied me, I promise.

and

c) We had to be helped out of the field by some young men because although my car is big it also has zero grip and is wimpy as fuck, and the ground had been churned up be all the previous cars. This was of course the highlight of the whole day for the kids who enjoyed watching the poor men trying to push us out of the mud, and waved them a cheery good bye before talking about it all the way home. Poor sods probably had to do it another 100 times for the rest of the cars left on the field I imagine.

We then decided to head to the Golden Arches for lunch which was of course rammed with every child on half term holidays for a five mile radius and was therefore lovely and relaxing.

Instead of heading home and watching the children unceremoniously destroying the house which I’ll be honest, has grown a bit tired over the week, we went to Riverhill Himalayan Gardens in Sevenoaks to do the new Pumpkin Hunt.

Riverhill Himalayan Gardens Pumpkin Hunt

By the time we got there, the rain that had so kindly stayed away during the morning had arrived in earnest, so we grabbed a pen and pulled our hoods up, and tried to find eight pumpkins hidden around the walled garden, rose walk and rock garden before our paper disintegrated.

Fortunately it wasn’t too hard – pumpkins being more difficult to blend into the background than bunnies – and, challenge complete, I had a cup of tea and Helen had a gingerbread latte with two sugars which was sweeter than anything on earth, while the kids ate their sweet prizes.

We went into the Pumpkin Grotto, where we didn’t carve our pumpkin on account of them being in the back of the car, and admired the pumpkin display while explaining to my whinging children why I couldn’t just nip back and grab our pumpkin which was easily as heavy as a toddler and carry it down a steep, muddy hill.

The rain stopped momentarily so we decided to head up to the maze, where my oldest ran, against my strict instructions, and fell face first into a big pile of wet mud. Apparently ‘I told you so’ isn’t a very kind, motherly thing to say.

…And so we came home, threw everything in the washing machine (clothes-wise. The kids went in the bath).

I was somehow tentatively hoping that after the fresh air and exercise they’d be out like a light but the giggling and chatter from upstairs says otherwise…

Both Four Winds Farm and Riverhill Himalayan Gardens should be open until Sunday, but keep an eye on their Facebook pages for closures due to the weather.

Our entry to Riverhill was free as we were gifted a family pass at the start of the year.