Stockley Farm

It was my niece Felix's 3rd birthday party on Saturday and we decided we would travel down for it and start our Lakes holiday off with a bang. The party was held at Stockley Farm as it was deemed an easy location and was relatively cheap for a whole day. By pure coincidence, its also incredibly dog friendly - there was an old trip adviser review stating that dogs weren't allowed most places, so I emailed the place who informed me the policy had since changed and they were welcome everywhere so long as they were well behaved.

I would add photos of the birthday girl, but alas, my sister (the mum) doesn't particularly like the idea of said child appearing online, which is fair enough, so I will just spam you all with more photos of my (fur)baby!

It was a great day out - there was meet the ponies, a great big indoor bouncy castle and sand area, and a great big outdoor play area too. We found a pig who was desperately trying to escape, a goat with a bucket on its head and a lovely nature trail handily marked with very large red triangles - perfect to let a three year old think they're leading the way for us all! At this point we squeezed in a picnic and sung happy birthday and Felix got to blow out her candles.

The only thing that wasn't dog friendly was the owl show. The woman running the event came over and was very good about the fact that Missy would upset the owls and pointed out a screened area where the hubby could still watch the show and the owls would be happy. It was a very scaled back show that was really more of a 'here's a barn owl, line up kids and maybe you can hold one' kind of affair and unfortunately my niece is minuscule for three years of age and wasn't keen on pushing in on the press of excited children!

The little red rocket!

By this point the birthday girl was fairly tuckered out, so we finished the day with the sheep racing. You could bid on a sheep to win (you bought a numbered badge for 50p) and in order to ensure both family's won something, the hubby bought all the badges for both races (8 in all) and divided it up. By great coincidence, the birthday girl herself won and so did I - although I decided Missy suited the rosette far more than I did! All in all, a great day had by all!