Redwings Horse Sanctuary Caldecott

Redwings Horse Sanctuary is situated in Caldecott, Norfolk. It is one of 5 horse sanctuarys ran by Redwings and it is their largest. Easy to find on the A143 opposite Fritton Lake. With ample free parking and free entry Redwings is a great place to pay a visit.

Opening times
Redwings Caldecott is open all year round, every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday 10am to 4pm (closed Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays). 

I must admit, we hadn't visited Redwings for years but a couple of friends of mine were planning to go and invited the girls and I to join them. As we pulled into the car park we had to make our way carefully across to park as the ground was very bumpy and had lots of large dips, just make your way carefully and you will be fine.

To the left as you enter there is a large wooden play area for young children.

After checking in at the Visitors Centre, where we found the staff friendly and helpful, we went through to to take a look at the gift shop and information centre. 

Just outside the girls spotted a food donation box which they are now planning on filling!

We then enjoyed a relaxing hour wandering around the fields and stables. The animals all looked well looked after and had large enclosures and comfortable stables. 

The animals are calm and seemingly very used to human interaction, as we approached each enclosure we found that there would be several horses or donkeys that would come trotting over to be fussed, much to Em's delight!

Redwings also offer an adoption package, priced at just £12.50 and we are now looking into this for Emily. She is busy saving her pocket money and doing extra chores to earn money. Once she has saved enough we will take her back to visit and talk to the staff about adopting a horse or donkey.

After we had walked round the enclosures we decided to pay the cafe a visit. This is cutely called "Nosebag Cafe" and has a reasonably priced menu.

The girls choose ice creams whilst I opted for a Mocha Latte, I have to say it was a good coffee! Proper coffee, Yum!

Whilst us adults enjoyed a sit down, the children all had a run around the play area again and enjoyed hanging out on the fresh air and chatting.

Dotted around the centre were information boards which gave details of the animals in the enclosures and explanations about things we had noticed such as the horses wearing face masks and the empty "overgrown" enclosures.

We finished off with a walk along the stables and a quick goodbye to the horses. 

It was a lovely few hours visit, it's not often that you can get free entry to places these days and when we left we popped a donation in the visitors centre. We'll definitely be back for a return visit in the near future.

To find out more visit their website or find them on Facebook.

Great Yarmouth Treasure Trail

As a family we are huge fans of Treasure Trails. We have shared our experiences of these with you in the past and we were thrilled to be asked to review their brand new Great Yarmouth Trail! The trail was set to cover 2.5 miles and estimated to take 2,5 hours to complete, we find that the estimated times are usually pretty accurate.

It's also fully wheelchair and pushchair accessible, with plenty of opportunities for stopping for refreshments and sight seeing on the way.

You could do this trail quite easily as part of a day at the seaside, taking in the local attractions - Joyland, Pleasure Beach, Merrivale Model Village and so much more!

If you've never heard of them before then make sure you pay them a visit on their website or Facebook to find out more. Also give their promotional video a watch which explains them perfectly!

We arranged to meet our friends to help us with this trail, a treasure hunt themed trail. They completed a trail in Cardiff with us last year and got the trail bug!

This trail commences at Britannia Pier which is easily located at the end of Regent Road, which leads straight up from the bus station in the town. It also signifies the start of the Golden Mile, a hugely popular tourist attraction.

We then followed the clues along the seafront which took in various landmarks and points of significant interest. 

Emily and our friends little girl had great fun running ahead to find the next clue, as the seafront has lovely wide pathways they were able to venture off a little with us knowing they were safe.

Although we are local, lived here all our lives, the trail made us take notice of things that we have over looked in the past. Who would have known some of the hidden marvels we have on our doorstep!

Although we found that a little bit of local knowledge helped us along but the clues were all there to find without too much searching, we did have a little problem with one clue, I think this is where our local knowledge probably hindered us as we tried to over think the clue ARGH!!! 

So we decided to make use of the free text help service.  

This is nice and simple to use, just send the trails unique ref code and the clue number you are stuck on to the number printed on the trail and within seconds we had the answer and an explanation why this was the answer sent back to us.

You can use the text service up to three times in one trail, we've done several trails in the past and this is the first time we have had to use it.

A quick stop en route for an ice-cream break (well when you're beside the seaside!) 

 Then we were back on track.

The trail took us as far as the Pleasure Beach before sending us back along the adjacent side of the parade, this included a little detour from the main promenade to take in a clue at the famous Hippodrome Circus (always a favourite place of ours.)

Then it was straight back onto the front to find the remaining clues.

We continued along finding Blue Plaques and architecture which has long been covered over and turned off the front onto Regent Road. 

We presumed that this was the last few clues as we were leaving the seafront.

We had fun spotting the next couple of clues in this area and then we were surprised to find we were being sent back towards the seafront again!

We found the final clue back near the start and entered our final answer online to enter the monthly £100 giveaway competition and we were delighted to find that we had correctly located the "treasure!"

The trails are great fun for all the family, they are simple for kids to read and navigate and we love discovering more about the areas we are in by using these trails.

Trails cost just £6.99 and will provide you with a good few hours worth of fun for all the family, why not take your friends along too! The trials are printed as high quality card booklets and well packaged to protect them. Postage and packaging costs from £1.49 for up to 3 trails or you can download your order and print at home, this is great for last minute trailing! (Postage typically takes 2-3 days.)

I also think the Trails make great gifts, the girls have given these to their teachers as end of year presents before and I have gifted them to friends, they have always been gratefully received and enjoyed.

Check out the Treasure Trails website to find a trail in your area or perhaps holiday destination, they have over 1000 UK locations!!!!

One of the best things about Treasure Trails - apart from the low price, great fun, fresh air, family quality time, sight seeing and so much more, is you can do them whenever you want to; any time, any day, any month of the year.

I'm now off to look for the next Treasure Trail we fancy completing, make sure you order yours today and get the trailing bug!

Welsh Cakes

My Father-in-law comes from Wales and Chris is rather proud of his Welsh roots. 

One of his favourite things that I home bake is Welsh Cakes.

These are similar to a dropped scone and the recipe I use generally makes 35-40 cakes.

Ingredients

500g of self-raising flour (plus a little extra for dusting)

75g caster sugar (plus a little extra to serve)

1 heaped teaspoon of mixed spice

250g cold butter

a pinch of sea salt

150g mixed raisins, sultanas and orange peel

1 large free range egg

a couple of splashes of milk 

You will also need scales, a large mixing bowl, wooden spoon, rolling pin, round pastry cutter and a large non-stick pan or griddle pan.

Step 1:

Sieve the flour into the bowl and add the sugar and mixed spice. Give them a good mix to combine.

Step 2:

Cut the butter into knobs and add to the dry mixture. Rub this in thoroughly until it resembles breadcrumbs (the girls usually enjoy this part, a good excuse to get messy hands!)

Step 3:

Mix in the dried fruit, then making a well in the centre of the mixture and crack the egg into this.

Adding splashes of milk to this as you go (you'll get a feel as to how much milk you need.)

Beat this together.

Step 4:

Once you have a dough mixture, remove from the bowl and place it on a gently floured surface - don't overwork it! 

Step 5:

You then need to roll out the mixture until it is approx 1cm thick. The using your pastry cutter cut as many rounds as you can. Gather the leftovers, you will re roll and repeat this step until you have cut as many rounds from your mixture as possible.

Step 6:

Over a medium heat, lay a batch of Welsh cakes in the pan,

I find 6 at a time is enough in my large pan.

Cook for 2-3 minutes and then flip over and repeat on the other side. You're looking for a golden colour, adjust the temperature setting if you find they are too pale or too dark.

Repeat in batches until they are all cooked.

Step 7: 

Leave them on a cooling rack and give them a dusting of caster sugar. 

Then serve.

The girls often like to make these for Daddy's birthday or Father's Day so presenting them in a nice gift box always makes them look more special.

Hope that you enjoy these tasty Welsh cakes.

Let us know if you've made them and what you thought. Perhaps swap the dried fruit for chocolate chunks or nuts! 

Jaimexx