The summer holidays are back and so is the daily struggle of finding interesting things to do with children.
If you fancy taking a trip 50 minutes down to the National Forest Adventure Farm, near Burton, you can once again step back in time to an era when dinosaurs ruled the earth.
I took my five-year-old son to the popular site where we came face to face with an imposing triceratops and were chased by a velociraptor after a lax member of staff left the gate to its pen open.
Last year the Farm's Dino Summer was somewhat tempered as strict coronavirus regulations meant some popular attractions had to be closed.
But as Step 4 of the roadmap out of lockdown went ahead on July 19 it was wonderful to be able to enjoy all the farm had to offer on our visit.
The soft play – the nemesis of many parents – was re-opened and my son and I took great delight in being able to go down the huge rainbow slides.
Many of the more mundane aspects of the pandemic also appear to have been removed, as we were able to simply walk into the site without queuing and time slots for the park were a thing of the past.
What hasn’t changed, though, is the amount of enjoyment children and their adults alike were having.
The Dino Meat and Greet was – as always – a huge pull as youngsters patiently waited for their chance to come face to face with a pre-historic monster.
Meanwhile, squeals of excitement were emanating from the maize maze as families were tasked with running from a huge raptor while trying to get her eggs to safety. The raptor, incidentally, is more than happy to stop and take selfies.
This was the favourite activity for my son who insisted we attempt to dodge the raptor twice.
New to the site this year is fossil searching, where participants are handed a bag of sand and a pan and given the opportunity to search for fossils, gemstones and ‘gold’.
But it wasn’t just the dinosaur fun on offer for families as they were able to feed some of the farm’s many animals including cows, goats and alpacas, take part in tractor barrel rides and jump the day away on a huge inflatable pillow.
We adored our visit to Dino Summer last July but as restrictions have ended we were afforded more time and activities than we were before. It was definitely worth the short trip over the Nottinghamshire border and kept us entertained for the whole day.
Dino Summer runs every day from 9.30am to 5.30pm until Wednesday, September 1. Also at the Farm this summer is Sounds of Summer music events, running for six nights across the summer. Details and booking are available at www.adventurefarm.co.uk
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