2015

Review 2015: Sir Harald Hillier Gardens

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Reviews of Days Out

Sir Harald Hillier Gardens, Romsey nr Southampton

Review 2015: Sir Harald Hillier Gardens

The first time I went to Sir Harald Hillier Gardens was when Miss NHM was 4 months old.

It was so fab but I didn’t get to really experience it because Miss NHM was too young.

However, we went back in October 2014 to meet up with friends and had a fantastic day. Miss NHM was three and a half when we visited so she loved all the different areas that we visited.

Unfortunately the weather was appalling that day, it rained for most of the time we were there, but that meant it was really quiet and we still had a brilliant time.

You are probably aware that I’ve been championing the “Save the Culture All Passport“. This was one of the places that you could visit under the scheme. I really hope they don’t lose out on families visiting because they can no longer afford to visit.

Play

The Gardens are HUGE! There are so many different areas to explore. I’m just going to post the pictures up and you can see all of the different areas to visit.

You can’t really tell from the rubbish picture, but this is a maze made out of bamboo. It even had a seat in the middle. We had much fun playing in the maze!

This is a stream that Miss NHM wanted to go paddling in. It was a cold October day. She wasn’t impressed when we said no! lol.

As you walk to the end of the garden there is a long ramp and you walk past a waterfall. Lovely part of the gardens

This is the restaurant at the other end of the gardens from the entrance. Unfortunately the restaurant is closed in winter but it’s open in summer.

As you can see, there are lots of picnic benches outside the restaurant.

My favourite tree in the gardens :-D. 074

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You can just see the tree art in the picture below. Miss NHM was fascinated with this!

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This is the children’s area. There are different sensory areas. The picture below shows the ponds which had different types of pond life in.

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Miss NHM enjoyed standing on top of these. I wasn’t sure that was what she was supposed to be doing!!!

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This is the education centre, where the indoor activities take place. It’s next to the entrance. 092

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This is a picture of the restaurant. As you can see there is also outside seating for summer days.

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The views were spectacular.

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There are lots of sculptures dotted around the gardens. We loved this one, near the entrance.

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The treehouse is by far my favourite place in the Gardens.

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Tips

Take welly’s on a rainy day as it can get very muddy. We recommend an umbrella too.

Harald Hillier Gardens has lots and lots of activities for children so we recommend checking the website out before you go, to see what activities are on.

Dogs are not allowed in the gardens.

Food

I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking 😀

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The food was excellent and really good value for money.

I was very impressed with the children’s meal which had some nice healthy options available and a free seed tray. Wow, I sound old! lol.

Facilities

There are toilets at the main entrance, the main restaurant and at the other end of the gardens.

There are covered places near the main restaurant to park pushchairs and wheelchairs.

Baby Facilities

There were baby changing facilities in each of the separate toilets.

Parking

Is free and there is lots of it.

Prices

  • Under 17s Free (must be accompanied by an adult)
  • Adult £9.30*
  • Concession £8.40* (Seniors, job seekers, full-time students and people with disabilities)
  • Groups (10+) £7.50 per person
  • Guided Tours £60 standard

*Become a Gift Aid Visitor. Admission includes a voluntary donation to enable us to conserve, develop and exhibit our world renowned Gardens and plant collection. Standard entry prices Adults £8.45, Concessions £7.60

You can also become a member of the gardens, which looks very reasonably priced if you plan to visit lots: http://www3.hants.gov.uk/hilliergardens/hilliers-membership.htm

Open

  • April–October 10am–6pm (last entry 5pm)
  • November–March 10am–5pm (last entry 4pm)
  • Open all year (except Christmas and Boxing Day)

Rating out of 5

We’ve given them 5 out of 5 as we love the gardens and if we lived closer we would be visiting all the time.

Review 2015: The Cafe Project, Brighton Hill

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in Reviews of Places to Eat 1 Comment

I’ve been meaning to go to the Dome Cafe ever since it opened.

So when a friend invited Miss NHM and I to lunch there, I jumped at the chance!

I used to be a volunteer youth leader for Gateway Award Project (GAP) in the early 2000’s and haven’t been back to the Dome in at least 10 years.

It’s changed a lot and I was REALLY impressed at how they’ve smartened the place up! lol.

Review: The Cafe Project, The Dome, Brighton Hill

The Cafe Project Website

The Cafe Project Facebook Page

Food

Was excellent.

We had tuna and sweetcorn jacket potatoes and Miss NHM had a huge plate of pasta and sauce. It was yummy and the salad had clearly been prepared upon order.

We were thinking about having cakes as they looked sooooo scrummy, but in the end we were full up!

Tips

The Cafe is open from 9am to 3pm, Tuesday to Friday and food is served until 2pm.

They have easy access and lots of space for buggies and wheelchairs.

Facilities

Are what you would expect. It’s very light and airy and warm considering the high ceiling.

There is a book case with books you can borrow to read and a small selection of toys for children.

Oh and please take note of the menu holders. My Father in law made them, and BOY did he go on and on about them! haha.

Baby Facilities

There was a baby changing table in one of the toilets and it was in good working condition.

They’re also part of the breastfeeding welcome scheme.

Parking

Is Free.

The Dome is just behind Asda in Brighton Hill. There is limited parking, about 8 spaces, but you could always park in Asda car park and walk over.

However, best to check if there is a time limit on parking in the Asda car park though. (The team at the Cafe Project have confirmed that, to their knowledge, there is no time limit for parking in the Asda car park.)

Prices

Are incredibly reasonable. Very good value.

Rating out of 5

I’m giving them 5 out of 5 because it’s such a brilliant concept and clearly is a hub of the local community, given how busy it was!

I was so impressed at the quality of the food for the price we paid.

Totally recommend this cafe for catching up with your friends and it’s a great way to support the local community!

How I write NorthHantsMum in 2015

Posted by Louise NorthHantsMum on in NorthHantsMum

Several people have said to me recently that they don’t know how I have the time to write NHM, with everything else going on in my life, so I spent some time thinking a little more about this over Christmas.

I wrote a post in 2013 about how I wrote NorthHantsMum then. I spent three months on my maternity leave setting up NHM (Miss NHM was a sleeper!), and although I’ve learnt a lot since then, I only really dedicate about 2-3 hours a week to blogging.

These are a few of the reasons why I think I have the time to write NHM!

I am “uber” organised

I’ve mentioned on NHM before that there are two apps that are fundamental to my organisational skills. These are Evernote and Remember the Milk. I still use Trello but I use this more as a reference tool for the boards that I set up a few years ago.

I use Evernote to draft out each post. I have two specific folders in Evernote for NHM. One which has post ideas organised by theme and one which has posts organised by month. I mainly use the month post, so I always have the current month and next month in my Evernote shortcuts. Evernote syncs to my iPad, my pc and my phone. So I can literally update a post when I get an idea and it syncs to all of my technology.

I used to have a schedule in Evernote but found I had to keep referring back to it. I’ve found it much better just to add the schedule directly into Google Calendar. I’ve set up a specific calender for NHM which has all the posts I have scheduled for the following month and any activities or meetings that are diarised.

I use Remember the Milk to organise my life. I use this for all of my “to do’s” as well as NHM. It’s a great reminder tool.

I also use Google Calendar. I have several different calendars set up, including one for NHM, one for my husband and another one for Miss NHM. Each month I spend about 10 to 15 mins thinking about which NHM posts I want to add in for that month and add in a calendar notice for each day, showing this. Then, if I don’t get around to updating evernote, it doesn’t matter as it’s in my calendar. This also syncs to my iPad, PC and phone.

I am crap at Birthday cards though. I really don’t seem to be able to get birthday cards out on time, even with multiple Google calendar alerts. I have stack loads of birthday cards that have been bought for people that I never quite got around to sending out. I am going to do my very best to work on this during 2015!!! lol.

We don’t have a TV

Yup, that’s right, no TV. So, when you would sit down to watch TV in an evening, I’m normally on my computer, catching up with people on Skype, working, organising things or doing NHM “work”.

Although, since Mr NHM stopped working shift in July 2014 I don’t get as much access to my computer as I used too. We now have alternate evenings between who has the study, as I can’t write NHM whilst he’s playing his computer games :-D.

However, we do still watch “TV”. We used to watch a lot of DVD’s as we had Lovefilm membership but we now have Netflix and Amazon Prime. I wasn’t planning to get both and I think next time we will stick with just Netflix. I love the luxury of being able to choose what I want to watch, when I want to watch it.

I am that person in the cinema who laughs at all of the adverts because I’ve never seen them before!

I try to only watch an hour of “TV” a day. It doesn’t always work out like that if it’s a good TV series that I’m watching!

I am very strict

I try not to let NHM impact my family life.

I’ve mentioned before that I work four days a week, so whilst my daughter is awake and not at nursery, I’m spending as much time with her as I possibly can.

I do most of my NHM work on Sunday nights.

I delegate and outsource everything that I can

I’ve mentioned before that we have a “lady who does“. Tracy, our cleaner, is my godsend. She comes every couple of weeks for an hour and a half and does all the cleaning that I can’t keep on top of. I learnt several years ago that as much as I love a clean and tidy house, I’d rather use my time to better effect than actually cleaning and tidying it myself :-D.

I have blogged about using online food shopping. We rarely go shopping in a store and I can’t imagine living without online shopping. It has been my saviour on many, many occassions. Oh and I also meal plan, which means I don’t have to think about what we are going to eat every evening.

I also delegate a lot of cooking to my slow cooker. I’m getting a bit of a reputation of being the “slow cooking queen” but it really is a fantastic way of being able to prepare two meals at once in half the time.

Facebook

I don’t like Facebook. I find it very insidious. However, most of my readers access NHM via Facebook so I have to use the tool.

I’ve “liked” a lot of Facebook pages. I’ve set things up so that I get notifications (not emails!) every time specific pages post something to Facebook. This helps me stay on top of what is happening in the area, and ensures that I can keep you informed.

I rarely drink alcohol and I have a good breakfast every morning

I hardly drink any alcohol anymore. Since Miss NHM was born I just haven’t had the energy. Especially when Mr NHM was on shift and I was looking after Miss NHM on my own, I didn’t want to spend the time with her hungover.

It’s not such a bad thing. I more than made up for drinking alcohol in my youth :-D. And possibly at a recent Halloween party, but the less said about that the better!!! lol.

I try to have a good breakfast every morning, to keep me going. I always have a fresh juice (or previously prepared juice that’s been stored in a SIGG’s water bottle in the fridge). I started juicing just over a year ago and I’ve hardly been sick since, compared to before I was juicing.

I also always have a bowl of porridge with either frozen fruit or maple syrup.

This is how I write NHM in 2015

I’m sure this is all deathly boring for you to read but at least now, when people ask me how I have the time to continue to write NHM, I can point them in the direction of this post 😉

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