Foreign Perspectives

Thus far in the fifth series the planting of forward links has been much more heavy-handed than we’d become used to though the era of the Harold Saxon arc which managed to place untold numbers of forward links that were easy to miss at the time but obvious in hindsight. This series has largely been a series of one-off episodes with little overall linkage other than the heavy handed crack to link them together.

Tonight’s episode had so many separate threads in it that it felt more like a 90 minute episode than the normal length one that it actually was. That’s quite a good thing and one or two of the previous episodes in this series have been quite similar. The linkages might have been too heavy-handed for my liking but it was great to have that “quart into a pint pot” feeling more than once during the series.

Tonight we finally saw a number of threads coming together or rather the Amy Pond and River Song threads starting to come together (although he hasn’t met her for the first time yet). We’ve even a fairly complete pantheon of bad guys in an alliance to save the universe which does seem to be asking for trouble in a seriously big way.

Oh well, only 7 days to find out…

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These days water features are being put in by people who aren’t quite so steeped in the whole idea as their predecessors were ten years ago.

Sadly it’s not quite so simple as digging a big hole and pumping water into it. One of the seemingly minor things that you can come unstuck on are pond filters. You might think that you don’t need such a thing but the problem is that your constructed water feature doesn’t have the same filtration advantages as a natural spring or pond would have so you need to build them in by way of pond filters.

Don’t let the little things put you off though: there’s a solution to every problem that you might encounter.

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We’ve been meaning to take the kids to Streamvale Farm for a while now but in practice the first, and last, time we went was last week on a school trip.

The charge even for the school trip was £4.80 per child ie the full price. To be fair that did include a tour guide although I’m sure that any of us who’ve lived in the country for any period of time would have done at least as well; certainly, for me, she didn’t add any value so it was a full £4.80. That’s unless you count the “mid-morning break” as a discount but even then 10p worth of watery orange and a small biscuit is hardly the level of discount that a school would ordinarily expect for these things.

So what’s included in the tour? We began with a look at a non-working milking parlour with no practical demonstration and merely one photograph of what a cow getting milked looked like. Granted, dawn milkings aren’t conducive to school trips but I’m sure that they could have managed a video at least. It went downhill from there as we walked along the lane to the badger set with it’s very small sign marking the spot. Badgers are nocturnal so nothing to see there though a proper display would have been possible. From there it was on past the duck pond to the field with the deer which the children were allowed to feed through the fence (by far the high point of this part of the visit) before circling round to have that mid-morning break. The next stretch gave the kids a chance to feed some of the chickens and ducks although with no background explanations as to what they ate or whatever ie just a stop for amusement rather than education.

From there we were off past the couple of dogs in a pen to the “petting zoo” (for want of a better description). This should have been the highlight of the trip as there were getting on for a dozen different animals. However, in practice the only interaction with them was the guinea pig hastily handed around the kids (with no consideration for its welfare) and the goat roughly dragged from one child to another for a suck on a bottle. It could have been so much better and it was no surprise that the kids preferred the small playground inside the “zoo” which seemed to be there for no other reason than to create some interest for children.

We finished up the tour with a go at milking a dummy cow (which would have been better placed in the milking parlour) and a chance for a hurried feel of some chicks with the customary lack of consideration for their welfare.

With the tour over, it was time for lunch (not included in the price, of course) and then it was off to sample the playgrounds. The first one for us featured one of those zip slides that made no allowance for safety and I was amazed that one of the kids didn’t end up in hospital. That was the only feature as the other playground items were rather cheap productions (one of which states quite clearly that it is only for home use) and the positioning of the tyre swing far too close to one of the diggers is another accident waiting to happen. Finally, it was off to the second playground where there were loads of little tractors and trailers although the trailers couldn’t be used as none of the attachment pins was to be found and on the whole everything was rather run down.

None of the weekend rides were running which was odd as some of them sound like the kids would have loved them. They’re all at extra charge though, as is everything here.

Overall, very poor value and dangerous to boot.

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