Easter fun at Chiltern Open Air Museum

One of the best things about spring is that all our favourite places have started opening again.  We enjoyed some traditional Easter fun at Chiltern Open Air Museum on Good Friday when they opened for the start of the 2016 season.

There were two Easter trails available – Easter bunnies or Easter eggs.  Jessica chose the Easter eggs. We headed off to find the ten different coloured eggs hidden in various buildings around the museum.

 

First though, we had to stop and say hello to the sheep.  The girls are looking forward to seeing some lambs soon when they start arriving.

 

We found our first coloured egg in the Northolt Barn, before heading to the Nissan Hut to find the second one.  The third was in the Amersham Prefab, This is one of the girls’ favourite buildings in the museum.  Sophie promptly made a beeline for the back bedroom and the old-fashioned children’s toys.  I was quite impressed by how much she clearly remembered from our visits here last summer. There were quite a few moments when it was clear she knew exactly where she was going and what she would find.

 

The marble pinball game was what she was looking for in this case.  Both the girls will happily spend ages rolling the marbles around the board.  I do always have to check Sophie’s pockets though when we leave. She does quite like to try and take some away with her!

 

The next egg was found in Leagrave Cottage where there were two 18th-century-costumed re-enactors.  The woman was making pease pottage and chicken curry. I have to admit I was quite surprised to find chicken curry on an 18th century menu but was informed that the spice trade was flourishing at the time and people would have occasionally made curry.  It did make me chuckle to hear that it didn’t always agree with people, especially if they were more used to a diet of pease pottage. It sounds like the after-effects of curry not have changed too much in 300 years!

 

The tiny Henton Mission Room didn’t have any eggs for us to find, but there was a Good Friday service taking place. We stopped to listen to this before heading to the Thame Vicarage Room for the next egg and another chance for the girls to play with the toys.  Jessica quite enjoyed the cup and ball. Getting the ball into the cup was not quite as easy as Mummy made it look though!

 

There were lots of games outside on the village green. The girls enjoyed playing hoopla for a while. Sophie’s technique was mostly just placing the hoops over the sticks. Jessica preferred to throw the hoops wildly (and usually in a different direction all together!)

 

The sixth egg was at the Harpenden Well Head. We found two more eggs at the Arborfield Barn and the Iron Age House.  We headed to the High Wycombe Toll House to find the next egg (and spotted one of the bunnies there too!)  On the walk there, Sophie surprised me once again with her memory of previous visits.  Back in the autumn, there had been a lot of muddy puddles on this particular path which she had enjoyed jumping in (and falling over in too!)  The ground was fairly dry this time though but she stopped at the exact point where we’d found a huge puddle previously and pointed to the ground.

 

“Yay, muddy puddles!” she said, “I love muddy puddles!”

 

Thankfully, we did manage to find a couple of small muddy puddles further on so she could relive those happy memories (without falling over this time!)

 

There was another lady in costume at the toll house.  I would have loved to stopped to listen about the history of the toll house. The girls were too restless though and eager to get back outside.  We found the final egg at the High Wycombe Furniture Factory near the tea shop.

 

Back at the entrance, we handed in our completed form. The girls enjoyed the mini eggs that they received in return.

 

It was lovely to be back again, especially on such a gorgeous sunny day. We were able to shed the coats as it was so warm.  The girls love the museum. They get to see the animals, play with toys in some of the buildings plus there is so much space for them to run around and explore.  I love watching them together, running about hand-in-hand and just enjoying being out in the open air together.  Hopefully there’ll be many more days like this over the coming months.