Dad of Crazy Twins

PRESTON PARK: MUSEUM AND GROUNDS   About 40 miles away from Newcastle in Stocksfield is what I would consider to be one of the best attractions in the North East...Preston Park.       We have been coming here for years with the twins and we visit at least 3 or 4 times a year. Situated on Yarm Road in the middle of a residential area is the entrance to Preston Park which, once you have entered the grounds, is much bigger than you would anticipate. There is a decent sized car park with a good sized overflow car park so parking is never really an issue although if you arrive in the afternoon you could struggle. Preston Park is one of those places that you can accidentally spend the entire day at as there is so much to do. This includes:   Adventure Playground Parklands River Walks Skate Park Preston Hall Museum Victorian Street Walled Garden Café       The first thing you will see is the giant ad...

STAND MAGAZINE   A little while ago I was followed on Twitter by a magazine called "STAND". I will admit I had never heard of it but as it was a "Man Mag" I followed back. After a bit of snooping on their Twitter page and their website it became apparent they were a fairly new magazine with only a few issues released. Clicking on the subscription services I was able to see that they are a quarterly magazine with a new issue released every 12/13 weeks. It also became apparent that they were aimed at the " modern man " and at " fathers " which is strengthened by their tagline:   "For Men Who Give A Damn"   I read a few of their articles online and found them interesting so when I saw that they were looking for bloggers to do reviews I expressed my interest. I was asked to contact the Editor, Dwayne Hayes, which I did and we exchanged details. A week or so later I received a print copy of "Issue 06" through the post ...

GULLIVER'S WORLD WARRINGTON For over a year now the twins have been telling me that they want to ride a rollercoaster. I am a big fan of rollercoasters myself so, naturally, I wanted to make this happen. However, at just 6 years old I knew that they would be too young and too small to ride some of the great roller coasters we have in the UK at various theme parks. Because of that I ruled out trips to Alton Towers and Lightwater Valley and Chessington World of Adventures as, to be frank, I am not paying a shed load of money for the twins to NOT be able to go on the majority of rides. We then saw adverts for "Gulliver's World" one day and the twins said they would like to go. I have heard of them before but totally forgot that they existed. I did a little research and a visit to the one in Warrington wasn't too far from where we were staying on our summer holiday and the prices weren't extortionate. We decided that we'd go on Tuesday 15th August and spe...

DISCOVERY MUSEUM     One of the things I love about living in Newcastle is that there is so much to do within a pretty small area. From my house I can travel 4 miles in one direction and be in the middle of a city and 6 miles in the other direction and I am at the beach. We spend a fair amount of time in the city centre as there is so much more to it than shopping, eating and drinking. There is a plethora of cultural places that can be visited and there are a boat load of educational places too. One place that I feel falls in to both the category of "Cultural" and "Educational" is the "Discovery Museum".   The "Discovery Museum" is located in Blandford Square which is not in the heart of the city but it is only a five minute walk away from the main shopping area. The museum is operated by Newcastle City Council and is one of many FREE activities that you can do in the city centre. If you follow my blog you will know that I am a huge ...

CLARTY BAIRNS   Today the Twiglet's and I took part in a muddy obstacle course called "Clarty Bairns" which is an event run by "Challenge Northumberland". If you aren't from the North East of the UK you may not know what "Clarty Bairns" means so, to translate, it means "Messy Kids". We refer to oodles of mud as "clart" and the kids as "the bairns"...so now you know. See, my blog is not only hilarious it is also educational! Anyway, we took part today and we had an absolute blast! Here are the before and after pictures: The obstacle course was 3km long and had around 20 different obstacles throughout which included: Climbing Walls Climbing Nets Cargo Nets Tarzan Swing Tunnels And a whole array of other obstacles. As well as the obstacles about half way through there is a swamp that you have to traverse whilst you are knee deep in mud (waist deep for the kids) which, in my o...

SLABS CRISPS On Monday July 24th I was followed on my Twitter account by a company called " SLABS ". I could see from their thumbnail that they had something to do with crisps so, naturally, I clicked on them to find out more. Instantly I was intrigued as they didn't look like bog standard crisps and they proudly declared that they are " THICK AND BIG " which, in the crisp world, is quite a bold statement to make. If you follow my Dad Squad on Twitter you may have seen that we are collectively a big fan of crisps and quite often discuss them so I tweeted the Dad Squad and told them to check out these guys. A bit of banter ensued where we talked about various things crisp related (although it got surreal and developed in to a TV show like "Pitch Battle" but with crisps...that's Twitter for you). I then got a DM from " SLABS " who said they would send me some  crisps (to be fair, I asked...shy bairns and that) and I promised I woul...