An Outing To Cambridge

We had an impromptu visit to Cambridge on Saturday morning. The day looked fairly reasonable, so we packed the car with a picnic, jackets and my crochet bag, of course!

Cambridge is a lovely town about 1.5hrs south of Auckland. I used to spend the occasional weekend in this town when my parents lived there a number of years ago. A. and I also spent a number of holidays there too, before children. It's such a pretty place, a typical rural town, and very friendly.

The weather turned grotty as soon as we drove into the main street. Oh great, just what we need to spoil a day out! It's really difficult to amuse four children in the rain. Never mind, we had a bit of shopping to do first. Of course after we found a toilet for No. 3! Don't you hate those toilet stops?

This place is called the 'pink church' to the locals. It houses beautiful crafts like knitted garments, pottery, souvenirs and a cafe.

The Farmers Market was just closing when we arrived. Bit expensive anyway. The cauliflowers were $4 each and they were tiny compared to mine! No great loss there, I don't think.

We brought most of a picnic and also bought a couple of extra items at the local supermarket. I'm so grateful we live in a large area with a huge supermarket. It's so limiting at these smaller ones.

Well, as it was still raining, we parked next to the town hall and gardens for our lunch(photo above and at top). A small 2 year old voice piped up, "Picnic Mummy!" Oh dear, no honey, it's raining, I said. Well, that just wasn't good enough apparently. She really wanted to set out the polka dot blanket on the grass and do the real thing, rain or not. We have got used to picnicking in the car as it often rains on these outings! She did get over her disappointment eventually, but she wasn't in the best mood anyway.

The shopping didn't go too well either. I badly wanted to visit Kate Fitzpatrick HOME. It is a beautiful, overly full shop, selling gorgeous things for the home, including CK. I knew what I wanted as I had been online looking for tea towels weeks ago. Mmmm, the pink gingham ones were what I was after. Very nice they are too. I only bought three, no I wasn't thinking straight!! No. 3 cut her hand going into the shop and was crying, No. 4 was wailing because she was forced into her pushchair under great protest and there wasn't much room to move. A quick look around and out again.

That was really it as far as shopping went. Oh, we did go to a pet shop. I saw a patchwork fabric shop which would have been nice to visit. But, I've never seen such a tiny shop ever! We would never have fitted in.

After shopping and lunch, we journeyed across to Hamilton, about 25mins away. We visited some friends for the afternoon, where A. and the girls tried out Wii tennis and boxing. Not my thing, but the TV certainly was. It was massive!! 70" I think. We still have one of those tiny screens, where you miss the sides of the movies because it's square.

It was a loooong day and probably best without children next time. Sounds like a good idea actually! We hardly ever go away without them as we quite enjoy having them around. But this would be lovely, at some point in time.