Barmouth with kids - through our eyes!

Barmouth is a great place to bring your children up or to visit for the day, or even longer on your family holiday. Barmouth is visited by hundreds of families each year - too many to count! The beach here is fantastic and a classic place to while away the days on holiday but what else is there to do?

Here's a quick guide to some of our favourite places within walking distance from the train station....

Places to eat

The Bath House on the promenade has a convenient sheltered outdoor patio area which provides great shelter on those windier days! There's room for pushchairs and dogs are welcome too!

Davy Jones' Locker on the harbour is open all year round and busy with visitors and locals alike. There's just enough room inside for a pushchair, but the outdoor seating is also sheltered - whether you need respite from the sunshine or the sea breeze. P.S. dogs are welcome here too!

The Captain's Table is a family-friendly place to eat both during the day and in the evening. It's not a huge place so it's best to book a table. The menu is simple but with enough choice and if your child cannot spot something which takes their fancy, always ask and you'll find that the chef is pretty flexible with his dishes and will aim to please! Space is a bit tighter here than in a pub but the owners will accommodate you as much as they can!

Super shops

The Weigh-Out is a must for any visitor and local! You can find pretty much any ingredient for day to day cooking and baking and the 'pic and mix' sweets are a huge temptation! If you're like me and love muesli but hate dried fruit, you can mix your own and enjoy to your heart's content! The massive gobstoppers are a hit with the children although I don't think I'd manage one!

Luv It is probably my favourite shop in our town. It stocks lots of different gifts, everything from stylish holiday trinkets to bigger presents perfect for special occasions. I especially love the scarves that they stock - I am seldom without a scarf and I'm collecting quite a range!

Fudgeridoo has a great selection of fudge, all homemade with the spectacular additions of anything from Smarties to Oreo cookies! The shop is also spectacularly pink in colour and has some lovely items, mainly for the girls in your life but anyone can enjoy the fudge! Their sister shop Knickerbockers, just around the corner, also sells fantastic ice cream - try the lemon curd ice cream, delicious!

Secret places

Barmouth's play park is hidden away down a side road (Park Road) and not really visible from the main road. Although pretty small, there's a variety of equipment suitable for ages up to about 12. The old tennis courts are currently undergoing a revamp to provide more equipment for older children as well as all-weather pitches for football and basketball. Watch this space for more updates!

Just a little further along from the park, you'll find a great outdoor space called Wern Mynach. This is an area of Barmouth that allows nature to grow wildly! There are well maintained footpaths suitable for pushchairs and wheelchairs, with benches placed around the area - perfect for a picnic in the sun! There are many, many different flowers and plants here, see if you can spot as many as we did!

A new heritage trail has just launched in Barmouth. This uncovers many of the secrets of Barmouth in an easy-to-follow format. Even if you have visited the area many times, I'd still encourage you to have a look and I'll bet you still learn something new!

Coming soon!

Our family (and many others!) literally cannot wait until Barmouth's newest, family-friendly venue opens for children to play indoors in a safe environment. Bendigedig is due to open at the end of March so we'll update you once we have had a play and found out for ourselves how good it is!

And on top of what I've shown you here, we also have the Bronze Bell Shipwreck museum (up a small flight of steps above Davy Jones' Locker but worth a look if you're interested in maritime history), the library (visitors most welcome!), Barmouth & Dyffryn United football club (check the fixtures and catch a game while you're here) and our world famous bridge, perfect for a family walk over the estuary!

Image via http://bit.ly/O3j8LQ

So, if you're planning a visit to the Welsh coast anytime soon, pay us a visit and say hello! The kettle's always on!

Childs Farm - Natural Toiletries for Kids!

Thansk to the lovely peeps at Luvit!, we had the opportunity this week to try out some great bath and hair products for children.  Childs Farm is a lovely and unique company who produce and sell products which are organic, paraben-free, sulphate-free and mineral-free!

My daughter (8... nearly 9!) has very sensitive and dry skin (especially her scalp) and we usually stick to a shampoo of the "no more tears" variety; without mentioning any names, Mr. Johnson does very well when you look in my bathroom cupboard!  BUT, my daughter insists that it's "baby shampoo" - which she is actually correct about!  And, although she has quite fine hair, her hair is getting thicker as she's getting older, so this shampoo is becoming more and more unsuitable for her lucious locks!  So, we tried Childs Farm as an alternative and..... great success!

Firstly, the scents are fantastic!  The strawberry and mint shampoo & conditioner actually smells of strawberries and mint!  Real ones....not the fake sickly smell that you can get with some bath products.  And with the tangerine bubble bath, you can actually sense the citrus zing that it contains!

Secondly, the products in the "Cleaning Kit" come in 100ml bottles, so your first instinct there is that they will only last a couple of baths.  Well, that's where you're wrong!  We put a decent "squirt" of the tangerine bubble bath in our (rather large) bath and there were bubbles galore!  The "squirt" was about a sixth of the bottle, maybe less, so gone are the days when you use half a bottle of bubbly to achieve a feeble attempt at a bubble bath!  The shampoo and conditioner are the same - just a 10p sized squirt of each was enough to wash and conditioner my daughters (long) hair!

Thirdly, Childs Farms should make a big deal about the fact that the conditioner left my daughters hair (almost) tangle-free!  No matter how many times I tell her not to "scrub" her hair in the bath...it still happens!  But after using the Childs Farm conditioner, her hair just simply combed straight down without a knot in sight!  Smiles all round from us!

And lastly, (the sciency bit), as I previously mentioned, my daughter has really dry skin.  When we have tried different products in the past, the effect is almost instant, as she can fell the tightness and itchy skin straight after using something different.  And we can honestly say, these products did not have any adverse effects on her skin!  So the organic nature of the products and lack of unecessary chemical interference shows that there are great-smelling, kind to nature and kind to us products out there!  Childs Farm were unknown to me before working on this campaign but I hope they become known to every household out there!  And, you don't have to have sensitive skin to use these products - they're just extra-friendly if you do!

You can buy Childs Farm products online here or instore at various retailers including Barmouth's very own Luvit!  The company and their products have had some great press coverage; from The Guardian & The Telegraph to Tatler magazine, there's lots of positivity out there!

Definitely a thumbs-up from us!

Also, if you have an explore around their website, there's some free colouring sheets for your children to colour (not in the bath though!) and lots more information about their products and the charity work they are involved with - so good news all round!

So, why not pop over to their Facebook page, say "hello" and look out for these great products next time you are stocking up the bathroom cupboard!

"jellycat" Easter Bunny giveaway with Luvit!

The lovely Owena at Luvit in Barmouth has a great giveaway going on at the moment!  When the Luvit Facebook page (here) reaches 800 likes, one lucky fan will win this beautifully cuddly jellycat Easter Bunny!

Just simply like the Luvit Facebook page, share the photo (here) and comment underneath the photo the name that you would give to the bunny!  Easy :)

At the moment, they are on 715 likes so let's give them a boost and get to 800!

You can also have a browse around their website here - so if you're not local to Barmouth you can still enjoy the wonderful gifts and goodies that are available in the shop :)  But you can still come for a visit if you like....!

So, off you go - keep the message going and one of you could win the cuddliest bunny in town!

PS.. a quick way of sharing the competition is by pressing the Facebook share button at the bottom of this post...but don't forget to share the Luvit photo too :)

It's Competition Time!

Well, here we are, all ready to host my first competition!  We have up for grabs a £10 voucher to use at Luvit! - a cute and quirky shop in my home town of Barmouth, Gwynedd.  You can also buy through their website here, so feel free to enter even if you don't live in my corner of the UK!  (Quick small print - UK entries only for the comp please!)

I love this little "Aladdin's Cave" of a gift shop - you can always find the perfect gift at the right price.  From bags to toys, craft items to kitchen accessories, there really is something for everyone!  Local suppliers are very well supported - I especially love the hand made jewellery items and bags from Eleanor's Attic.

They also stock beautiful retro and vintage kitchen equipment like these cookie cutters... great for shortbread biscuits or sugarpaste cake toppers.... yum yum! 

The competition will close on Tuesday 29th May... keep "liking and sharing" and earn a massive 5 entries each!  Good luck everyone!

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