Last weekend was awesome. A weekend of adventure. We went to visit my cousin Sam who lives in Manchester. On the way we stopped at Jodrell bank, a British observatory which is part of the Jodrell bank centre for astrophysics at Manchester university. The visitor centre offers a chance to look at their largest radio telescope and also has displays about space, and astrophysics and how the telescopes work.

I have always lacked confidence when it comes to science, and particularly physics. However I’m reevaluating that lately, actually astrophysics, the start of the universe, the study of space, stars, planets and galaxies is fascinating. I really enjoyed visiting and it was fantastic for the children to begin to explore these massive concepts for themselves.

Whilst in Manchester we took the opportunity to use our Merlin passes and visited Legoland Discovery Centre. I was really excited about visiting as we are a family of lego fans. I enjoyed the rides and spending some time building lego and the children really enjoyed the master builder’s workshop but the experience wasn’t without difficulty.

I found it very crowded (the whole attraction is in a relatively small space for its size) and suffered sensory overload very quickly. Getting out of the attraction for a break isn’t easy and the hand dryers in the toilets must have been sourced in the seventh circle of hell they were so unpleasant (and I’ve never had a problem with hand dryers before).

Next door to Legoland Discovery Centre is Sea Life Manchester, so before heading back to Bristol on Monday we headed in to see some aquatic life. We really enjoyed our visit, in contrast to the previous day this place was really relaxing. We saw sting rays, turtles, and sea horses, as well as lots of other weird and wonderful aquatic life.

It was a truly fantastic weekend, big thanks to Sam for some seriously fantastic hosting.