2015 - Glasgow With Kids

A Lunch Date in Montgomery’s – CLOSED

I love Montgomery’s Cafe. In the pre-child lives of my husband and I, it was our little local. Breakfast, lunch, cake, whatever.

The Cafe

I took the little lady today for lunch, and as usual, the food was delicious. Their soup is always amazing. Today we had carrot, ginger & lime, and it certainly hit the right spot with the little lady; she finished an entire bowl (a bowl the size of her head). With bread of course. I’m a fan of a good bit of homemade bread, and Montgomery’s make all theirs in house in the morning. You can tell. Because it’s seriously tasty.

They do really yummy sandwiches, hot meals and it’s a really nice place to breakfast (eggs benedict = winner). Their specials board is worth checking out, and they have a small children’s menu with a couples of toasties, sandwiches & kids soup bowl. I never noticed the kids soup option, hence the gigantic bowl.

Their ice cream is damn delicious too. And it’s most definitely worth going just for a cuppa and one of their cakes. Super yum!

The staff are really nice. One even played peek-a-boo with the little lady for a while.

There isn’t a huge amount of space for prams, especially when it’s busy (which is quite frequently). And they don’t have that many high chairs; I only saw 2, but perhaps there were more somewhere.

The Verdict

The food is delicious. The homemade bread is amazing & their cakes are divine. The grub is reasonably priced too. The cafe isn’t gigantic, so I might leave the pram at home. But as long as you beat the lunch rush you’ll be grand.

Montgomery’s Cafe is at 9 Radnor St, Glasgow, G3 7UA

Is Having a Baby an Achievement?

I saw a segment on daytime TV this morning (yes, I sometimes watch daytime TV – no shame in that) about whether having a child is an achievement. It was in response to an article in the Telegraph which responded to Rebecca Adlington saying that “bringing a new child into the world is without doubt …

First Steps To Music

We were at our lovely little music class this morning – First Steps to Music. We’ve been going for over a year now & my little lady loves it.

The Class

First Steps to Music is a music class created and run by Katie, an early years musician. It has lots of singing, lots of rhyming, shakers, puppets, drums, marching, teddies & violin playing.

The class is great fun for the little ones. It is relaxed & the kids love all the props that are used.

But it’s also very structured. I think that’s probably partly why my little lady has picked so much up from the class. She constantly sings, tunefully, (with just ‘la la la’s’ instead of words, mostly) the songs from the class at home. Her favourites are ‘Knock, knock, knock, Who’s in the box…’ (the ‘who’ is usually a finger puppet in the class, but she sings it to whomever has the audacity to lock the bathroom door at home), and ‘Lets go a-walking…’ (excellent for getting her to walk properly along a pavement!) The kids learn to tap along with a beat too, amongst other things. They learn pretty quickly what they’re supposed to do and at what point. It’s quite amazing to see actually!

The Cost

The class runs in terms & you need to book a term in advance. It works out at £5 per class.

The Verdict

Katie is great with the kids. The class is really fun for them, but at the same time you can almost see them learning!

Classes are quite small and as far as I can tell the people who start the class (including ourselves) tend to keep going for a long time. I think that pretty much says everything!

The Details

It’s on in St Mary’s Cathedral on Monday mornings, and in Wellington Church on Saturday mornings. (Both in the West End around Woodlands). There are baby, toddler & pre-school classes available.

All info can be found on the First Steps To Music website

Play Town Soft Play

We took a wee trip out to Bishopbriggs to meet a lovely mummy & toddler friend last week, and thought we’d all check out Play Town Soft Play whilst we were there.

The Play Area

The baby/toddler area is pretty good. There’s a little ball pool, quite a few toys, a soft see-saw & an area to clamber up & round to get to the slide. It’s easy enough for a toddler to get round, and there are plenty toys to entertain a tiny tot too.

The main play frame is great. There are 3 levels with bits to freely run around and a couple of slides, one of which ends in a big ball pool. There’s also a mini flying fox & quite a few different bits to climb around.

This was the first time my little lady ever wanted to play by herself in a soft play area :’-( so it gave me a slightly different perspective than I’ve had before. (I know, I’m becoming ever more obsolete with each passing day.) Anyway, the play frame is not huge, but a toddler (well, most toddlers – at least ones who haven’t the climbing abilities of Spiderman) can run around the different levels without getting to the big slides. That meant I could sit and have a chat, obviously whilst paying attention. It also meant that I could actually unclench a little and let her run around without worrying too much.

It was quiet when we were there. But it was a midweek morning when schools were in so that’s not surprising!

The Food

The food is pretty standard soft play food – there’s sandwiches, toasties, paninis, potatoes, soup… The usual suspects. The kids menu is not what I’d like to see, but I say the same thing about pretty much every soft play we go to. We had a panini, which actually was quite nice. It’s pretty reasonably priced too.

The Cost

It was £3.50 entry for us. It’s £4.50 for kids ages 4+ and £1 for babies up to age 1.

The Verdict

It was the perfect soft play for the toddler at this age (21 months). It was clean & the staff were friendly. I actually really liked it, and so did my little lady!

Play Town Soft Play is at 30 Wellington Road, Bishopbriggs

The Tall Ship At Riverside

We took a wee trip to The Tall Ship a few days ago. I’d been planning on going for ages, so when we had nothing to do one dry morning I thought we’d check it out.

The Museum

It’s a lot bigger than I thought. Not being much of a seaman (with the exception of a few dinghy sailing lessons years ago) I wasn’t quite aware of how far under the water large boats actually go! There’s at least 3 levels to it (I got slightly lost at one point so there could be 4!) with different exhibits about the workings of a tall ship & how people lived & worked on one in the early 20th century throughout. There is a lift to get to pretty much everywhere (except the upper level of the top deck) so it has good pram access.

There are buttons to press, ropes to pull, videos to watch, bells to toll, stairs to climb, decks to scrub and plenty of space to run around in. My little lady’s favourite things were climbing oh so many stairs, and scrubbing the deck, which she did for about 15 minutes. Thinking about it now, the tall ship is a toddlers dream…

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There is a (very) small soft play area for toddlers on the bottom level (sorry, the cargo hold) with a tunnel, some soft blocks & a mini-drawbridge to play on. It could definitely do with a bit of updating, but my little lady was perfectly happy to crawl/run around in it. It would entertain young toddlers for a while, but it’s not for kids older than about 4. There’s also a basket of dress up clothes here which are quite fun.

The Cafe

We only got tea and a scone which cost us £2.50. Good tea, and the scone was nice. They do have a decent selection of hot & cold food, but I can’t comment on how nice it might be! It all smelled nice though.

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The Cost

It’s free. They ask on the way in if you’d like to buy a guidebook, but you don’t have to.

The Verdict

As with all of Glasgow’s museums, the Tall Ship doesn’t specifically cater to young children too much, but it does so (I think accidentally) better than a lot of the others. The little soft play area they have needs a bit of a facelift, but since it’s part of the whole experience you’re not going to spend too much time in it anyway.

From a toddler’s perspective, it’s absolutely worth a run around. And with it being right next to the Riverside Museum, you could make almost a whole day of it.

The Extra Bits

Opening hours are from 10am – 5pm, Monday to Sunday. And the Riverside Museum is right next to it if you’ve got some extra time to fill.

The top deck (with the deck scrubbers) is outdoors, so make sure you have weather appropriate clothing because your little ones will probably like this deck best.

The Tall Ship at Riverside is located at 150 Pointhouse Place, Glasgow, G3 8RS

Glasgow’s Best Beer Gardens

Some of these are pretty good places for lunching with a bunch of prams too. Especially the ones that are slightly out of town, including West Brewery, Drygate, Clockwork, Waverley Tearooms (which also has a little soft play inside), Cottiers and Lock 27. And if you’re in town, Bier Halle and any of the other around Buchanan Street are pretty good too.

We’re allowed to do something that’s not JUST for the kids sometimes…!

A person’s a person

A person’s a person, no matter how small.

Dr Seuss

Everyone loves a rummage…

We popped for a quick look into Merry-Go-Round Glasgow this afternoon. We were on our way past and it really would’ve been rude not to…! We came home with this beast of a buggy, a couple of really pretty little summer dresses, a Polern O Pyret top (my favourite kids brand) and some shoes. All …

5 Things Your Toddler Needs To Know

“I don’t need you to be perfect. I just need you to be loving and connected.”

“One minute I want to be independent, the next I want you to carry me forever. My connection with you is still the most important thing in my life, so while I need you to let me safely explore, I also need you to be my safe harbour.”

Lovely little article. I read this exactly when I needed to the other day. I’m pretty sure the author wrote it specifically for me.

Jungle In The City – CLOSED

We had a spare hour the other day and decided to pop into Jungle In The City soft play in Glasgow West End. It’s in Partick, and it’s so close to us that I can’t believe I’ve never been before! The Play Area The play area is in a few parts: there’s a play frame, a big …

Chatelherault Country Park

Chatelherault Park is one of my favourite places on earth. Walking through it’s big, beautiful, ancient forest makes me feel like I’ve gone back in time. We go here with our dogs quite a lot, especially during the week when it’s quiet. Some days you can walk for an hour hardly seeing another person! (Bit …

The Messy Place in Bishopbriggs

Sadly The Messy Place is now closed.

We’d been meaning to check out The Messy Place in Bishopbriggs for ages. I’d heard great things about it & so we met our toddler & mummy friend there for some messy play time.

The Messy Place is exactly what it sounds like it’s going to be. Messy play for kids up to age 6. Very messy, in fact. But in a really good way. With the exception of painting & play doh, it’s pretty much all the stuff that I want my little lady to be able to do, but that makes such a mess we tend not to do in the house.

Each week is themed. It was construction week when we went along, so there were lots of diggers and trucks and spades and other construction themed toys in each of the play trays. As for the play trays… There was play doh, painting, a water table, sand pit, ice tray, craft table, and a tray with wood shavings to dig around in. So much for the kids to do. It really is fantastic.

There is a class structure. So there’s free play for most of the time, followed by a group activity (this week we made construction themed paintings using sponge stampers). Then you’ve got a bit of ‘clean-up-the-toddlers’ time and a few songs at the end.

The kids all get painting overalls at the beginning and there are loads of clean towels should you need them. It’s definitely worthwhile taking a change of clothes though – at least for the top half. Because messy is the key word!

Sessions last 1 hour and take place Monday – Thursday at 10.30am and 1pm, and on Fridays at 10.30am.

It costs £5 for the session (£2.50 for additional siblings) and mummies/daddies get a cuppa. Well worth it. The kids have an absolute ball.

Due to high demand, you have to book your place in advance now. (Nobody wants to go along to be told there’s no space for your kid!) you can do that by sending a message via The Messy Place facebook page.

The Messy Place is located in Bishopbriggs at 21 Park Avenue.

Some Triking at Free Wheel North

We checked out Free Wheel North recently. Most people I speak to haven’t heard of it, but it’s a fantastic charity run cycling centre down at Glasgow Green next to the big sandy playpark & climbing frames across from the templeton building. If you’ve been down there you’ve probably seen it; you just didn’t know …

Now, I’m ALWAYS in the picture!

This is a lovely article. As my friends will know (all too well) I don’t really have a problem ‘staying in the picture’. Even though I don’t really love the pictures of myself.

But there aren’t many photos of me when I was pregnant because I thought I looked too fat, or from those first few weeks when my little scrunchey came into the world, again because I thought I looked too fat. And I wish there were. I learned my lesson from that regret – now I’m always in the fricking picture, no matter what I think I look like!

I want to have photos of me and my kids, and me and my husband, so now I’m always asking my husband to take some. And of course the odd selfie with a toddler always goes down well!

There are so many benefits!

“Children who play outside develop better language skills, are fitter, and have fewer behavioural problems”. Best make the most of the Scottish summer while it lasts…

The Hunterian Museum

We’ve been doing a lot of museum-ing recently, since Spring decided it wasn’t quite ready to come out yet.

So last week we took a wee wander around the Hunterian Museum, in Glasgow University. I hadn’t been since I was a student and unsurprisingly, it was a bit of a different experience with a toddler!

There’s nothing at all interactive & not much that would peak the interest of a typical toddler. Most of the exhibits are up much higher than the eye level of small children too.

But it’s free, it’s nice & warm and since toddlers are happy as long as they’re free to roam, it’s good for an hour on a rainy day. It’s a pretty good place for a game of peek-a-boo.

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You might even get to look at something if you have a toddler that doesn’t run away at every possible opportunity.

Note: The radiators run around the bottom of the railing on the top level. And they’re really hot. Make sure your toddler doesn’t think it’s a seat.

The Hunterian Museum: The University of Glasgow, University Avenue, Glasgow, G12 8

A Run Around GoMA

If you’re in town and need something to do, GoMA (the Gallery of Modern Art is perfect for a wee indoor run around with the toddler. We were meeting a friend in town for some grub & decided to let my little lady roam free for a little while before we headed to the restaurant where …

Sporty Kidz Thornliebank

We met a friend at Sporty Kidz soft play over in the South Side the other day. Having been to the one in Maryhill (and thinking it was great) I thought that the Spiersbridge Rd Sporty Kids would be much the same. Well, it was and it wasn’t… The Play Area The first thing I …

Review: Mummy Massage Meetup

A lovely mummy friend organised a Mummy Massage Meetup last week. It was my first Mummy Massage Meetup experience, and man, was it nice! Firstly, you might ask what on earth a Mummy Massage Meetup actually is? Well, it’s basically a playdate: a regular playdate for the babies/toddlers/kids, but with a half hour back, neck, …

Pigeon Chasing

George Square is always good for a run around if you’re in town & at a loose end!

Note: The pigeons are pretty gallus & will definitely follow a toddler around if said toddler has a biscuit in his/her hand!