Spring Festivals…

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The weather might not be in total agreement, but Spring is definitely on the way. With the Science festival just finished, there’s plenty more to keep us busy in the next few months…

Royal Botanic Garden EdinburghStarting with the Spring Festival at the Botanics…once again come and join in with the Edible Gardening Project as they get started in the vegetable patch for another year. Be inspired by nature and learn all about gardening in an environmentally friendly way. With information for budding gardeners, fun family friendly activities and fresh garden tasters. From 1pm – 4pm on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th April…..

 

Monday 30th April sees Edinburgh host the annual Beltane Fire Festival which you may know holds a huge place in my heart, having been a performer for many years – its a huge spectacle with drumming, fire and magic…it all starts around 9.20pm as the sun goes down and the May Queen comes over the Acropolis. It does get busy up the hill, but older children will find it truly unique.

For a totally family friendly event, try the Family Beltane event on Sunday 6th May 12 – 3pm at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. This tradition allows parents to share in the magic of the Beltane story with their little ones through storytelling, face painting and arts & crafts. Held on a different day from Beltane Fire Festival 2018 itself, it allows older children and parents to enjoy the Fire Festival on Monday 30th April, while also getting to enjoy the story with their little ones in a family friendly environment without making it into one long day.  This event is geared towards children of five years old and above and all children must be accompanied by an adult.

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Edinburgh International Science Festival

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So, the 2018 Edinburgh International Science Festival is coming up, a sure fire way to brighten up your Easter holidays with tons of great activities, family events, shows and inter-activeness !!!

The programme is full to bursting with fantastic things to check out and it’s hard to know where to begin ! As I mentioned in an earlier post, the brilliant Me and My Bee is a show definitely worth a look, teaching us all about the humble bumble bee through lots of humour and plenty of participation !

Other recommendations would be :

City Art Centre Day Pass – Every year the City Art Centre is transformed into four floors of interactive science fun ! You can book a day pass and with it get access to three age appropriate workshops for the kids. There are plenty of drop in activities too, and is always more than enough to keep you occupied for a full day. Highly recommended for ages 3+…..daily from 31st March – 14th April

Minibeasts with Jess French – Fancy meeting a foot-long centipede or a spider the size of your dinner plate? Join CBeebies presenter Dr Jess French to do just that! With her unparalleled zeal for insects, Jess dives headfirst into the breathtaking world of invertebrates, exploring everything from bird-eating tarantulas and glow-in-the-dark scorpions to metre-long stick insects and bat-eating centipedes.  April 3rd – 3pm

Valentina’s Galaxy –  an intergalactic inspiration for starry-eyed 2-5 year olds and their adults.  Join award-winning theatre company Frozen Charlotte, makers of Paperbelle & Too Many Penguins?, for a fascinating, funny and moving experience inspired by the wondrous adventures of real women in space. Created especially for young audiences, this immersive performance will captivate children and adults alike with a combustible concoction of experiments, rocket launches and stargazing.  April 4th – 8th Summerhall

Eaten– We loved this during the Fringe last year – a very unique, fun and educational show all about the food we eat and our digestive systems !  What if your food started talking back? Meet Lionel the lion. He’s just eaten a human called Mamoru for lunch, but hasn’t chewed his food. So Mamoru’s alive and well in his stomach, and now wants to say hello. A strange friendship between the eater and the eaten starts to grow, meanwhile, Lionel’s breakfast wants to say hello… from his bottom!   5th April

 

 

 

 

Spring is (almost) here…

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So, today the sun was most definitely shining and the daffodils will soon be out in force and spring will be well on it’s way !!

With it, comes the excitement of a fast approaching festival season ! The Edinburgh International Festival launched it’s 2018 programme this week, various Fringe festival shows are trickling in, the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival has a brilliant line up with bookings opening on the 22nd March….and one of my absolute favourites of the year – the Edinburgh International Science Festival is just around the corner !!!!!! Yay, yay, yay….

Image result for me and my bee

I’ll post more about the Science festival shortly, but for now I was very excited to see a wee fringe highlight of mine returning during the Science festival in the rather fabulous location of the Botanics – Me and My Bee . If you didn’t manage to see this at the fringe last summer, then please do try and make it along to the Botanics to check it out (read my full review here ). The plight of the humble bumblebee is explored in this fun performance involving plenty of dancing, a sing song, party bags, and lots of humour, this show is the bee’s knees !!!  On from Sunday 8th – Wednesday 11th April….

Happy New Year !

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So, with Christmas almost upon us, it’s time to have a wee think about celebrating New Year ! This year, for the first time Edinburgh’s Hogmanay are putting on a dedicated children friendly event ahead of the main street party chaos ! It’s called Bairns Afore and if you’ll be spending New Year in Edinburgh looks like it could be alot of fun !

31 December 2017, 5.00pm

A new event for Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, this is one for the families! Celebrate with the kids, with spectacular fireworks and family entertainment, and all afore bedtime hosted by Forth One’s Mickey Gavin.
Dizney Rascal headline the main stage in West Princes Street Gardens, mashing up Disney classics with your favourite pop anthems for an hour of sing-a-long fun for all the family.  Then it’s time to look up and celebrate the end of the year and the start of the new, with a special early fireworks show lighting up the sky over Edinburgh Castle.

Bairns Afore gives families the chance to enjoy your own Hogmanay experience, and still have the kids tucked up in bed well before the midnight bells.

 

A bit of Christmas cheer…

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Following on from my last blog post about all the wonderful shows you can catch this Christmas in Edinburgh, I have now been lucky enough to see three of them and can confirm that they are indeed well worth a visit :

First up, I saw Shark In The Park and it was everything I remembered and loved from seeing it when it was up during the fringe last year (read the full review here )..it had a new cast, but the same old toe tapping, catchy songs and music and plenty of audience participation to  keep little ones engaged.  If you’ve got smaller children, this show is perfectly pitched for them, with some great puppets, lots of familiar phrases from the well loved books and of course shark spotting galore !

Next up was The Arabian Nights, which was certainly a highlight for my daughter….she absolutely loved the idea of ‘a story within a story, within a story, within a story…’ and was gripped by the tales we were treated to. The costumes are beautiful and so is the set design, in this brilliant production which will whisk you away to far off lands and completely entrance you with epic storytelling. At this time of year it’s nice to see something a bit different and get utterly absorbed in all the magic and colour. Humorous, touching and totally gripping – get your seat and get settled in for the journey ahead!

Lastly I saw Shona Reppe’s Cinderella at the Traverse Theatre which is only on until the 24th December. This captivating and gentle re-imagining of the story is simply exquisite ! Every last detail has been carefully thought out – the puppets are filled with emotion, the set is full of clever drawers and openings which continually keep you guessing and the soundscape perfectly accompanies the story, making this one hour show bursting to the seams ! Rick Conte is super talented and brings this production alive with his plethora of voices and facial expressions. I am sure anyone who sees it, like me, will just want it to last even longer  – it’s certainly worth checking out.