Having read @petface's post about The Hungry Caterpillar at Kew Gardens a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned it to the-mrs-gorilla as something which the-toddler-gorilla would love and that it's a shame that it's in Richmond.
Little did I know (but the-mrs-gorilla did) that an identical trail's at Wakehurst which is also run by Kew Gardens 🥳
So yesterday, we had a family outing...
The Journey
As usual, it wouldn't be one of my stories without writing about the journey to get there. Fortunately, Wakehurst is about an hour's drive from our house and the boys slept peacefully in the back of the car for most of it. Unfortunately, with 20 minutes to go, the-baby-gorilla woke up and started screaming. Which after a couple of minutes, woke the-toddler-gorilla up so he started screaming at the-baby-gorilla to shut up. Which made the-baby-gorilla scream even more. You already know the rest, it's a familiar story now. So the-mrs-gorilla and I laughed a little bit and then ignored them until they eventually shut up.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
If you didn't already know, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is real page turner, telling the story of a caterpillar that eats a little bit more each day until it feels sick (an apple on Monday, a couple of pears on Tuesday, a few plums on Wednesday, a handful of strawberries on Thursday, a bag of oranges on Friday and then stuffing its face on Saturday). It then eats a leaf and feels better. Then it makes itself a cocoon and transforms into a beautiful butterfly. I'm sure that you'll all agree, the plot is captivating.
Whilst on the surface, this is little more than an entertaining little story, I believe that there's an important message for its young audience...
If you eat a piece of chocolate cake, ice-cream cone, pickle, swiss cheese, salami, lollipop, cherry pie, sausage, cupcake and watermelon as your meal, then you're going to feel sick.
It's also been turned into a short, animated film and if you can spare just under 7 minutes, I have no doubt that this rank in your top 10 all time favourite short films...
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Trail
Whilst @petface was able to make the Trail sound interesting and educational, I'm going to simply share a little photo montage of Monday to Friday. Saturday wasn't as impressive - they just hung a few cardboard pictures on some trees and I don't think they even bothered with Sunday 🤷♂️
The trail's probably more enjoyable when your toddler doesn't start crawling on the floor, pretending to be a caterpillar (there's well over 100m between each little set of sculptures).
Wakehurst is a beautiful place which shouldn't come as a surprise as it's a combination of National Trust and Kew Gardens. We've visited it before but my memory's become so bad lately, that the only thing I could remember was where I'd parked.
Whilst we had a nice day out, the trail itself was a little disappointing and not really worthy of a visit in its own right. I'm definitely relieved that we didn't need to go to the effort of getting in and out of London with a baby and toddler!
All photographs are my own unless referenced