Forbidden Corner, The Strangest Place on Earth

It took us all Saturday morning to prepare for their arrival. Macaroni cheese made up and into the oven. Salad nicely prepped with a light dressing. Feeling my fingers around the Isofix bars and clicking into position the jaws at the back of Grace’s car seat. Beds made up…

The mac cheese disappeared without trace into six hungry tummies. However, everyone still found room for Grandma Jane’s ‘gatoo’, a chocolate cake in honour of Martin’s imminent birthday. The name had eminated from Sam’s finding it in a recipe book and making his best attempt to pronounce a hitherto unencountered word.

The house seemed filled with bags as Martin and Rachel waved us goodbye, bound for Borrowdale in the Lake District. Anxious to maintain our momentum, we bundled Sam and Grace into the car and parked at the library. Sam (aged 8) immediately burrowed himself into a comic strip book. Jane read 4-year-old Grace a story or two, after which Grace set about making her own book. The librarian stamped all 16 of the books we chose for the weekend, and also Grace’s opus magnum. Then, in the late afternoon sunshine, we walked to Wellholme Park’s attractive playground which contained swings, slides, climbing nets and monkey bars, enough to keep them busy for an hour.

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On Sunday morning we’d normally have been at church, but Jane’s brass band was performing at the Mirfield Show. As we arrived, a dressage competition was in progress, which reminded me of the challenges that, until very recently, I’ve embraced.

“Grandpa, please can I ride on a donkey?” asked Grace. As she sat happily on the longsuffering beast’s back, I wondered, ‘could this be the start of her riding career?’

The inflatable slide and bouncy castle had, meanwhile, attracted Sam’s attention. The slide was about 10 metres tall, and the kids had to climb a rather wobbly staircase to reach the platform at the top. Sam raced up and slid down twice. Grace’s little legs struggled up the steps. Finally she reached the platform and gazed down at the terrifying drop below. But Big Brother had been watching her! Tenderly, Sam drew her in front of himself, placed his arms around hers, sat down with her between his legs, and launched off down the slope…

Both children enjoyed the animal tent. Sam, who is easily freaked out, was very much at ease handling a small python!

We occupied Monday morning packing, doing a chocolate hunt in the garden, then making an apple and raspberry crumble. Then: time to set off for The Forbidden Corner, an eccentric theme park in Wensleydale. We were given a picture chart with around 40 features to seek out. After leaving the entrance, we had to go through the first ‘feature’, a monster’s head with a burping epiglottis in our way! Grace began to cry, until Grandma persuaded her it was really rather amusing. We then made our way through a neatly tended woodland which we later realised was a maze! Passing over a quaint footbridge, we saw a line of people underneath us walking on stepping stones placed in a shallow stream. We realised that was an important place to find.

I kid you not, it took us 45 minutes to access it, during which time we squeezed through narrow secret passages, mounted staircases in turrets and explored dead ends galore before going back through the garden to re-enter the maze. We met many a weird statue on the way; Grace loved the lady with a butterfly on her bum, and the legs stuck out of a wall. At last, following a hint from a kindly staff member, we found the

entrance leading downstairs from a dark corner. Poor Jane, who was wearing a small rucksack and carrying a bag, lost her footing and fell headlong into the stream; she had a few bruises the next day. Undeterred, we carried on into a labyrinth of enchanted passageways, the lower ones ressembling a dungeon! We emerged into a courtyard where stood a café selling ice cream and needed no second bidding…

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On the way out, we couldn’t draw Grace away from the epiglottis! We’ll definitely go again to the Forbidden Corner. But now it was time to travel on to Hawes for our rendezvous with Martin, who took the children on to Borrowdale. That night we slept very, very soundly.

There’s a postscript. On Sunday, Sam proudly presented his daddy with his masterpiece, a belated birthday gatoo in the form of a hedgehog.