Strawberry picking in the sun, rain and hail... and ice cream

If you saw my earlier post, you'll know that I had a few different ideas of places to visit last weekend, and I said that the final decision would be based on the weather.

One of my dry-weather plans was to go strawberry picking at Flower Farm, near Godstone.

On the way back from the park on Friday afternoon, my five year-old was begging me to buy her an ice cream from the ice cream van.  It was nearly dinner time so there was no way that was going to happen.  But she was getting a bit upset about it (it had been a long week) so, in an attempt to cheer her up and get things moving again I said "What about if we go strawberry picking tomorrow and then Daddy can make strawberry ice cream in his ice cream maker when we get home?".  Fortunately, those words did the trick and we were happily off on our way again, heading home for tea.

However, it now meant that no matter what the weather, we really had to go strawberry picking on Saturday.

Luckily, it was a sunny morning and I felt pretty optimistic as we headed off on the short drive from Croydon down to Godstone (taking in some lovely views of the Surrey hills and countryside on the way).

When we arrived at Flower Farm, we were all a bit peckish so we decided to have lunch first.  Flower Farm has a really lovely little cafe with a fantastically large selection of teas.  We opted for a pot of one of the three kinds of Dajeeling and it was a really good cup of tea.  We also had sandwiches:  the girls both chose ham, and Daddy Croydon and I shared one beef sandwich and one cheese and pickle sandwich between us.  They were really nice sandwiches, freshly prepared, and were served with a little salad and a few crisps.  Lovely.  The only trouble was the wait, which did seem quite long, although a bookcase of children's books and toys did keep our two happily occupied. 

Unfortunately, however, by the time we'd finished lunch, dark clouds were rolling in.  We'd only managed to pick a couple of strawberries before we felt the first drops of rain.  We hastily picked a few more and in the end had nearly a whole punnet (well, maybe half a punnet).

By now the rain was getting heavier and we did a quick run back to the shop to pay, and dove into the car.

Driving back to Croydon the rain was torrential and we even had hail.  However, by the time we'd got back to our house, the sun was shining again!

(If by chance you're reading this but haven't been to England before, this is actually fairly typical English weather.)

Daddy Croydon got out his ice cream maker and proceeded to turn the strawberries into strawberry ice cream, much to our girls' (and our) delight.

It was scrummy and, despite this picture looking a bit funny in colour, a really bright pink.

Oh, and the two year-old's new favourite game is serving us all imaginary ice creams!