Kentish Town City Farm

For city children Joshua and Christina are surprisingly at home with outdoor life, farm animals and copious amounts of mud. Actually maybe it isn't all that astonishing - there's something strangely magnetic about getting messy that appeals to children and our kids are no exception. Anyway we'd dropped in by Kentish Town City Farm late on Saturday while returning from our photo-shoot and while we were too late yesterday Joshua was mad keen that we return promptly. So I was very pleased to find that, by chance, the farm was putting on a "Make your own thing" session just this afternoon - which meant that they'd have the chance to get both muddy and sticky!

Eat up turkey - not long till Christmas!

The nice thing about this City Farm, and all of the others that we've been to, is that they are just so child-centric. The kids can wander around, looking at and amusing themselves with the various animals scratching about freely; there's always something on the move that's tame enough to allow little ones to get up close and personal. So that's a real freedom that you just don't normally get, even in the country, unless you actually live on a farm and then you'll spend most of your time mucking out!
After rambling about for a while, spending time watching the frogs densely packed into a pond make new frogspawn and admiring the teenage girls ride the farm's ponies around a ring while their friends applauded, it was nice to get indoors and start some junk modelling. Curiously there were only a couple of other kids there so Joshua and Christina were able to get immediately stuck in to the plant pots, tacky glue, strips of old towel and other creative essentials. All I had to do was make sure that they didn't stab themselves with the scissors or superglue their hand to the chair - they were that interested in taking part.

Actually talking of taking part Joshua couldn't help noticing that there were children helping out on the farm, clearing up and looking after the animals, and that this was something that he'd very much like to do. As it happens the farm does take children as volunteers from 8 years old and up - so in a couple of weeks we'll be able to find out exactly what volunteering involves. Who knows; this could be Joshua's first step towards being a vet!