Note: I originally posted this last week and am extending the competition one extra day because I’ve been so busy!

Ooh have I got something special for you today!

Willows Farm Village is having their annual Summer Spectacular event and have provided me with a family day pass to give away to one of my readers! Two adults and two children can enter on the pass.

To enter, please share your favourite thing about visiting a farm park with your children in the comments below or Tweet your entry to me @vouchermumuk. Entries must be in by 30 July 2 August and we’ll randomly select a winner to be announced on 2 4 August.

Willows Farm Village is near St Albans in Hertfordshire and it’s absolutely brilliant. The Summer Spectacular is held until 5 September and has plenty of events and activities to keep children entertained rain or shine.

Outdoors, there are all the farmyard animals to see and loads of activities, from Panning for Gold to Inflatable Bouncy Haystacks, Fun Fair Rides and the popular Tractor Trek. Indoors, there is plenty of fun to be had with Willows’ indoor play barn, Woolly Jumpers, featuring active play, ball pools and three exciting slides. A new activity for 2010 is Captain Chicken’s Egg Dodge where the Whites and Yolks team dodge each other’s foam ball eggs fired from the egg cannons.

Some of the Summer Spectacular’s highlights include:

• Willows farmer Andrew Wolfe has planted an A-maize-ing Maze grown completely from maize, an adventure the whole family will enjoy finding their way out of with a competition for the children to take part in.

• Willows Sports Day Races, an event exclusive to Summer Spectacular, where participants can enjoy old-school races including the egg and spoon and bean bag race. All children who take part will receive a certificate.

• Around the farm Tristan the Runaway Tractor will be telling his summer story and the popular Sing-a-long-a Woolly sessions return with Willows Entertainer Chris Beebee and Farm Village mascot Woolly Willow the Sheep, leading children in well-known nursery rhymes.

The Farmhouse Restaurant or Woolly Jumpers Coffee Shop offer a wide range of food for visitors. You can also bring your own picnic or pick up picnic supplies at the Willows Farm Shop which works with local producers to provide a wide range of goods with its own butchery counter, delicatessen, fresh fruit and vegetables, breads, cakes and drinks.

Tickets for the Summer Spectacular are £11.95 for adults and £12.95 for children. Concessions are available for senior citizens and disabled customers, and children under two years of age can enter free of charge.

I can’t wait to see your entries in the comments and on Twitter!

I’m in  New York for BlogHer this week (yay!) but if I weren’t, I know exactly what we’d be doing today: the pop-up maze in Trafalgar Square!

How cool is this? A giant pop-up maze has appeared in Trafalgar Square as part of a campaign by the West End Partnership to encourage visitors to enjoy getting a little lost whilst exploring the area. I don’t see anything on the site or in the press release about it being free, BUT the PR who sent the tip to me said it is free so hopefully he will not disappoint us!

For five days beginning 2 August, visitors can enjoy exploring the maze and wondering through many of the West Ends most famous streets, lanes and squares. Each ‘Street’ within the maze will highlight some fascinating facts about the cultural history of the West End, such as Carnaby Street, which apparently inspired Ray Davies to write The Kinks hit ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’, or Trafalgar Square, which is said to be home to the world’s smallest police station. The maze is open from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. each day.

Upon reaching the heart of the maze, visitors will be rewarded with an exclusive taste of the amazing entertainment, culture, dining and shopping on offer throughout The West End. The rolling programme of activity highlighting the best that the West End has to offer, includes:

• Monday – A vibrant showcase from some West End’s top shows – including Priscilla Queen of the Desert drag queens, some Avenue Q puppets and couple of Sherlock Holmes!
• Tuesday – China town arrives with a bang as giant paper dragon and lion puppets weave their way through the maze and live dragon candy making sessions take place at the centre of the maze
• Wednesday – London’s finest Saville Row tailors will be trimming the hedge first thing
• Thursday – One of the UK’s leading young orchestra groups, The Platti String Quartet, will perform a variety of stunning pieces, filling the maze with beautiful music.
• Friday – On the last day it’s time to party as we celebrate the iconic Carnaby Street with a swinging 60’s vibe, including live music from 60’s tribute bands and lots of vespas – groovy! There will also be a small exhibition of photographs from iconic 60’s photographer Phillip Townsend, picture include Twiggy, the Rolling Stones and many more. (Phillip will be available for interview if requested)

The maze itself measures approximately 30m x 20m and each hedge is 2.4m high. The maze has been constructed using 118 individual 2m sections, with a mixture of laurel and thuja hedging. Six articulated lorries delivered the hedging to Trafalgar Square on Sunday evening and a dedicated team worked through the night, taking approximately six hours, to build the maze structure.

Cheyenne Spur Steak and Grill in the O2 in Greenwich have built a beach outside the restaurant for school summer holidays! “Spur on the Beach”  is complete with a beach-load of sand, palm trees and hula girls. There are deckchairs to lounge in and beachballs, buckets and spades to keep the kids happy.

And best for your budget, kids eat free from lunchtime to five p.m. on weekdays until “Spur on the Beach” season ends at the end of August.

For more details and T&Cs visit www.ukspur.co.uk.

Join in the fun over the summer holidays with Chewits Sports Courses and its Summer Sports Roadshow coming to the UK during July and August. Chewits have provided voucher codes for 20 free places to give away to my readers!

Plus, Chewits are offering all VoucherMum.com readers the chance to get free kids places with a special 241 discount when you book on the multi-sports session for your child and their friends to enjoy!

Brought to you by much loved chewy sweet, Chewits, these holiday sports courses are the perfect way to keep your little ones happy and active during the school break.  Your child will love this fun and healthy sporting experience with loads of other kids in their own age group.

The day courses are managed by Premier Sport professional sports coaches and provide six hours worth of multi-sport activity for 5-11 years olds of all levels and abilities during school holiday weekdays. 21 different sports are available, including football, tag rugby, gymnastics, dance and cricket.

To find courses near you and to redeem your 241 session simply enter the following code VM/2010 on the website www.chewitspremiersport.org.

To be in with a chance of winning a place on a Chewits Sports Course near you all you have to do is answer the following question in the comments and I’ll email you a code:

Chewits Sports Courses are being run in association with which company?

a) Sport Fit

b) Premier Sport

C) Kids in Sport

To sign up for the course or for more information visit www.chewitspremiersport.org. More information on Chewits can be found at www.chewits.co.uk.

Terms & Conditions
*Sessions must be pre-booked, no drop-inswill ever be accepted, and are subject to availability
*241 codes can only be used for the roadshow session and venue stated above
*All 241 places can be used in the following way only:
1 person
- One day- No discount applied
- Two days – Pay for one day get second day free
- Three days – Pay for two days get third day free
- Four days – Pay for two days get two days free
2 people
-  One day – pay for one child second child free
*Visit the following link to find where courses are in your area underline;”>www.chewitspremiersport.org
*No cash alternative
*Children require permission from a parent or guardian to attend a course.
*Who can attend- Boys and Girls aged 5-11 years
*You will need shin pads for football and hockey. For ease these can be purchased online and picked up on the day to collect.
*Every child must be signed in and out each day by an appropriate adult.
*You need to arrive between 9.15am and 9.30am for registration
*All participants require a packed lunch

The kids’ TV channel Boomerang is hosting the free Boomerang Pets Party in London’s Regent Park this Saturday!

This sounds like such a fun event. Activities run from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and will include Garfield’s Kitchen, Pink Panther Pet Salon, a petting zoo and pet celebrities. Kids are encouraged to bring their pets!

Boomerang have provided these details about the event’s activities:

· Garfield’s Kitchen – We all know Garfield is crazy about his food, particularly his favourite dish lasagne! Why not head down to his very own Pet Kitchen pulled straight from Garfield’s set and be wowed by a whacky chef who will definitely put the fun into cooking.

· Pink Panther’s Pet Salon – Join The Pink Panther and friends to discover all of the fabulous ways to style your furry friend. There will even be the chance for little ones to make their own bespoke pet collars, making sure their kitty is the best looking in town!

· Pet celebrities – Pet heroes from around the country will be present at the event, so don’t miss your chance to meet them in the flesh.

· Petting zoo – For those who don’t have a pet to bring along, there’s a chance to come and spend some time with some of the cutest animals around.

· A special surprise for dogs – A tasty treat will be on offer for dogs to tuck into. Turn up to find out how to tantalise your pooch’s taste buds!

For all the details visit the site here.

LastMinute.com has loads of offers on days out and theme parks for the upcoming school holidays.

Here are a few of the best:

• london eye up to 20% off
• madame tussauds up to 20% off
• cadbury world from £11.90
• ghost bus tours from £10
• speed boat rides up to 38% off
• legoland discovery centre from £9.30
• alton towers up to 20% off
• thorpe park up to 20% off
• legoland up to 15% off
• chessington up to 50% off
• diggerland from £15

Heritage Open Days 2010 celebrates England’s fantastic architecture and culture by offering free access to properties that are usually closed to the public or normally charge for admission. This year Heritage Open Days will run from 9-12 September. To search the directory for sites near you, click here.

Heritage Open Days is England’s contribution to the European Heritage Days, a Council of Europe initiative, in which 49 countries take part. In addition to Heritage Open Days, events include:

• London – Open House London (18-19 September)
• Scotland – Doors Open Days (every weekend in September)
• Wales – Open Doors (every weekend in September)
• Northern Ireland – European Heritage Days (11-12 September)

Ready for Ten is a newly launched website aimed at mums and dads of 6-9 year olds. The site is powered by parent bloggers including two I was already familiar with – Jo Beaufoix, whose blog I love, and Guy Clapperton, a tech journo.

If you’re a mum or dad of a 6-9 year old I think you’ll really like this site. The content includes parenting advice and tips with a focus on skill-building. There are sections on helping your kids learn new skills, like inline skating and skipping – two things we did a lot of last weekend! Curiously, however, there was no post on learning to ride a bike which would be REALLY useful.

There is also a section called Skillscape which is a map of the UK’s best spaces for kids to play and practise their skills, from parks and playgrounds to sports clubs. You can contribute by mapping your kids’ favourite activity spaces (the harder-to-find and more local, the better) and if you share a space you’ll be entered to win a family holiday for four. If you’re staycationing this summer Skillscape is a great place to get ideas for places to go.

You can also check out Ready for Ten’s Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/readyforten

I’ve been really wanting to go to to a pick your own farm and today we made a day of it. We went to Parkside PYO which was only about half an hour so unlike some of our other day trips (ahem, three hours in the car each way to Brighton) we had an easy journey. Parkside was a massive, well-organised and friendly farm and it was a really lovely day!

We picked strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, tayberries (apparently a blackberry-raspberry hybrid) and then headed to the veg patch for courgettes, beetroot and french beans. Blackcurrents were also in season but a bit picked over and onions, spinach and swiss chard were available too.

Here is a picture of our haul:

We started out by accidentally picking off-limits strawberries (I guess they’d just been sprayed with pesticides–eek!) so we got some REALLY nice ones. Otherwise the strawberries were a bit picked over. Blackberries had literally just come in season today so we got lucky on that. We were told the best day to go is Tuesday because the farm is closed Monday.

This really is such a brilliant thing to do with your kids. Every query of “shall we pick some (insert vegetable)?” was met by “I love (insert vegetable)!” and finding ripe raspberries was like a treasure hunt. It was really fun. Maybe I had the most fun!

Afterward we went home to make jam. I’ve never made jam but this recipe by Jamie Oliver looked super-easy and they sold jam sugar at the farm. I’m just not sure we cooked it all long enough because nothing is quite firming up. The jars are all in the fridge now so we’ll see…

Here are our lovely clean strawberries.

Here they are mashed up on the stove.

And once they’ve been cooked up.

This is the mixed berry jam before cooking. I mean, YUM.

We made LOTS! I followed Jamie’s preserving method mentioned in the barbecue sauce recipe from the Jamie’s America cookery book. Submerge the jars in boiling water for 10 minutes. The lids all popped down, so I’m hoping this won’t kill us later…

Finally, we made labels.

Highly recommend!

I’ve been wanting to go to a pick your own (PYO) farm ever since it started to warm up and strawberries came in season. I haven’t done this since I was a kid and although it basically amounts to manual labour, I seem to have fond memories of it. I love the idea of picking buckets of strawberries and turning them into homemade jam and ice cream (see my strawberry recipes post here!) This weekend is meant to be lovely so we might give it a go!

Taking kids to a farm and showing them how food grows is a great way to get them excited about eating healthfully. Not to mention it is GREAT value for money. You can expect to pay around £3.50-£4 per kilo for PYO strawberries (almost half what you’d pay in many supermarkets).

It seems like a brilliant coincidence that my Netmums Camden newsletter came with a link to a section on PYO farms. If you’re in Camden, here are Netmum’s closest recommendations. For everyone else, PickYourOwn.info offers a map of every farm in the country!

SummerActivitesforKids.co.uk also has some great ideas for getting kids excited about the day out, like planning a menu of what you’ll make with your fruit. It also offers a checklist of tips (don’t forget the sun cream!)

And if you can’t get out to a PYO this summer remember it’s not all about strawberries – you can pick other crops throughout the year–just check the websites for details.