We have been itching to get out of the house for a couple of days (to do stuff other than shopping) but the weather has been cold and drizzly. Today, we were rewarded by clear skies and the temperature into near double figures (i.e. 9º Centigrade). We had noticed something in Wetherby called the Christmas adventure in last weeks sunday paper so we decided to give it a try- along with hundreds and hundreds of others!

We started off skating, or at least BloggerWife and Shadelet did. (I sprain my ankles far too easily.) A reasonable sized outside rink made out of some PTFE type material gave David the chance to burn off some energy. It started to get dark whilst this was going on and the arena was floodlit with discharge lamps in a very fetching shade of purple.

We next moved on to the Skiing. This was Nordic style, a cross-country trail on green plastic matting round the enchanted wood, claiming to be the largest artificial trail in Europe. Shuffling along on skis would be a more accurate description for those of us not gifted in the alpine skills, but I was surprised to be the only one of us who didn’t fall off. Grandma chose the pedestrian option along a parallel path which followed the same course. In the wood, various scenes from fairy tales were recreated with figures, lighting and atmospheric settings. It was reminiscent of the Scarborough Peasholm Park illuminations of my childhood and nicely done. If you looked closely though, you often found these large cable tangles behind the trees with the ubiquitous waterproof connectors.

After some liquid (& pastry) refreshment at the Cafe, we then went into our final experience of the evening- the snowflake maze. It was a bit squelchy but very cleverly done. There are twelve gates in the maze representing the twelve days of Christmas and they can open and close the gates in different combinations to make it harder to solve. I didn’t get to all of the gates but snapped quite a few. The site grows both Fir and Yew tress, which is what the maze is based on. It went Christmassy for the first time in 2006 (with an extensive Christmas shop selling lights and all sorts of gifts) and was such a success that it has been expanded dramatically for this year, certainly being mobbed on our visit. Be aware though- Santa isn’t there after Christmas Eve, having gone for his long holidays.

We suspect we might ache in the morning…