Peppa's Pig World

July 8^th, 2014

Planning was perfect.  Just after arriving in England, the whole family, minus Sid who had to work, was off to play at Peppa’s Pig World at Paulton’s Park.  Who’s Peppa Pig you may ask?  Well I didn’t know either until I had arrived in England.  Turns out that if you have a toddler in Great Britain, you most certainly are familiar with this young female pink piglet whose family consists of the imaginatively named Daddy Pig, Mummy Pig, Grandpa Pig, Granny Pig, Uncle Pig, Aunty Pig and her brother, the odd one out: George.  The pigs are a bit odd looking and my cousin Gemma pointed out, while drawing Peppa for her daughter Pippa (yes, it gets confusing), that you first draw a hair dryer, then add the eyes, mouth, ears and a ring for the snout.

All of Peppa’s friends are different animals so there’s the Rabbit family, the Dog family, the Sheeps, the Cats, the Ponies, the Zebras etc.  One of my favourite characters is Miss Rabbit.  She seems to be the only character with a real job in the whole town; in fact, she has a multitude of employments.  She’s the bus driver, the supermarket assistant, the librarian, a helicopter pilot, a fireman, a car crusher, a ticket seller and a china shop worker and probably has a few other credentials under her belt.

I was exposed to only a couple of mini-episodes of Peppa Pig shows before going to the Mecca of this kiddie phenomenon.  The shows are only about 5-6 minutes long which I guess suits the attention span of a newly walking child however that does imply that a poor parent may see the same “show” tens to hundreds of times as we all know that toddlers love repetition.  My favourite episode is one where Peppa is at school for “International Day”.  All of the kids are dressed up and representing different countries.  All goes smoothly in the classroom but once they’re out in the playground, well a fight breaks out between a couple of different “countries” in the sandbox with another country entering into the fray as the mediator.  There were definitely some underlying messages being conveyed me thinks.

Our crew consisted of my Aunt Shirley, her daughter Gemma and husband Charles with their two little ones Pippa and Annabel, Sonia, my cousin Sid’s wife and their little girl Amelie.  We were five adults with three under three year olds...should be a fairly even match.  Paulton’s Park has been an amusement park for thirty years but they added the Peppa Pig section in 2011.  We made the classic mistake of heading straight for the swine section and it was packed with many others trying to grab their piece of the pig pie.  Later we realized that the ideal strategy would be to visit the regular part of the park first, which was almost deserted, then when lunch and nap times hit, go for Peppa Pig playing pleasure.  So instead we jostled with the crowds and decided that the Peppa’s Balloon Ride would be our first stop as the queue seemed to be relatively short at 20 minutes.  But then again, 20 minutes for 3 under 3 year olds is an eternity!  Sonia and Shirley bowed out for the ride and enjoyed their coffees while Gem, Charles and I took the girls.  We reached the front of the line and after one more round, we were up.  However it was at this point that Amelie decided she’d really like to be with mummy but luckily we quelled the request and flew up in the sky on Peppa’s balloons.  Thankfully this turned out to be the longest wait we had for a ride during the day.

The crew at the start of the day:

Our first look at the park:

On the balloon ride:

Pippa's having fun...not sure about Amelie:

Annabel's definitely not into it:

Is anyone but the adults having a good time?

Seems like it:

Well at least Gemma's enjoying it!

After the first ride we saw a couple of costumed characters on the porch of a mocked up cartoon house. It was Peppa and her brother George so we wandered over, thinking that the kids would enjoy see their heroes up close and personal.  Turns out that a seven foot high pig is scary for little toddlers...who knew?!?

Petrifying Peppa:

Mummy...let's go over there...

Okay, a tractor ride is better...

But we had to get back to the Pig family:

Yet I still think Charles is having more fun than the kids:

After a picnic lunch Charles was convinced that Pippa would enjoy a ride down a large slide that had 3-4 drop offs.  It was the type that you ride on a sled to get down.  Technically Pippa was a few inches under the “you must be this tall to go on this ride” height and despite Gem’s objections, Charles insisted Pips was good to go.  I joined them and we climbed up the four storeys worth of stairs and then Pippa started to express a bit of concern but Charles insisted that she’d enjoy it.  In the end I was in the lane next to Charles and Pippa and we raced each other down and I have to admit, it was a pretty fast ride, definitely too fast for a 2 1/2 year old but Pips was brave and did not complain much afterwards.  I’m sure it won’t be the last time that her father pushes her out of her comfort zone.

At the top of the stairs for the slide...Pips is smiling, but perhaps she's faking it a bit:

Okay, locked and loaded:

Sliding action:

Following cute little Annabel:

Now let's slide:

Near the end of the day Charles and I were given permission to wander over to the “big ride” section of the park.  We opted to ride the “Edge”.  It was a big circular disk with seats facing outwards from the perimeter.  The track it rode on was like a big W with the middle bump smoothed out however the whole disk rotated as it traversed back and forth.  Neither of us had been on a ride like this before and I have to say, it wasn’t bad.  There weren’t too many people so we were allowed to remain on the ride after the first go so off we went again.  Charles was worried about losing his sunglasses so he “wisely” put them in his front pocket of his shirt.  Well they didn’t stay there too long.  At some point during our second ride they flew out of the pocket.  Let me say at this point that Charles is notorious for losing things, breaking things and injuring himself so it wasn’t a big surprise to me.  Charles received a call from Gem that it was time to leave and as we walked by the fenced off area under the ride, sure enough, we saw poor Charles’ sunglasses hanging in a small bush.  He would have been tempted to hop over the fence and grab them, however we could see that one lens was missing so he abandoned the rescue mission.  Oh Charles.

At the end of the day, every person was pooped, yet pleased.  Peppa’s Pig Palace provided plenty of playful pleasantries.  Perfect!!!