Fred the Frog's Adventures

Most good days begin with a story. Ours began with two.

Today's first book was Fred the Frog, a stone frog who lives in the Chinese garden at Biddulph Grange Garden. One moonlit night he comes to life and goes on an adventure around the garden with his friends, Bill the Buffalo, Dragon, Chi the Dog and Sam the Squirrel.

And because we were going to be visiting the Chinese garden, and it is currently Chinese New Year, our second story was the story of Nian, the Chinese monster and origin of the story behind Chinese New Year.

Then it was time to head out to China and to meet Fred the Frog and his friends.

"Look China is this way!"

The Victorian Biddulph Grange Garden is a child's paradise. It features tunnels, bridges, steps leading up towards little follies, ponds and lakes teaming with fish, stepping stones and a temple. One garden leads to another, sometimes through passageways and one even via a topiary pyramid.

Meeting Bill the Buffalo and Dragon

Through some upside down tree trunks, we found China, Then it was off to Egypt to find Thoth.

Left: the friends find Thoth's temple. Right: Ferdy finds Thoth's temple.

Thoth is a baboon dog and not dissimilar to Nian, according to Ferdy.

It took a long time, and oodles of tenacity from Gil (Ferdy and I were willing to give up), to find Fred the Frog, but eventually, after clambering up countless steps, running in and out of tunnels and finally resorting back to our book to check what his surroundings looked like, we did!

We also discovered fossils in the geology gallery, and got very lost so met all of the animals quite a few more times.

Eventually we found the cafe where Gil and I were treated to songs about the 2, 10 and half of the 3 and 5 times tables by another rather strange creature.

One of Fred's friends we hadn't been able to locate was Chi the Dog, and upon being informed by one of the guides that Chi had been sent away for repairs, Ferdy announced that he was going to write a story about Chi's adventures.

Chi's Adventures: After Chi ran away, he got on a plane at Heathrow Airport. The aeroplane was going to Africa. It landed; Chi ran out and found himself in a jungle. There were parrots, monkeys, lizards, chameleons and everything that you see in a jungle. Suddenly a lion came through the bushes, it sprang at Chi and... just wait and see.