Explore! Rescue! Protect! Octonauts Training at Westfield Derby!

Octonauts ShowIf you’re not familiar with the Octonauts then chances are you don’t have any small children. They are popular (animated) underwater characters who spend their days dealing with sea-life emergencies. They explore the deep, rescue creatures that need help and protect animals from harm.

KwaziiIt’s a positive message that kids seem to really identify with. Yesterday they surfaced from the deep blue sea and made their way to Westfield Derby to train wannabe Octonauts (aka fans!) Timed wristbands were available to pick up from the concierge desk for the various shows throughout the day. Each show was entirely free and quite long to boot.

Octonauts ShowAs you might imagine the show was packed to bursting, it’s rare to get anything for free these days, let alone a decent length well rehearsed production. The characters sang and danced to all the familiar songs from the TV show, plus a couple of new ones. I am always amazed how the actors/dancers in these kind of shows manage to seem so agile while wearing extremely heavy costumes.Captain Barnacles

Captain Barnacles (the polar bear) and Kwazii (the cat) asked the audience to perform actions as part of their ‘training’ and amazingly no one was hurt as the huge crowd jumped and shifted about. There were some exceedingly well behaved children out in Derby yesterday 🙂

Octonauts ShowKids shouted out answers to questions about absent characters and seemed truly engaged throughout the entire production. I believe they may have already performed at other Westfield centres around the country, so definitely check out your local one if your kids might be interested.Captain Barnacles

If you missed the show yesterday don’t worry, Westfield are running an Octonauts themed colouring competition and treasure trail around the centre. Just pop along to concierge to pick up the relevant forms and don’t forget to check out the remaining free events scheduled throughout the summer holidays.Kwazii

For More information

For more wonderful events ranging from indoor shows through to craft activities visit Westfield Derby online.

Or you can contact the Westfield team on Twitter, or through Facebook.

Having a Pant-tastic Summer with Spongebob Squarepants!

In my last post I wrote about the challenge of keeping kids entertained at home during the Summer holidays, but what if you want to take a trip out? Not all activities have to cost the earth. For example our local shopping centre Westfield Derby runs kids events throughout the summer, all of which are free! For some of the events, such as craft activities you just turn up on the day. For others (like character meet and greets) you need to obtain a timed wristband from the concierge desk on the morning of the event. Westfield operate shopping centres throughout the country so it’s always worth checking out the website of your local mall to see what’s on.

We toddled along to Westfield Derby yesterday to meet SpongeBob Squarepants in the flesh/sponge. As you might imagine all my children were very excited at the prospect of meeting SpongeBob in ‘person’, so they prepared a short selection of jokes to share with him. Jokes such as:

Why did the hamburger cross the road? To Ketch-up with the fries!

Why did the Octopus cross the road? To get to the other tide!

Knock Knock! Who’s there? Fish! Fish who? Bless you!

That’s some comedy gold right there!

SpongeBob wobbled about in appreciation (his nose spun in circles!) before pausing to take a photo with the kids.

They all received a sheet of small SpongeBob stickers from NickToons, where SpongeBob is having a ‘Pant-tastic Summer’ on the channel everyday from 9am. See Nicktoons.co.uk for details.

As we left SpongeBob gave them all a larger sticker so they could proudly display their visit to the world!

For More information

For more wonderful events ranging from indoor shows through to craft activities visit Westfield Derby online.

Or you can contact the Westfield team on Twitter, or through Facebook.

Yarn Bombing for Six Streets Derby

Six Streets is an area of Derby not very far from the city centre. This year it celebrated it’s second Art Trail over the weekend of June 22nd and 23rd. Residents opened up their homes and local artists and makers were exhibiting their work. As part of the trail, trees on Wheeldon Avenue were decorated by individuals and local groups, the theme was the natural world . We at the Angel Eden Blog have been solely responsible for two of the trees and have also been involved with a number of the group efforts. Two of the trees have been decorated by local schools and each tree has a label to advise who has done the work.

I think there were twenty trees decorated in total and the road really did look good. The Art Trail was open for just the one weekend but the Yarn creations will stay up for a couple of weeks.

I have not included pictures of all the trees as they are far too many but here are just a selection.