I had no idea about this place until a friend shared she’d seen it advertised by Lincoln Council. It has various summer activities for children put on by Hartsholme Rangers. We signed up for the ‘butterfly bonanza’ one and met a friend and her children there at lunchtime. We walked all the way around the lake to start which was a lovely walk and stopped to feed the ducks along the way. We managed to have a quick picnic before the session started.

The ‘butterfly bonanza’ session was one and a half hours long and cost £3.50 each for the older two (I wasn’t charged for my toddler). The rangers explained what we’d be doing, looking for butterflies, gently catching them in a net if we could and transferring to a pot to examine before letting them go. We ticked off what we found on a butterfly sheet. All the children there seemed to thoroughly enjoy this. We managed to catch one butterfly but saw others and some dragonflies too.

After plenty of time for this, the next activity was creating a butterfly feeder using a tin tray and a scourer which we took home for our garden. There was a final butterfly themed craft activity but mine opted to give this a miss and have a look around for more butterflies! When the session ended we finished with some time in the play park and an ice cream and tea from the cafe. I would recommend this as a great inexpensive day out especially with the extra activity by Hartsholme Rangers.