Sunday, July 10, 2011

Ashgrove Library Park

The Ashgrove library park certainly isn't the greatest park in the world. It's bare bones, a bit old, and sandwiched between two roads! But it is adjacent to Ashgrove Library, which means you can extend your park fun with a library visit or - like we did last week - a stop at Storytime. And then - if you are wanting to make your day super duper - walk up the road two minutes to Jeremiah's Cafe. Map to the library is here.

I guess the tandem experience with the library is perhaps the only way to do this park - unless you lived a street or two away its really not a park worth too far of a travel. This said, it has a climbing frame, swings, a fort type structure with walkways, climbing areas and a slide. And there is a covered table for plonking yourself down on and watching the kids play. It's not bad at all really, but I we really had a super time last week and I think for us the greatest fun was the library itself.








Having a park adjacent to a library means that the park is going to be full of kids around times when kids activities are on at the library. At Ashgrove library this is Monday and Friday. The BCC timetable is here. Of course all BCC library's run a storytime so you should check your local library for times. I think we will be swapping between Ashgrove and The Grange (which has a cool park we will review very soon!).

I was always worried about taking Cody to Storytime. She's a wiggler and an over-sharer. The wiggling clearly was not a problem and I should have never been worried about it. I look back at what a noob parent I was to be worried about that as EVERY kid there was wiggling and running off and grizzling in. In fact Cody (being the oldest there almost) was the only one who sat still the entire time! Did I care about the wiggling/running/grizzling of others? Nope - and nobody did so I don't know why I was worried about Cody before! As for oversharing - well my girl does like to talk and if she's heard of a sloth then she's going to tell you where and when she heard of it (I applaud the librarian for not knowing about Diego!!) - once again, nobody cared and the librarian manged the kids really well. Four books were read (the theme this week was bedtime) and then they did some colouring and stickering (which I think was the point when Cody became super hooked - bring out the stickers and most kids are completely engrossed in their art). We went to the older session (2-5 years old) and took Mika (who also sat on the floor and looked at the book) but there is a younger session beforehand (for the under 2s).


The lady who took the session was young and fun and loved her job. You can't ask for more than that. We got some books - I found a new edition of Juxtapoz (probably not even in the newsagents yet it was so new) so everyone left happy. Cody is itching to go back this week - which we will.

I'm not going to do the typical rating as there's not much to rate. I'd happily do this every week if I could - and so would Cody - which means it would rate pretty high!

I should add that Ashgrove Library has just gotten a new annex built and expanded considerably. Aparently there is a coffee shop going in there (so you can sit and have a coffee whilst watching the kids play in the park). That's all well and good but do go to Jeremiahs Cafe as he's a top dude and very kid friendly.

1 comment:

  1. hooray for the shout out to Jeremiah - he's a good friend of mine and an all round awesome dude.

    double points for the library storytime appreciation - my Mum takes it at the Carindale library and I can't wait until I have kids to take along :)

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