h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Because I'm in a bad mood today (it's hormonal) and because the rain is currently lashing against my 6th floor window obscuring what was such a lovely view yesterday, I'm going to attempt to cheer myself up by writing about a wonderful place.

Wonderland is a sort of amusement park in Telford. Their website states "A magical experience where Nursery Rhymes & Fairytales come to life, with Fairytale Characters and their houses around every corner". This is a pretty accurate desciption, I would say.

Every summer my mum & I book a week off during the school holidays to do things with my brother's three kids. Wonderland has become a bit of a traditional part of this week. It's a fabulous day out in the fresh air and really isn't that expensive, especially as there are areas for picnicking rather than paying the prices in the cafe.

Basically Wonderland is a series of huts in the woods converted into nursery rhyme & fairytale character homes. You look through the windows at the scene within and there's a button to press which activates a recording of the story or rhyme. For example, there's a little crooked house, and through the windows you see a bent litle old man in a cosy house with crooked furniture. If you look carefully you see the cat on the chair, and oh look! There's the mouse on the hearth.

It's a lovely walk through the trees to each house, and for school age kids there's a bit of a nature trail you can do where you cross off different things as you see them - a fox, a badger, a ladybird. They have a winter wonderland section which is a series of huts you walk through showing different elf scenes - helping santa make the toys, a post office where you can write to santa, an elf school, etc. There's a diamond mine where you pan in a trough of water and sand to find some dull white stones which you then exchange for jewels. This is, if I remember correctly, the only thing you have to pay extra for (apart from stuff from the cafe). The kids can do the panning for free but to exchange their stones for jewels costs a couple of pounds.

When you've done all that you get to the area with the cafe and several rides - the Mad Hatter's Teacups, the White Rabbit train. The rides are free and kids can go on as often as they like. There's an enclosed bouncy castle, and they have an open air stage where they have magicians or storytellers, and it's a very interactive experience. Walking around are various characters like Snow White or Red Riding Hood (people in outfits) and they interract with the kids. It's completely enchanting.

The cafe also houses one of those soft play frames where kids can climb up and slide down, etc, (I always think it's like well padded scaffolding!) all enclosed, so the adults can sit down with a cuppa and the kids can burn off any steam still left in safety.

They close after summer but reopen in December for their winder wonderland, where the kids can also meet santa and get a gift. We're going this year and I'm quite excited about that!

Deb

It sounds lovely Debs - in fact, would you care to write an Entry about it? Just perfect for the Guide, you've got all the information and I am betting you'd be able to snap a photo or two of it?

Bet it's a great place. I visited something similar in the Bay of Plenty New Zealand called 'The Looking Glass Gardens'. Run by the couple that own the property, no cafe, no audio, you pay a small entrance fee and get a sheet of paper with a map on it and off you go. Quirky best sums it up. It even has chickens wandering around. A marvelous afternoon's entertainment, because of the lack of things to 'do' rather than 'see' it is probably best for children aged 50 or more

Funny you should say that, Lanza. I did look to see if we had an entry and when I couldn't find one I thought perhaps this could be my first ever. Writing an entry is on my "things to do before I'm 50" list.

First, though, I have to read up on *how* to write an entry. This could be a project for over the Christmas holidays.

Deb

[Amy P]

[[[ lil ]]]

Just go for it Debs, there are a load of people who will wander by and offer useful advice. Folk on H2G2 just love adding new researchers to the guide.

Just write - then read it through, edit some, read again, edit some, then put it into either Peer Review:

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/RF1

or, if you feel a bit unsure, the Writing Workshop:

http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/RF2

And we have one of those fairytale places too! Sagostigen, which literally translates into Fairytale Path.

Deb, you write really coherently and explain things both clearly and with feeling. So, just make a few headings for paragraphs and you'll be fine. Don't worry about guideml unless you really want to. Pastey is working on a system where our authors won't need to learn it. In the meantime our subeditors can sort that for you.
I'd be thrilled if you'd write a guide entry.

defo write the entry.... all the guide ml stuff, is just dressing, the writing* an entry, is the actual* bit of doing it... any one of us who can do guide ML, could mark it up in a few minutes, once the actual* content is done... and you can write all proper and everything... just think how many of us who can't* do that, have still gotten to write entrys

Thanks for that, guys. I've always had this idea in the back of my head that I'd have to get to grips with Guide ML if I wanted to write an entry. Definitely my project over Christmas!

Deb

If you wanted to learn guide ML... I think it'd take you next to no time to get to grips with, I could explain it pretty easily, some time if you wanted; But definately write the article/entry first, then you could think about learning to do the guide ML to it, if you wanted too... Its pretty simple really, I learnt it before I'd ever done any HTML or really geeky stuf... if anything it was through guide ML as an introduction I went on to learn how to do HTML and suchlike

I agree with 2legs, learning GuideML is a baby step on the way to understanding how web pages are built. It's very similar to learning word processing before they had WYSIWYG. Vip wrote a short Entry on how to start off using GuideML which says all you need to know at the outset. After that, the best people would be 2legs (or those in Peer Review), who will take you through the fancier bits.

Vips Entry: Using GuideML for the first time A69370509

I prefer the sandwich analgy of Guide ML... seriously... your writing, the 'text' forming the entry, of course, being the butter, and bacon and egg filling, and the Guide ML being the sliced bread, to hold the filling

Hail to the only man who can discuss coding and still make it all about butter

Everything is about butter... Ultimately... Wait until you here my buttered-up description of atomic structure...

I and my otehr self have also written a beginner's guide to GuideML:
http://www.h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/classic/A690518