A day out at the Roald Dahl Museum with Mr Kipling

If I had to write a list of all the things I love to do in life, two things that would make it pretty close to the top are reading and eating cake. I have been a massive book worm for as long as I have been able to read and my all time favourite author as a child was Roald Dahl. So, I am sure you can imagine how excited I was to receive an invite to an event celebrating the collaboration between Mr Kipling and Roald Dahl this summer at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre. A chance to get to know more about my favourite children’s author and the opportunity to eat loads of cake? Obviously I said yes and this morning the kids and I headed off to Great Missenden, Roald Dahl’s home and inspiration for several years, to discover more about the wacky world of Roald Dahl and to find out all about the Mr Kipling Splendiferous Summer. If you are partial to a French Fancy (or 5), would like to find out how to win some amazing prizes this summer holidays and love the children’s literary mastermind that is the amazing Roald Dahl, then you are definitely going to want to read on..

A whoopsy whiffling day out at the Roald Dahl Museum.

                           

A bit about the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

Wow! Just, wow. If you a big Roald Dahl fan, like myself, you seriously need to visit this place. The museum is situated in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, Roald Dahl lived in this town from 1954 until his death in 1990. The museum is home to so much Roald Dahl history: original letters, draft copies of some of his greatest work and even the contents of his famous Writing Hut are all on display. The Roald Dahl museum is also home to all of the author archives and is situated in a town that served so much inspiration to his writing.

Our visit to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre 

When Leo, Alex and I arrived at the museum for the Mr Kipling event, my imagination and inner child were so excited to see the building with the shadow of The BFG creeping up the wall, with it’s bright blue paint work you would have a job not being able to spot it walking down the High Street. The BFG was one of my favourites as a child and I can’t wait to read it to the boys when they are a little older.

We were all invited upstairs for a welcome chat from Cirkle PR working with Mr Kipling brand and we were given a brief, yet so interesting and informative, chat from one of the Roald Dahl masterminds who works at the museum. We were told some really amazing Roald Dahl facts and it was so interesting to get a bit of a behind the scenes look at some of Dahl’s work – did you know Fantastic Mr Fox wasn’t originally called that? And did you know, The BFG was originally intended to have a little boy as the main character, not a little girl called Sophie?

After the introduction to the day we were given some time to go and explore the museum. I will be honest, Leo being 3 and Alex just 9 months old I do feel they were a bit too young for the museum. Leo does like Roald Dahl, his favourite book being The Enormous Crocodile and he has seen Fantastic Mr Fox lots of times but he just doesn’t really understand the concept of a museum just yet. For older children though (probably starting around age 6) the museum is perfect! There is so much information at each display about Roald Dahl’s history and facts about the books we all know and love. As well as the exhibits there is the Story Centre that is full of lots of fun activities to help inspire your inner writer. There are also costumes dotted about if you like a bit of fancy dress, there is a craft room for the kids to let their imaginations run free and get creative and throughout the day the museum staff host a story time where you can all sit and listen to some of Roald Dahl’s brilliant stories.

Once we had finished exploring the museum we were taken on a guided tour of Great Missenden, stopping off at certain buildings that helped inspire Roald Dahl to create his wonderful books. Leo enjoyed wondering around the quirky little town with it’s narrow streets and old buildings but I definitely enjoyed the tour more than him. I found it fascinating seeing the places that inspired my favourite author. Matilda is my all time favourite story (I did tell you I’m massive bookworm and Roald Dahl superfan didn’t I?) so I was really fascinated seeing the library that Roald Dahl imagined his character walking to every day when she was only 4 years old. I won’t tell you everything we discovered on the tour as you may want to do the village trail yourself but it definitely is worth doing, we even visited the church where Dahl is buried which is just a short walk from the museum.

 

Leo, Alex and myself really enjoyed our day at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre and for just £6.60 for adults and £4.40 for children it really is a fun way to spend an afternoon. That’s enough about Roald Dahl, shall we talk about cake now?

Mr Kipling Splendiferous Summer

So you might be wondering by now what exactly Roald Dahl has to do with Mr Kipling? Well, this summer to help you and your kids have the most whoopsy whiffling time, Mr Kipling have a special competition running with amazing prizes up for grabs. Every time you buy a packet of Mr Kipling cakes from Tesco with the limited edition Roald Dahl packaging, you get a special code which you then enter into the Splendiferous Summer website. Prizes include: a Go Ape Adventure, tickets to Matilda the Musical, books, puzzles and even tickets for a trip to New York!

If you don’t win a prize, don’t worry, the Splendiferous Summer website still has other ways to help make this summer exceedingly good for all the family. If you head over to the inspire section on the website there are a whole bunch of gloriumptious ideas for different activities for the kids to enjoy. There is inspiration on how to create your very own fox den, decorate an oompa loompa, make a dream jar and so much more. The kids will have no excuse to say they’re bored this summer holidays with all these different ideas to try out.

This summer holidays all you need to have fun is a bit of inspiration, imagination and creativity, oh and don’t forget some cake too! If you’re offering, mine’s a pink French Fancy, Leo likes a Chocolate Slice and Alex enjoys looking at all the illustrations on the pink Mr Kipling packaging.

Happy summer holidays, I hope it’s full of fun, exciting and lots of cake – what else could you possibly need?

*The limited edition Mr Kipling and Roald Dahl cakes are available exclusively to buy at Tesco for £1 * 

Have you ever visited The Roald Dahl museum? Do you or you kids love his books too, which is your favourite? Also, if you had to choose which would you pick: Cherry Bakewell, Battenberg Slice or French Fancy? Let me know in the comments.

Disclaimer: This post is written in collaboration with Mr Kipling. Leo, Alex and myself were given free entry to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in return for this blog post. All words and opinions are my own.

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