Why we 'dig' our city

Me and Monkey are lucky to live in a great city.

Today has been a really lovely day - full of fun, all free and a reminder of just how great Manchester really is. There aren't many places where you could fit so much into your day without it costing you a penny.

It started off simply enough, meeting our friends The Smiley Minion and Minion Mummy. We spend a lot of time at the park and fancied a bit of a change today so went to the park known in our bunch of friends (for reasons that are too long and boring to go into here) as 'the nowhere near the motorway park'.

Monkey loves the swings. Her giggle is fab and she's just learning to swing herself. There isn't a roundabout at our usual park though so she tried it out for the first time today. It seemed to be a hit.

After the park it was a short tram ride into town for the main event of the day - Dig the city!

Dig the City is Manchester's summer garden festival. Gardening is not really my thing, I'm not green-fingered at all, but I found it by accident last year and had a lovely chilled out time with a tiny Monkey so thought we would both enjoy it now she is older. I wasn't wrong, we had lots of fun :-)

We enjoyed looking round all the show gardens. Monkey made friends with some lovely ladies from Sow the City who gave her some spinach to grow at home. We had fun playing (and eating mud!) at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital garden and made sure Monkey put some pennies in their tin to say thank you for taking such good care of her.

The National Trust were there promoting their 50 things to do before you're 11 and 3/4. Monkey was still a bit young for some of the activities and after the earlier mud eating incident I didn't think mud pies were a great idea! The barefoot trail wasn't all Monkey friendly but she enjoyed exploring the bits that were.

When we'd finished on the trail we went to see Friends of the Earth and learn all about bees. Monkey did some colouring in and dancing as there was a singer right next to the stall.

Manchester is a fab city but it's not known for it's great weather. We'd not had any rain but by this time it was getting a bit chilly so we headed over to the National Football Museum.

Growing up with me as her mum and my dad as her Grandad, it's safe to say that football will be a big part of her life. She'll be brought up as a FC United fan but just like my dad did with me I'll make sure she knows her red history. She's already been part of FC history by being mascot at the first game at Broadhurst Park and the education continued today.

So there we have it - a fun filled day and all it cost us was the £3 tram fare. The fun wasn't over for us though. We went to meet Daddy Monkey from work and treated ourselves to a cheeky Nandos. It's been a lovely day.