As we all look forward to autumn, Old Macdonald is getting very excited because his farm has been nominated for a prestigious award, as the East of England Tourist Board have put him forward on the short list for Sustainable Development Tourist Attraction of the year. He and Mrs Macdonald (certainly not known as Old Mrs Macdonald we stress) are off to a presentation dinner at the end of October, and we will tell you more.

However you may be more interested in what is coming up at the farm, so we remind you to look out for our fun Halloween Week during the October Half Term, from October 25th to 31st, where in addition to the creepy spiders, ghosts, ghoulies and witches you would expect to find (during Halloween week I mean, not all the time) we have our annual Pumpkin firing competition. If you did not come across this before, it is marginally mad as we allow children to bring along a pumpkin and we will shoot it on the Catapult, made from scrap and shown above, at a Witchy Target, with the winner getting an annual season ticket! If you want to find out more or even wish to enter, then email us on oldmacdonalds@btconnect.comand we will send you all the details. There is no charge to enter and all you need do is book your place and bring your pumpkin to fire at the witchy target! (No witches were injured in the running of this competition though a lot of pumpkins get splattered, then fed to the goats).

Then the reindeer are looking forward to Christmas and I will tell you more about our Christmas Grotto soon, and the rabbits are settled in their refurbished home as is our brand new Otter, to be a friend for Nipper. Now we look back on a great summer here in Brentwood.

We started the summer in flaming June if you recall, then moved to perishing July and soggy August, but in flaming June it was flaming hot when we held our highly successful Local Heroes Day when the fire service, police and the First Responders Paramedic Group came down for a great day out.

During the school holidays you, our visitors, have helped us raise funds for two important charities, Starlight Foundation for Seriously Ill Children and Hopefield Animal Sanctuary and raised £700 so far. Above you can see Joseph Manning presenting a cheque to Ernie Clark MBE who, with his wife Paula (MBE as well, and completely deserved, they will be meeting the Queen on October 14th!) dedicate their life to this centre . We gave Hopefield £ 350 and the other £350 will be going to Starlight. Hopefield is close to us in Brentwood, so visit their website www.hopefield.org.ukfor more information on this worthwhile and important animal Sanctuary. We also show you one of the range of Christmas Cards that you can buy to support Hopefields, all designed by their supporters and all for an important cause.

Meanwhile, you rode the Bucking Sheep, played the Treasure Hunt, and on Pet the Animals Weekends Bob the Tortoise was without doubt the star of the event. Old Macdonalds will from now on run more such activities as Petting Farms are clearly something that our visitors enjoy.

We opened the adventure bridges and Punch and Judy was a wow and will be coming back at half term too. On Sunday 7th September we held Grandparents day when all grandparents entered free and many of those we admitted looked far too young to qualify!

So it was a great summer here and we welcomed record numbers through our doors. If you missed out, then come along this Autumn. If you attended, have you joined our mailing list? If not, you should for special offers and news stories at least once a month, and do not worry we do not pass our mailing list on so the only annoying emails you would get are mine with appalling jokes but great photos!

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