Petwood prize

So, if you follow me on Instagram you’ll know that there are two things I post a lot of… one is Sienna (literally if I haven’t done 10 before midday you should be checking in on me) the second is competitions.

Given the sheer volume of competitions I enter, probability has meant that I’ve won a fair few prizes. These have included everything from manicures to meals out. However, even I couldn’t believe my luck when a couple of months ago I got a notification to tell me I’d won an actual mini break!

As part of the prize I got a three night complimentary stay at a hotel called The Petwood, including breakfast everyday, afternoon tea, dinner AND toys for Sienna. Now I’m not going to lie, again due to the large amount of completions I enter, I couldn’t actually remember this competition and at first was even a bit sceptical if it was legit! Thankfully, after a bit of googling, everything tallied up and all I had to do was pick a date to claim my prize.

As soon as Stu discovered that the hotel was located in Lincoln, he knew there was only one weekend we should go…the last game of the season which by freak luck was against Lincoln – yay (I know this is just text but I’m sure as you read it you can hear the sarcasm in my typing.)

Anyway, this didn’t bother me so I booked the weekend and counted down to our competition country getaway. When the day finally arrived, we decided to leave after I had taken to Sienna to ballet. This was partly so we could tire Sienna out for the car journey and partly so Stu could pack the car up without me and a lively toddler running around.

To our delight, this proved to be a sensible move as Sienna literally slept for nearly three hours until we got to Peterborough service station. Here we had a quick pit stop and with a tummy full of nuggets, she happily watched Shaun the Sheep for the final leg of the journey.

Arriving at the hotel, we were pleased / relieved to see just how beautiful the Petwood was. A country driveway took us to a beautiful, historic Manor House where we were greeted by a team of friendly staff.

Congratulating us on our win, the staff then took us to our room where a delicious afternoon tea was waiting for us.

After demolishing a plate of sandwiches and cakes, we had a quick freshen up before taking Sienna for a walk around the grounds to try again and burn some of that energy she’d fuelled up on in the 3 hour nap. As we explored we discovered a cute pond with the BIGGEST koi carp I’d ever seen (apologies fish experts if these aren’t koi carp, my fish knowledge is limited to sushi so this is a guess but all you need to know is that they were big!)

Exploring done, we returned to the room where after a quick bath, Sienna actually fell asleep fairly easily in the travel cot kindly provided by the hotel.

The next day, Sienna got us up at the actually not too bad hour of 7.30. We then got ready and headed down to our first complimentary breakfast. Here, Stu and Sienna were literally in heaven, with a choice of pastries, cereals, yoghurts and most importantly…a full English breakfast- no prizes for what Stu went for.

Fuelled and ready for the day, we made our first stop at the Lincoln football club stadium (stadium visits are definitely becoming a theme of our holidays now) We then did a couple of photos to indulge Stu’s passion for football and my passion for insta content, before heading to Lincoln for some more sightseeing.

Completely unknown to me, Lincoln is beyond beautiful and has the most gorgeous cathedral which Sienna loved running around and pointing at the gargoyles (which she called turtles)

However, while it may be beautiful it is STEEP! So steep in fact we did see a lady trip and crack her head open. Luckily, the sight of this trauma was nothing a quick trip to Primarni couldn’t solve for me, made even better by the fact Stu treated to me two pairs of socks AND a pair of tights – see six years and toddler in and the romance is still very much alive!

Back at the hotel we had a very nice bar meal, prawns for me and fish and chips for Stu before another explore around the gardens. We then decided to have a little look round the surrounding Woodhall Spa, where we stumbled across a cute park and cafe where Sienna had to have an icecream (even if it felt like it was minus 10 degrees)

Day two and Sienna didn’t get up till 8 (I’m thanking the Lincoln air) so we had a slightly later breakfast before heading to a nearby softplay as the weather was let’s just say…British (aka pissing it down)

Now, any parent will know, softplay isn’t for the faint hearted ESPECIALLY on a very rainy weekend. Thankfully this softplay was actually quite nice. They had lots of different areas so there was no risk of Sienna getting stormed down by a hyper seven year old, there was a cafe with very nice coffee and it didn’t smell like nappies – win!

After a couple of hours, quad bikes, peppa pig rides and me literally nearly having a meltdown on a slide that was way higher than I thought, we’d had enough and decided to head back to the hotel. All three of us feeling just a little bit shattered, Sienna had a nice long nap whilst Stu and I recovered.

Luckily, by the time Sienna woke up, so had the sun so we had another nice explore around the grounds before having a mosy round some of the Woodhall Spa shops.

Still a bit tired from the morning antics, Sienna then went to bed in the travel cot whilst Stu and I enjoyed room service with our headphones on, heaven!- again the romance still very much alive 😂

Stu and Sienna are now both asleep (which I should be doing but I’ll probably have to watch another good few TikToks, reels and get my way through at least Daily Mail comment argument before I’ll actually go to bed!)

But I’ll finish this on a MASSIVE thank you to everyone at Petwood Hotel for not only picking me as their winner but also making us have the absolute best family weekend ever.