For the past few years, we’ve attended south London’s biggest community festival in Brockwell Park.

Last year, LO was only a few months old so we chilled out with friends and soaked up the village atmosphere. This year LO was on the move and wanted to explore!

The show is free to enter and held every July.

Brockwell Park has good transport links and there is all-day parking for £10 near the Tulse Hill entrance (via Trinity Rise and Brockwell Park Gardens). The signage to parking could be improved so it’s worth checking a map to view the route.

The show is very family-friendly, with nine different zones featuring music, art, theatre, craft, food and animals.

The main stage sees families and couples sprawled out on the grass listening to an eclectic mix of local and national acts play Latin dub, reggae, soul and folk music.

It’s worth checking out the main arena for the country shows including flight of the falcons, dog and duck show and the hilarious camel racing. And, to support the local community, you can pick up lots of local grown produce such as plants, herbs, homemade jams and crafts.

The food hall zone provides a decent mix of cuisines. We enjoyed the tasty jerk chicken and rice with fresh cut coconut water for under £10, and LO enjoyed his home-made sandwich in the picnic area. I also noticed a breastfeeding area for mums looking for privacy to feed their baby.

Taking a toddler to the festival means you get to act like a big kid again! My LO particularly enjoyed the Vauxhall City Farm zone, meeting alpacas, ponies, ferrets and viewing the incubation station with hatching chicks.

We also had fun on the merry-go-round at the children’s funfair and watching the big kids on the slides.

There weren’t many places for LO to run wild, until we discovered the craft marquee in the cultivate zone, which was a welcome break.

In between the planned workshops, children were free to run around the wooden ‘dancefloor’ playing with balloons or participate in arts and crafts like drawing and making paper crowns.

In July 2014, Lambeth Country Show will be celebrating its 40th annual event so it’s definitely one not to be missed.

For more information, visit www.lambeth.gov.uk/Country-Show

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