Argentina

I’ve had a plan for our pretend visit to Argentina in my head for AGES but I needed one more special something. A chance remark from my best friend about some horses you could visit at the edge of our town clicked the final part of the adventure into place!

Dulce de Leche

My kids love cooking and baking. They both enjoy it so much, so I looked for a simple and fun recipe which was a bit different to anything they had tried before. Dulce de Leche is a South American dipping sauce and some say it originated in Argentina. When I looked up how to make it I literally couldn’t believe how easy it was – its just baked condensed milk. I followed this recipe but honestly it would be hard to mess it up (mine went lumpy so I used my soup food processor and it was perfect.)

It was so good! I served it with fruit and marshmallows like a chocolate dip and we all really enjoyed it (to be fair Freddie just ate the fruit but he hasn’t got a sweet tooth). Would I make this again? Yes I would – it would be amazing on icecream.

Horses

I have always associated Argentina with horses – racing and polo and vast farms. My friend had told me that you could go and see some horses at the end the edge of our small town. I though we would be seeing them in the field from a distance – I didn’t realise they roamed around a piece of public land and you could pet them. It was genuinely brilliant and as this pretend visit is during lock-down it was so exciting to do something different. Every bodies favourite horse was the friendly black one but the white horses was so beautiful – it looked like a mythical beast.

Now, if you don’t live near any horses, and lock-down is over when you read this, you could call a riding school for a family taster lesson (which had been my original plan). Or later on in the blog I’ll show you how we played polo with no real horses at all.

When we got home we were quite tired, Penny loves colouring and I was really pleased to find this flag colouring activity for free on the Crayola site. I assume they must have lots of countries on there and so I will definitely be printing more off in the future. We also listened to some Spanish songs. I was going to do some simple Spanish worksheets but Penny has been learning Spanish at school and I didn’t want her to feel like she was being home-schooled at the weekend. It’s a good idea if this isn’t the case though and there is some great stuff on Twinkl.

Polo

I have never played or watched polo, though I have a vague knowledge of it through the movie Pretty Woman and seeing photos of Prince William. As far as we could see you need a mallet, a horse and a ball. We used our hobby horses, a kids croquet set which my uncle bought me well over 30 years ago and a big soft ball to prevent injuries. It was loads of fun. I’m not sure if there were any rules. I’m not sure if anyone won and I’m amazed Freddie didn’t kill anyone with his mallet – swinging it wildly round his head. I think we probably got Polo about right.

Please note that Freddie (and Mark) are in Polo Shirts (it’s all about the detail).

Steak and wine

I can’t remember the last time I had a good steak. Mark cooked them to perfection and the Argentinian Malbec was absolutely delicious. Freddie was unimpressed with the steak to be honest and I had to use bribery to get Penny to eat hers but I didn’t care because I absolutely loved it. With the restaurants shut it felt extra special to have something special. I’m buying a case of that wine too! Please note Freddie eating broccoli – I am unbearably smug about this.

We eat every meal together and one of my rules has always been having dinner or supper as a family; on very special occasions like this we go to the dining room. While eating there, we got the iPad and watched Argentine tangos. This was my favourite.

Evita

Evita is one of my favourite musicals, but if I’m honest I didn’t really expect Penny (who is six) to make it past the first scene. I did have to explain quite a lot (the flashbacks confused her so much) but she really liked it and watched it almost to the end. She then watched the end the next day because she wanted to ‘see how she died’. It’s currently free on Sky Cinema and in my opinion worth a watch even if you aren’t in pretend Argentina. Madonna was good – I had forgotten.

Brazil last weekend got me back into pretend travelling but Argentina this weekend reminded me why I love it so much. The horses, the steak, the movie… all things we would have missed out on and all wonderful memories for life.