Nepal

The truth is that this day has been inspired by an incredible Nepalese restaurant just down the road from us called Da Mount Gurkha! I was beyond excited to taste their locally famous food but as I started to research Nepal – a whole incredible day took shape. So here is how to pretend to visit Nepal with kids for a theme day!

Everest

Initially I had thought that we could visit Wales to find a good substitute for Mount Everest. But at the time of writing the lockdown rules are still a little complex here so we decided to stay closer to home. The issue is that we live in the flattest place in the world (it made a great Holland last week). Luckily we have lots of sand dunes at our beach. So we picked the biggest, climbed to the top and put our New Zealand flag in it (just like Edmund Hillary).

It was a proper climb and I think only the Yak (our dog) found it easy going. We even made a base camp at the bottom and ate Kendal Mint cake when we got down. There were sand avalanches and Freddie slid off the side at one point and had to be rescued. We did go for a paddle in the sea afterwards with the kids which wasn’t very Nepal or part of the theme – but we couldn’t resist it! After all – getting your kids to enjoy nature is so important!

The Festival of Holi

I had always thought that Nepal was a Buddhist country but as I looked into it it seemed to be a combination of Buddhist and Hindu, and as such they celebrate the Hindu festival of Holi. Last year we had celebrated the Polish festival of Marzanna to welcome the spring and so another festival celebrating the start of spring seemed very fitting. Holi is about the arrival of spring, the beginning of love and sometimes, it is a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive. The fact that it was the last weekend before lockdown starts to lift made me genuinely emotional.

Holi is all about celebrating the start of spring with all the colours and joy it promises. We bought some of the special powder from Amazon (and it did wash out completely much too my genuine surprise). It was beautiful and super good fun. We were a few out for the real Holi dates (28th March) but we very much embraced the spirit of it. The Nepal theme was so fun in the garden with kids.

Flower crafting – nepal style

Because Holi celebrates the arrival of spring we decided to make some flowers. I’m doing this thing we’re I’m trying to spend less on crafting stuff we made them out of toilet rolls!

You cut the toilet roll in half and cut out the petals and then the kids simply painted them! They were the absolute perfect size for little tea lights BUT I had a wet towel next to me when I lit them and it would be far safer and more sensible to use electric tea lights. This would probably make more sense for the festival of Tihar (flowers and lights) in Nepal then Holi – but we loved it anyway.

Nepali Peda

A candy so good it’s given to the Hindu gods seemed like the perfect thing to make! The really authentic recipe involves sugar and milk but you can make it with condensed milk too. We followed this recipe as it seemed very kid friendly – but added cardamon for a more authentic Nepalese taste. The kids mixed it before and after it but I did the bit where it had to be heated up! Unfortunately I didn’t heat them for long enough and so they were too runny. So, rather than shape them we spooned them into paper cases. They were so sweet I couldn’t even eat a whole one but I’m pretty sure I got the taste right and if I ever make them again I will be sure to heat them for longer!

The best food from nePal in the world…

It’s no secret that one of my favourite things is finding restaurants in our local area which give us authentic tastes of the countries we pretend to visit. This restaurant is local to us and was serving takeaway during the U.K. lockdown. It is not an exaggeration to say that it might be the best curry I have ever eaten. We also got to try Momos which I am told is the proper Nepalese delicacy.

mog in the fog

Freddie loves the Meg and Mog books. I remembered that one of them is all about them climbing Everest, meeting a Yak and a Sherpa and drinking Nepalese Tea! So obviously that was our bedtime story to conclude our visit to Nepal. It turns out you can watch the story on YouTube too – so we did! And that’s how we used a Nepal theme with the kids.

And so that’s how to pretend to visit Nepal in a day!