Fruit Picking at Brockbushes but where's the Maize Maze?

So it's halfway through the summer holidays and we've managed to squeeze in a few adventures, on Friday we went to Brockbushes which is just outside of Corbridge in Northumberland for fruit picking fun and we also hoped that this years Maize Maze would be ready as we really enjoyed it last year, sadly there's no Maize Maze this year, I suspect it's because of the weather, I think a lot of Maize Mazes have suffered, if you are desperate to find one I do know that there's one made in the shape of the sinking titantic, the Alnwick Maize Maze is the only local north east one I can find though, we were due to go last week but as we approached torrential rains and horrific thunder and lightening stopped us from getting anywhere near to it.

Back to the fruit picking, I've always loved Brockbushes, it's got a lovely family feel to it, a superb tea room and an excellent farm shop selling local produce.  I left my camera at home for a change so all of the images are Instagrams, I think I've mentioned before how I love Instagram, I know that some people knock it but for me it proves that the best camera is the one you have with you at the time!

The kids and hubby all love fruit picking, probably because they eat lots of it on the way around.  Just as an FYI Brockbushes charge £1 per person admission and a £1 deposit on each basket but you get that back at the end and I don't think you can blame them for charging admission when most people eat the fruit on their way around!

Loobys favourite fruits are raspberries so we collected tons of the blooming things before we moved on to the Strawberry Fields

passing some friendly fellows along the way

I love picking strawberries, I think it's the foraging and then being rewarded with huge red jewels, there's nothing quite so pretty as a juicy red strawberry

before too long we'd collected a massive amount of strawberries and when we checked them out we'd spent £12 on Strawberries and Raspberries, I quickly decided that we'd make an enormous pavlova and some strawberry and raspberry jam

I've already given a couple of jars away and have reports that it's very good indeed!

So my top fruit picking with the family tips are - 

1, Wear comfy shoes or wellies, this is not the place for high heels

2, expect to eat lots of fresh fruit

3. remember when you have huge baskets of fruit that you will need to use them within a couple of days

4. you could take a picnic, there are grassy areas, I saw some families with picnics and it'd definitely somewhere you could spend at least half a day

5.  you can buy jam jars and everything you need to make jam with at Brockbushes which is handy!