19c Mostly Cloudy
Barmouth Viaduct at Sunset 
Llanberis from Penllyn 
Morfa Bychan beach near Porthmadog 
IN a break between showers, we settled the twins into their comfy padded child seats in the car and headed along the A55 towards St Asaph. We were planning on having a change of scene by way of a meal out at The Chestnut Tree or its partner, Jellybeans Playrestaurant - all at the Talardy complex.
It's just off the A55 at Junction 27 at its roundabout with the A525 in St Asaph, where my wife used to work in the NatWest bank before becoming a teacher.
We'd never been inside before but had heard good things about Jellybeans. Sure enough, there was an indoor enclosed adventure playground with cushioned platforms, and a slide bottoming out into a maelstrom of coloured balls - all surrounded by netting. Great fun.
Unfortunately, this play area seemed to be bossed by a posse of boisterous boys. Our little ones - Cerys and Osian - are only 19 months old and a fair bit younger than these lively three or four-year-olds. One was hurtling round, dressed in a Spiderman costume, others carried swords or sabres or something. So we thought, 'Let's come back when they're slightly older.'
Undaunted, however, we walked round to The Chestnut Tree for an early lunch. A recent finalist in the UK Family Pub of The Year, it's got an earthy feel with wooden, whicker-based chairs around farmhouse-style tables. And, on the walls, were huge spades and agricultural implements, the kind of tools used in this rural area before mechanisation.
The staff were helpful finding red and yellow moulded high chairs and we were handed farm life colouring kits with join the dots and spot the difference between two pictures of milking cows, which was a nice touch
The kiddies' menu looked good and it was the same as the one in the neighbouring Jellybeans' restaurant. Our obliging waiter knocked down the kiddies' meal price from £7.95 to £4.95 because we didn't go inside Jellybeans.
We opted for chicken dippers with tomato sauce and little margherita pizzas and chips, with a side order of carrots, broccoli and sweetcorn. The children loved the tomato sauce regardless of the veg.
The meal also included blackcurrant juice which the kids liked, especially as they've just been introduced to The Straw.
Not sure whether you can guzzle a drink through a straw but they had a good try.
Wife Glen chose curry of the day, a generous-sized chicken balti. It came with rice, naan bread and mango chutney. She loved it, especially the sultanas which gave it a sweeter flavour.
I noticed on the specials board there was pan fried shark steak, with chilli mussels, dressed salad and sautéed potatoes, which sounded interesting
However, I went for chicken fajitas - succulent strips of poultry with slivers of red, green and yellow peppers and onions on a 'sizzling platter', with flour tortillas and dips. It was so sizzling, in fact, it seemed to have a life of its own, hissing away for quite a while. The dips in white ceramic tubs were mayonnaise, salsa and guacamole. Osian wasn't sure about the guacamole - not even his mum had tried that before. But it was delicious.
For dessert, the twins devoured vanilla ice cream in red and yellow plastic bowls. When he'd finished, hungry Osian refused to accept the sad truth and had to be restrained from using his spoon to burrow in the direction of Australia.
As for me, I went for the waffles and white chocolate ice cream, a sliced strawberry and butterscotch sauce. It was sprinkled with white powder, which may have been icing sugar, or flour. The whole thing was fairly tasty. Glen just had a cappuccino.
From a family point of view, the nappy changing room was up to scratch, if you weren't too dazzled by the vivid, 70s style retro wall tiles.
We'd felt it was good to go early on a Saturday lunchtime as crowds and noise can add to the stress of a trip out with young children. Fortunately it was quiet and it was fairly relaxing feeding the children while listening to Natalie Imbruglia sing Torn, and other songs, on the PA system.
And, in between times, the children were kept happy with the crayons and colouring sheets.
They had a, shall we say, enthusiastic go at colouring in a picture of a cockerel. Funnily enough, we'd just been teaching them to say cock-a-doodle-do.
01745 584 957
The Roe,
St Asaph,
Denbighshire,
North Wales,
LL17 OHY
