Whitstable Castle's Scarecrow Festival and Trail set the tone for Our Kent Family's half term

My three-year-old, just like so many other toddlers her age, is fearless.

She's brave, bold, confident, opinionated and attacks everything feet first. That is until - Halloween arrived.

We've now discovered a small chink in Liv's armour in the form of skeletons, ghouls, zombies, ghosts and spiders - oh the spiders.

She is proving, for the time being, not to be a big fan.

And shopping trips, supermarket outings and even adverts on the television and radio are currently being carefully negotiated for spooky noises, scary faces or things that go bump in the daylight.

Five-year-old brothers on the constant wind-up are also, for the record, not helping.

So while Kent is packed full of some frightfully fun Halloween-themed activities we've given them a wide berth because, as those of you with small children will know, dragging around unhappy stroppy children just isn't worth it, even if the tears are over a giant soft fluffy cuddly spider that may or may not have been looking in her direction.

But it made the Scarecrow Festival and Trail running at Whitstable Castle until Sunday (October 30) look extremely attractive this week.

A fun and gentle autumnal activity in which families need to hunt out around 15 scarecrows in the castle grounds, make a note of the letters on each scarecrow and break the code on the free trail sheet in return for a sweetie prize.

The lovingly crafted scarecrows have been made by schools, nurseries, charities, companies and community groups.

Some are on a theme related to where they have come from and others are firm children's favourites - for example there is Captain America scarecrow, Minion scarecrow and no scarecrow gathering would be complete without those from Julia Donaldson's Scarecrow Wedding.

And more importantly for Olivia, while there are some Halloween decorations, they are on an extremely small scale and easily lost in the grounds and among the colourful straw people that decorate benches, gardens, paths and even tree tops.

It's a perfect outing for those not keen to join the Halloween hullabaloo.

We tackled the trail with friends, and the children aged three to eight, had a fantastic time seeking out the different scarecrows and trying to crack the code in return for the much coveted lolly at the end.

The tea rooms, fantastic play area and neighbouring Tankerton Slopes also all combine to make for a pretty perfect half term trip to the seaside where there really is no need to get your spook on.