A Cultured Saturday

As a rule, Saturdays are fairly routine.

Saturdays generally start with me and my son chilling out for a couple of hours with a leisurely breakfast, then we'll hit up a local soft play centre (as blogged about a number of times in the past), to be followed by lunch, some homework and general housework, tea, and then relaxing in the evening with a couple of beers.

Today, however, I decided that it would be different.

Today - we did culture!

After breakfast we went and picked up a parcel from the Royal Mail sorting office (which turned out to be an Assassins Creed style hoodie that's too small), and then we went in one of the local museums.  I haven't visited any of the local museums for years, and I forgot just how good they are, it's astounding really that you can go in all these places for free.  We ventured into a rail line signal box, briefly sat on a train carriage (slightly worryingly my son went off to sit with another father and son, but he didn't ask them to call the police or anything so that's okay), watched an old TV show and looked at lots of antique cars and hansom cabs and things.

Afterwards I got told the story of the three little pigs, and later on cooked some peppers stuffed with rice, cheese, steak, mushrooms, and onions.

Tomorrow, god willing, it'll be catching up on homework, that said I am attempting to ward off a chest infection through the use of beer, and early indications are that it isn't proving 100% effective.  Stay tuned.

Soft Play

There is a certain incongruity when it comes to soft play centres. They are inevitably located on an industrial estate, housed within a corrugated metal shed which is typically between R J Gubbit & Sons aluminium widget manufacturing, and a waste disposal site specialising in storage of some sort of harmful substance (anthrax perhaps).

After paying to get inside (the price is dependent on the number of people entering, including adults, even though I have no intention of doing anything more energetic than unlocking my phone), you then suffer the price of refreshments. Entry, two wedges of additive-loaded cake, a fruit shoot, a ham sandwich that must have cost all of five pence to make, and a bottle of chilled water that never materialised cost a touch off seventeen pounds. After spending so much I needed a sit down. And of course a slice of cake, coloured like something you might observe in a nuclear power facility.

And yet, the sit down didn't last. The theory about these places is fine - they should be a safe, confined area for your little ones to run around and play, whilst exercising their hand-eye coordination and social skills while you get a few minutes of peace and quiet to de-stress and ruminate on everyday life (or kick the ass of "ClanChowder79" on Clash of Clans)

But that doesn't last. Unless you're fortunate enough to have the entire soft play centre to yourself (and my offspring is strangely reluctant to go at 11pm), you find yourself constantly concerned with:
A) Is any little b*******s hitting my kid, or;
B) Has my little darling found the understandable need to beat the hell out of another child (perhaps because they've got a plastic ball of a certain colour that your child needs to have - NO, NOT THE ORANGE ONE DADDY, THE PURPLE ONE!!!)

But the difference between soft play and a park is that in a park, you can actually reach the children. If your child needs adult intervention then in a park you grab them, remove them from whatever swing or slide or bouncy thing they are on, and sort things out.

In soft play however they are contained within some sort of mesh curtain, and the only way to get to them is to wriggle your way round the brightly coloured assault course that is designed for children (and so is far too small for you). The result of this is that you are not going to catch them, no matter how many slides you go down or ball pools you swim through.

Soft play is usually broken down into several sections for different ages, and rest assured that your child won't be in the one they should be - either they want to go on the biggest slide (until they get to the top and begin to cry, forcing you to tackle the route through the foam maze to rescue them), or they're in the section reserved for babies, because it makes a lot more sense to throw plastic balls at babies - after all, they can't fight back.

When you've finally, after about seven minutes, been through the Soft play area for a fifth time to pick your little darling up, you may be ready to go home.

Some people say rocket science or brain surgery are tricky - no, I think you'll find that catching a child in a soft play centre that doesn't want to be caught is the hardest task in the world.

Not only do you have to catch your child, a little human who has spent their entire life learning how to slip from your grasp, and is in an environment which makes you feel as though you're a Gulliver in a particularly strange jungle constructed from plastic and foam. Should the amazing actually happen and you do actually manage to get them you then need to get their shoes and coat on while holding them in a grip of iron to stop them escaping.

Meanwhile of course you are putting on a smiley face and a cheerful tone of voice so you seem like a cool parent who thinks its fun to get poked in the eye by a child being removed from a place where they can run, shout, jump, hit other children, and cry, without recrimination.

Still, at least it's not the supermarket.

I am apparently beginning a tradition of once a year, in January, blogging about soft play centres. Why not check out last years post?

Soft Play Adventures

I sometimes go to soft play centres.

Not, I hasten to say, by myself.  No, not at all, I take my son, mainly in an attempt to drain his seemingly endless levels of energy, so that perhaps later that day, for a minute or two, he might sit still instead of climbing onto my shoulders and attempting to yank my head clean off my neck.

If you haven't been to a soft play centre, it's basically a huge carpeted industrial unit full of padded scaffolding with slides and things that kids can climb up, slide down, plastic balls to throw, and essentially create various opportunities for them to hurt each other.  It's like a cheerful version of Gladiators.

Now when you get there, rule number one is SHOES ARE THE ENEMY.  No shoes.  You get in there, you pay your money, and you pin your child to the ground - who has spotted a multicoloured slide and now has a burning ambition to throw balls up it - to allow you to remove their shoes so that they can be released like a greyhound after a plastic rabbit.

You might entertain thoughts that the soft play centre could even be a place to relax.  There's a very nice cafe.  You can order sandwiches, or pizza, or cake, drinks (even beer).  Perhaps you take a newspaper in, and just glance every few seconds to see which child your child is terrorising (or to shout at any kids terrorising yours).

But no.

At some point, you will have to enter the happy scaffolding maze of doom, because your child will decide that:
a) They don't want to leave (and it's time to go),
b) They are tired and have gone to sleep somewhere in the structure, or
c) They are crying because they've been hit in the face by a swinging foam weight and need a hug.

You're acutely aware that you're too old to go in the structure. "UNDER SEVENS ONLY" the sign states and you attempt to perform various manoeuvres a gymnast would think twice about carrying out, in an effort to reach the distant location of your child.

You're probably readjusting your clothing as it rides up/down, unaccustomed to the strains that you're placing upon it.  If you're me, there's a fair chance that your socks have one, or more, unwanted holes in, clearly showing yourself to all to be an unfit parent.  And there is a significant chance that you'll get somewhere close to your child, only to discover a plastic mesh wall between you, and you have to double back to find another route.

Eventually, you get there, aching and tired - how do kids run around these things more than once? - and your son will sit up, smile at you, and run off, forcing you to go down the big slide by yourself, pretending to maintain your dignity while secretly enjoying the brief return to childhood.

And while other children throw plastic balls at you.

I love going to soft play.

PS - Thank you to everyone who has viewed this blog, we've passed the 600,000 view mark which is awesome indeed!