Indoor play centres: Love them or hate them?
Groggy and hung over from lack of sleep I trundled into the local indoor play centre this morning to meet a friend and let the kids be wild for a few hours. Plonking down on the nearest table that hadn’t been taken over by handbags, I took our shoes off and in HORROR looked at my feet.
I could not believe that in my ‘brainless’ state getting ready this morning I hurriedly put on the nearest socks I could find, and, forgetting where I was going I chose the worst, mismatched, delicate choice of art for my feet that I could ever put on show and now they were about to be displayed for two hours. Revealing my odd, quite ugly pair of socks I made a mental note to promptly go to Marks and Spencers and buy several, cool, on-trend, ‘I-don’t-care-as-long-as-they’re-all-pairs’ socks I could find. I was embarrassed.
But, Pickles thought they were great “funny socks Mummy” she said as she ran off to climb the tallest thing she could find. Now that my bravery had kicked in I meekly slithered to get a cup of tea and ran back to hide my feet back under the table. Then the crowd arrived.
Within 20 minutes there were kids everywhere, jumping, throwing, yelling…YELLING! Oh poor me I thought sitting there sipping the dark, muddy Earl Grey in my hand. Get me out of here! Then I was rescued. My girlfriend turned up, unleasehed her two climbers and promptly sat, almost as exhausted as me, at the table.
Suddenly the volume seemed to go up and the noise inside the centre was getting louder. There were kids running around with green dripping from their nose’s and coughing and I all I wanted to do was get up and run home. But, in reality, Pickles loves it here…
And, I will be honest…
Indoor play centres, you either love them or hate hate them but at the end of the day, when Pickles is safe and happy playing and I can sit and drink several cups of tea and gassbag, I don’t care where I am!!
Jay