In my opinion you have to be completely mad or very desperate to visit a play barn on a wet day. A play barn is my universal term for children’s soft play centres, which range from a few bits of plastic-covered foam in the corner of a cafe right through to the 100 acre site we visited today. Most of the rest of the time they’re great places to go but on a wet day they are jammed full of hyper children, bedraggled parents, spilt drinks, and squashed chips.
Today we were desperate and possibly mad. Our friends have joined us in Devon and our plans for the beach had been severely curtailed by pouring rain and fiercely dark skies. I never fully knew the meaning of the phrase “climbing the walls” until I became a mother. At a loss as to what to do with an energetic nearly two-year old and Little Owl we headed to Crealy.
Crealy is a play barn on an inter-galatic scale. It is packed full of ball pools, slides, cargo nets, animals to pet, children’s entertainers and cafes. Even so it was full to the rafters of other desperate parents and their off-spring. Little Owl and our friends’ little boy thought they had arrived in paradise and had a marvellous time. I got to read the paper and Big Dreamer had the ideal excuse to jump head first down every slide he could find. Not a bad turn of events.
Big dreamer never changes, always looking for the adrenalin rush, hope Little Owl kept an eye on him!!