Mum isn’t a fan, Dad loves it — even Grandad had a go
LAOISE DOHERTY, 20, is studying computer science at university, and lives with her parents and her four siblings, aged 21, 18, 17 and 15. Laoise says:
THE oldest person ever to go down our indoor slide was my grandad six years ago when he was 78, and we still laugh about it now.
We’d just moved into the house and were upstairs showing it to him, but we didn’t expect him to actually get on and have a go.
Suddenly, he just zoomed off. When he got to the bottom, even Grandad said: ‘Oh, I don’t think I should have done that!’ He scared himself a bit, but secretly enjoyed it at the same time.
Dad’s a big kid, too, and it was his idea to have a slide when we had the house built. There’s also a zip wire in the garden, a cinema room and an amphitheatre-style basketball court.
Originally, he wanted a fireman’s pole inside, but Mum thought that it might be a bit dangerous.
When Dad suggested a slide, we were over the moon and our architect Des Ewing, whose office is in Holywood, Co Down, incorporated one into the design for us. It cost around €6,000 and was made from steel by a local engineering company. We went along with Des to see it being constructed.
The top is on the landing by the kids’ bedrooms and it takes us down to the kitchen in seconds. It’s partially hidden behind a kitchen wall because Mum wanted an element of mystique when people shoot off the bottom.
It’s 65cm wide, 3.5m high and 5m long and, when we moved in, it looked scarily steep. Mum still isn’t a fan, but Dad’s often on it and joined us in sliding down on our duvets to go faster.
You’re meant to land on your feet, but one of Mum’s friends was wearing shiny leggings that made her slide so quickly that she ended in a heap at the bottom.
At one party, my sister’s friend had the time of her life going up and down, but by the end she was limping round with a swollen ankle.
Now, whenever I’m meeting new people at university, the first thing my friends say to them is: ‘You have to go to Laoise’s house because they’ve got a slide indoors!’