Family fun doesn’t just happen anymore – it takes military planning
AS the glimmers of summer approach, it’s about now that you’ll probably start planning some days out with your kids.
I know I will. I learnt a long time ago that if I haven’t organised some exciting activity for every spare moment of the endless holidays, I’ll live to regret it.
I’m sure older readers will scoff at this idea. I know there was once a time when children just went off with a knapsack and piece of dry bread to make their own entertainment for 14 hours, before returning home tired but happy.
But mine is the generation hung up on the idea that it’s up to us to keep our kids occupied. We can’t help ourselves.
Top on my kids’ list of potential days out this summer is a theme park.
This is despite our last trip not being quite the magical experience it was meant to be.
We’d opted for the day partly because of an offer I’d spotted online that made the whole trip positively dirt cheap for a family of five. That is, until you’d factored in petrol, parking, ice lollies, drinks, the sun-cream we’d forgotten to bring, more ice lollies and those daft photos of everyone getting soaked on a log flume that only idiots buy (i.e. us).
I thought I’d be really organised and buy a packed lunch on the way. But – running late thanks to the usual chaos involved in trying to get three
kids to put their shoes on and get into a car – the best I could do was to run into the supermarket and grab the first items I could lay my hands on.
This amounted to two quiches, a packet of sausage rolls and a variety of other meat-based, artery clogging foodstuffs, all of which I carted round in a picnic bag, before someone inadvertently sat on it.
So we had to factor lunch into the equation too.
The rides I couldn’t fault, once we actually got on them. Because if there’s one thing 21st century kids have to get used to, it’s queuing.
Considering our children are supposed to be hyperactive, thanks to their addiction to electronic devices and computer games, they have an apparently endless capacity for standing around in line. As long as you’re prepared to accept them bickering, standing on the toe of the woman behind and asking every other minute how close they are to the front.
Still, it’s all worth it for the 15 seconds of peace you get on the rollercoaster, even if you’re upside down with someone screaming down your left ear at the time.