Not so soft play

On Tuesday Jack and I decided that a change in routine was called for. Alice, who works with S, had told him about a kids indoor play area here in the village (they call it soft play in the UK) called BIG SPACE. Alice even printed out a map which S gave to me and I promptly lost. We had planned on going on Sunday with Jamie, Alison and Caitlin but Jack was way too tired.
After spending some time cooped up due to the rain I thought it was time for a treat. We set out in what I hoped was the right direction (I used to think my sense of direction was good but I think I should now go in the opposite direction that my instincts tell me). I saw a friendly postie and asked him directions but it was his first day on the job. How did he know where to take the mail?
We found it quite easily after all. We just followed the Range Rovers and sound of a million screaming children. You see it's school holidays here. Oh dear.
It was good fun though. There was lots of padding on everything (wonder if it is possible to have a whole house like this?) and what I initially thought was an unusual colour scheme, lots of purple, carpets, chairs etc but then I saw all the little cartons of ribena and realised someone was very smart.
The toddlers had a special area with lots of balls and lots of padding, 2 ball pools, lots of mirrors (which got a real workout though the one at the top of the slide was very distracting), a slide and a funny thing that blew air and then you float balls on the air. Are you with me? Should 've taken a photo.
Hard to though when your child is climbing over the top of the other kids to get to the slide and then trying to run down the slide. Too slow? Jack will piggyback you on the slide to give you some gentle encouragement to GET OUT OF THE WAY.Very funny. I had to leap over parents to get to the slide to catch Jack before he hurled himself into the air. After awhile this got boring so Jack leapt the kiddy fence and headed to the big kids area. There was a race track with these little cars that I know he really wanted to go on but was just a tad small. I was worried that Dudley Dursley might run him down. So Jack resorted to running through the gladiator type maze which was fine till I knocked him flying with a swinging cushiony thing (I was trying to hold it so it would miss him). I think we'll be going back and next time we'll take S so that one of us can man the stairs while the other can watch the slide and apologise to the parents of squashed kids.