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Sunday 23rd February 2020

6277/19207
What the fuck? A family day out with no arguments or tantrums that left us feeling invigorated and happy? What evil wizardry is this?
It was another trip to Willows Activity Farm, which thanks to the blustery conditions was not as busy as we’d feared.
It’s an expensive day out (£70 for this family of four - though we could have got a bit of a discount if we’d booked online before midnight) but there are some high quality things to do there and it’s only half an hour from our house. I considered getting us an annual membership, but was surprised to see that that would work out at over £800. (edit - it has been pointed out to me that a family membership actually comes in at just under £600) Which would require a monthly visit  (actually about 9 visits a year) to be worthwhile (and unusually they wouldn’t even take today’s ticket price off that, which is usual practice for these things, just offer some vouchers for the shop instead).  I guess if you lived next door then this might be worth it. You could pop in for an hour of so whenever you fancied it. But  seriously £600 membership? Who is paying this? You could become a member of a private club for that. If only you hadn’t been so stupid to have kids and ruin your life.
If it was a bit over 3 times one entry ticket then I might have bitten, and I bet we’d still only have come 3 times in the year. That certainly worked for the zoo membership we have.
But having said that the kids had a fantastic time. They were obsessed with Mr Tod’s house with its slides and escape hatches and hiding places and got to go on a tractor ride, watch a show, have their photo taken with Benjamin Bunny, hold a guinea pig, go on a couple of roundabouts, drive some little trucks, so some pretend ice skating and spend a couple of hours in a massive and terrifying soft play area.  Ernie had his first taste of working for a living as he got obsessed with an area when kids at ground level could send up lego bricks on a conveyor belt to a higher level and kids on then higher level could then run across and drop them down a tube to the lower level, so the process could happen all over again. Not since Penguin Run has the futility of life been so neatly expressed through play.
I guided Ernie round the vertiginous bigger soft play area, where there was not only challenging jumps and climbs for an adult, but some excitingly dangerous drops and slides that started vertically. It was the greatest. I bet it’s a horror show when the place is packed though.
During the visit I got an email confirming that I’ve landed another very exciting guest/guests for RHLSTP. The news went out to the badgers this evening and the tickets predictably sold out within a couple of hours (though there are about 60 out with agencies which will go up on Monday morning).
Getting advanced warning of guests is only one of the many benefits of being a monthly badger. I never anticipated that it would be one of the main ones.
Alternatively just buy tickets to all the podcasts as soon as they go on sale. The guests are always good. Stop goal-hanging.
The Birmingham RHLSTP has now sold out too. Look at the tour list. It’s getting like you can’t just turn up to a Richard Herring gig and buy tickets on the door any more. And they say progress is a good thing.

2020 is really starting phenomenally well for me. I think I might have been in a terrible accident in January and what I am experiencing is a reassuring dream created by my dying brain. I mean, come on - a family day out which was harmonious throughout? Clearly didn’t happen.


I may finally be a success and all it has taken is years and years and years of hard work and failure.

Don't worry. I am sure I will contrive to fuck it up.



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