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We somehow summoned up the energy for a full on family day. Phoebe had enjoyed riding a unicorn at that party a couple of weeks ago, so we paid for her to have a horse-riding lesson (along with about ten other kids of varying degrees of proficiency). It involved her sitting on a horse and being led in a circle in a big barn for half an hour. The highlight was the horse in front of hers doing a poo.
I was impressed by her bravery (Phoebe’s, not the pooing horse’s) and freaked out that my baby is old enough to do stuff like this now. She kept whispering something as she passed by, but I couldn’t make it out. She’d been told not to be noisy so the horse wouldn’t be startled. I thought she was telling me off for saying “Hello” and waving and distracting the horse, but it turned out she was asking us to take a photo of her on the horse. As if she had to worry about that.
We were then heading into town to watch the Incredibles 2. The lesson ended at 10.30am and that was when the film started, but we hoped we’d have enough time to drive the three miles, park up and get into the cinema before the adverts ended. We timed it to perfection. Punctuality isn’t a Herring family skill (it’s one of my skills, but as a unit we are fucking useless), so this felt like an amazing victory, even though a last minute toilet visit threatened to throw us off.
The film was fine. I thought it was a little long and Phoebe’s attention wandered a little bit, but she was captivated by (mild spoiler) the goggles that made people into baddies and I could tell we’d have a new game to play at home (and I have some Minions goggles given away with a DVD so I knew we could have fun with that).
We kept pushing onwards though, first of all going for lunch and then trying out the huge soft play/entertainment warehouse in Stevenage Leisure Centre. I found it slightly anxiety inducing as the place was so big that I had to trust that our child would come back to us, but to be fair, they had pretty tight security and though it would be easy to get lost inside, the kids couldn’t escape the premises and the paedophiles would find it hard to kidnap someone else’s child.
Phoebe was slightly too old to go on the racing cars by herself, so the highlight of my year so far was getting to go on with her and drive round the small track. I was miles better at it than all the stupid children and managed to manoeuvre round the inside and overtake all of them. I didn’t get to do stuff like this as a kid, due to the combination of being a scaredy-cat and having a protective mum (she was right to be protective - I was useless and would have killed myself if I’d so much as got on a bouncy castle). Also children’s entertainment in Leicestershire and Somerset in the 1970s had nothing like this anyway. Whoever’s fault it was (mum) the joy of finally getting to do this stuff is all the more immense. I let Phoebe have a go steering too. She might be able to ride a horse, but she has no idea about driving a tiny car. She was rubbish at it.
I guess that a lot of this day involved the adults sitting around and watching, so maybe that’s why it didn’t totally destroy us, but this was another hugely enjoyable day out with my little clan.
Maybe getting married and having kids wasn’t the biggest mistake of my life after all. I wonder what Sliding Doors Richard Herring who didn’t settle down was up to today. I bet he wasn’t driving a fucking racing car. Partly due to him having died of alcoholism and loneliness and sexually transmitted diseases.
I still envy him.
