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And I realised that nothing I could say about Prince Andrew could be as bad as what he says about himself. He needs producer Ben to put a few bleeps in for him.
Up and out early today as we tried to make the most of a rare weekend without one of us (usually me) working. Ernie was keen to see a “real tractor” (his words), so we went to
Woodside Animal Farm near Luton (again)
We don’t go quite enough times a year to justify membership, though if we lived slightly closer I might go for that as it has a good enclosed soft play area which I would take the kids to every day so I could work in the cafe as they played. It’s a real skill pitching the annual membership fee at a family. I think we’d have to all go six times in a year before it started paying off and that’s probably one or two times too many. I’d set annual membership at about 3 times the price of admission if I ran an attraction like this. That’s enough to convince families that they might get their money’s worth, but I reckon quite a lot of them would still only come twice a year, so you’d be quids in. Plus you would get more of the casual visitor who is just coming for soft play and coffee and you can harvest in all their hot drink money. Perhaps it would get too busy in the summer. Maybe they know what they are doing. But I’m out Woodside Farm. I will come five times a year and save myself a valuable £15 why just paying the entrance fee. (I may not have factored in that it’s cheaper in the winter).
Anyway although we set off half an hour later than we intended, we were still the first customers to arrive. This largely outdoor attraction might not have been top of everyone’s list on this cold November Sunday, but we were wrapped up warm and up for fun.
We looked at all the animals, had a fun round of crazy golf on the rather worn course (the whole attraction is a little worse for wear, but that adds to its charm) and then killed an hour in soft play, in which I terrified my son (and if I am honest myself) with a trip down a huge heater skelter slide where we really picked up some speed.
Then we were one of only two families to take advantage of the 11am Hands On attraction, where we got to meet and handle some of the animals at the park, a super soft chinchilla (that Ernie insisted on calling a mouse), a rat (that Ernie insisted on calling a mouse -with better reason this time as it was quite a mousy one) and a snake (that Ernie called a snake, one out of three ain’t bad). I am usually reticent to take part in stuff like this due to being a wimp, but was the first one to hold each animal and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. And the kids were brave enough to handle rodents too.
Then we had a ride on a real tractor, fed some animals with the animal feed that I’d kept in the garage since the last time I was here and used again (saving us £1.50 - up yours Ian Woodside) and we all had a lovely time, until the kids weren’t allowed to buy anything in the shop on the way out and so there were some tears, but not til practically midday. What a result.
As I’d taken the kids yesterday afternoon, it was my turn to try and catch up with work (both of us have looming deadlines and are way behind). I didn’t get too much done, but did manage an all important frame of Me1 vs Me2 Snooker. It’s frame 98 and it really is one of the worst displays of snooker yet. But a thrilling denouement all the same.
Listen here (but only if you’ve listened to the other 97 frames)
