It’s strange for the LWAT family to have aSaturday afternoon with nothing planned and nowhere to be, but last Saturday was one of those afternoons. I called the kids over to the laptop and excitedly told them all the things we could do. I knew the Find Your London festival had loads to offer so we could do that! Something cultural and vaguely arty! Or there was a new soft play opened in the Costa in Chingford….”SOFTPLAYSOFTPLAYSOFTPLAY” they both said. So, that was decided. Happily, we could do a small bit of both as there was a Find Your London event taking place right pretty much opposite our house. We have a new piece of wall art emerging…
Can you tell what it is yet? I’ll give you a clue…there are a lot of them in Eva’s room. And it’s not a princess.
Culture – done! Next stop, coffee. There are certain advantages to a soft play being inside a Costa. And also certain advantages in seating all the kids together on a separate table. It was almost like having a civilised cup of coffee. Almost.
The soft play section is at the back, in a separate room but it seems fine to take coffee through with you. Which is good, because you often need a coffee at soft play. This one is pretty small, which means you can sit back and relax a bit because even delicate flowers like Eva and Bunny would struggle to get stuck on this and require help. Eva was wearing a giant princess dress, which slightly impeded her climbing but she still managed it all without any intervention.
I wish I could say the same about Roo. Sadly though, he required a fair bit of intervention. The area was a bit young for him (something I hate to say but it’s probably true) and he was forever pushing the boundaries by climbing on the walls or trying to ride the baby-ring down the slide. So, I set him a project. Around the floor – and clinging to the hem of Eva’s dress – were velcro letters. That could entertain a literate boy for a bit! And it did…
Good improvisation on the “A”s there. He wasn’t bored at all, I was just aware that he was close to squishing babies as he demonstrated his forward rolls and he was possibly a bad influence on some of the less stable toddlers who might decide to follow him onto the gingerbread roof.
For the nearly-4-year-olds though, it was a good size. A little slide that neither of them were too scared to go on, and a special little den with a disco floor:
And then they went to the library over the road and read a book about “Best Friends”. Awwwww….
So, a nice addition to the Chingford toddler scene but probably not one for the wilder older kids. More info here.
