Playing Tarzan in Bradford on Avon

It’s taken me a while to get round to writing this. Partly because I’ve been a miserable bugger of late. Partly because I question the level of interest in my weekend antics, and partly because I’ve been busy keeping my head down, and generally getting on people’s nerves. And partly because I’ve been feeling fairly shit.

So amid all this uncertainty and chaos, it was nice to see my old uni friends in Bradford on Avon for a gorgeous sunny October weekend early this month – all of whom have sprogged or are sprogging in the interim since last we met. This required a change of mindset from always being the only parent in the room to suddenly being surrounded by other people’s kids, my own being exceptionally well-behaved and grownup seeming, if slightly bored by being suddenly surrounded by babies.

It’s always a slightly awkward proposition, putting children of different ages together, but with an age range from 10 to new born, the kids actually got on okay, especially when video games were introduced for oldies at a latter stage of the day. In fact, it was probably easier for the small people than it was for the adults – something I’ve always struggled with is negotiating relationships when someone is going through what I went through a long time ago. Sometimes, this is tainted by a sense that they were not so understanding when I was going through it. Sometimes, this is obstructed by the minefield of offloading and advice, which is par for the course, but always feels as if I’ve overstepped the line, or leaves me as feeling as though my experiences  are irrelevent. Of course, new parents must go about things their own way, but it is hard to reign in the perspective I feel looking back, particularly given the challenges we had with Jonah. And, yes, nostalgia too, though not without a sense of relief that I’m not still in the trenches of early parenthood anymore.

It was a good two and a half hours’ drive from London, and having ran the dog, and refused to make a meal out of Saturday morning, we were of course late to arrive to the restaurant, The Fat Fowl in Bradford on Avon’s picturesque canal crossing high street. I know what’s it’s like to be the new parent making every effort to be on time, so I felt a bit ashamed that everyone else had managed to make the 12.30 booking, which, with hindsight probably was a bit ambitious on a Saturday morning, but then, we were the only ones coming from East London, and so had furthest to come.

We were eating in The Roost, a family dining area upstairs catering to younger children, but, having been banned from devices for at least the first half of the afternoon, our kids got stuck into the ball pit and the Stickle bricks (or trendy modern day equivalent) with reasonable gusto, as well as the food (Ava had mac and cheese, Jonah, fish and chips) which was well received.

Tom and I had fish too, mine grilled, his fried, both very tasty, with a few G and Ts to wash it down, before the babies – many of whom I’ve not met before – got a bit clucky, so we went for a stroll amid the gorgeous sun along the canal to a little play park where the older kids ran off steam, and newer mums fed and chatted – and yeah, offloaded, while I did my best to be super enthusiastic, and not at all helpful.

Hazy, and ready for another drink, we all piled round to the house of my friend who lived in the area, who trained as a vet, but became an electrician, where they put on a spread of cheese, quiche and homemade pavlova, while we drank tea, wine and gave in to the kids demands for biscuits and Minecraft.

We left after several glasses of red wine, but before I could say anything offensive, or ill thought through, and headed to a charming log cabin we found on Air bnb in the extensive grounds of someone’s wooded garden, where we spent a very pleasant and well catered for evening, complete with air hockey table, massive telly, and plentiful biscuits, tea, coffee, bread, and jam, which left us rather sugar fuelled in the morning, for the, erm, on site zip wire, which we all enjoyed in the misty early October morning.

It was the perfect day for a trip to Longleat Safari Park, nearby, which after yesterday’s long drive and adult-centric occasion, seemed the perfect antidote, forgetting of course, that much of the park is enjoyed from the comfort of your vehicle, which, having got stuck in the lion enclosure for 45 minutes, meant we were keen to stretch our legs again afterwards in the warm autumn sun. Of course, the lions themselves were sleeping, but the monkeys, naturally, provided plenty of entertainment, pulling of bits of people’s car aerials and sun roof sealant, leaping from dashboard to dashboard on a destructive mission, just has they had when I visited the park in the 80s with mum and her transient boyfriend Jim.

The park itself has plenty of other entertainment on offer, as well as the animals, which seemed happy enough in their enclosures, even the grumpy, aged gorilla who has his own island, and the two lake dwelling hippos, who resolutely kept their heads under water, while seals flocked around the boatloads of tourists hoping to catch fish, like pug-faced mermaids. Both my kids love a maze, and Longleat’s is splendid, while the Deadly Adventure challenge was right up Jonah’s street. I made the mistake of treating the kids to cuddly animals from the gift shop that I planned to give them at Christmas, which meant they bugged me for the remainder of the afternoon as to what was in my shopping bag, and I gave in at the end of the day when we enjoyed tea and cake at the summer house tea room, exhausted and contemplating the long drive back to London.

And for all it had been a really lovely day out, Jonah thrilled with his lion and Ava her penguin, the black dog which had inexplicably followed me round all day (no doubt encouraged by my hangover) tailed us home, and I’ve not been able to shake him off since.