This last week, I’ve been down in Bristol for a few days… to do a bit of child-minding! I’d offered to Ali to help out if she needed someone to look after her kids anytime during the school summer holidays, and it turned out that there were a couple of days towards the end of August where she had to work but couldn’t get them into a holiday club, so I took up the challenge of keeping them entertained!
I took a coach from Manchester on Monday morning – often I’ve taken the train down to Bristol, but it’s not that cheap, and it saved me a fair bit taking the coach option, and even with some bad traffic on the M6, I only arrived 10 minutes late.
We all just chilled out on the evening, but the next day, I headed off with the kids to the seaside! It was a bit drizzly as we walked to the station, but we were all in t-shirts without coats with the expectation that the weather would be better later on! Luckily it was, and we arrived in Weston-Super-Mare with blue skies and bright sunshine!
The kids at Weston-Super-Mare’s Grand Pier.
The walk from the station to the seafront (with the help of Google Maps on my phone!) was pretty straightforward, and we went onto the beach right away, so I could buy myself a coffee, and the kids could do a bit of digging in the sand! Then it was over to the Grand Pier, where I bought us a big bag of fresh donuts for us all to attack during the day, and got the kids wristbands so they could go on all the rides at the end of the pier.
They got through a lot of 2ps!
They had loads of fun on the rides, and the queues weren’t too bad so they were generally able to go on things multiple times without much of a wait. But it’s fair to say the thing they were most obsessed with was the 2p sliding coin machines! I get it – when I was a kid, it was the thing I did most at the arcade when on holiday, but you’re never going to win big on it! They got through their own small amount of cash pretty quickly (they’d already each totally wasted a go on a prize grabber machine, with the obligatory weak claw), so I ended up topping up their cups of 2ps with quite a bit of cash from multiple visits to the nearby change machine!
Taking time to reflect with the kids.
We went back to the main seafront to get lunch – and when you’re at the seaside, you’ve got to have fish and chips! Well, I had fish, but the kids had sausage and chips, and it was pretty good! We decided to eat inside so we wouldn’t have to deal with seagulls trying to steal our chips, and it was nice to have a brief sit down!
Chippy lunch!
Then we went back to the beach – I’ve only ever been to Weston-Super-Mare once before, when I was a kid, but I do remember that the sea goes out a very long way! So there was no chance of any paddling, but I bought the kids some spades so they could do some serious digging in the sand! It was really warm, so I got us all some slushy drinks (which melted pretty quickly!), but it was also quite windy, so had to try and create a barrier with my backpack so that the drinks wouldn’t blow over!
The kids playing on the sand.
Whilst we were on the beach, D suddenly realised that he’d left his wallet on the pier! He’d given it to the person operating the Dodgems because you can’t have anything loose on you, but he’d forgotten to collect it afterwards. I think he was more bothered about losing the wallet itself rather than anything in it, but I was pretty sure we’d be able to get it back so he was fine and they went back to their big construction project!
We then went back to the pier for the rest of the afternoon, and as I’d thought, we were able to get the wallet back pretty easily! After going on a load more rides we eventually made our way back home, stopping off to buy them a stick of rock each, before heading back to the station for our train back to Bristol.
The next day Ali had to work in the morning, so I took both kids to a bouldering centre where they could do a bit of indoor climbing.
The kids showing off their bouldering skills.
They were actually pretty decent at it – I don’t think it’s actually that easy to do really. They originally tried to climb in their own trainers, but they were struggling to get a decent grip, so I ended up hiring them some bouldering trainers (which I’m not convinced were that much different, but I think in their minds they thought it made it easier!!)
I was worried that they’d get bored pretty quickly with it, and some of the walls were set up to be much more difficult that their level, as well as part of the space was closed for some reason, so there were only a few of the walls that they were really able to climb, but we managed to drag it out for a good couple of hours!
D climbing the wall.
Then I took them to a nearby park to play at to keep them out until Ali was done with work at 1 o’clock. There was a slight melt-down moment at one point when the kids had a argument about who was playing the part of Indiana Jones in a pretend train ride (we’d all been watching Indiana Jones films the past 2 nights on Disney+!), but luckily that soon resolved itself and all was good ahead of taking them home!
Me and D having fun on the swings!
My coach back to Manchester was at 3 o’clock, and I finally got back home just after 8pm, so it felt like I’d been on a proper trip! I had a really fun time looking after both kids, and I think they had a lot of fun too! It made me appreciate a bit how difficult it is to keep them entertained (and pricey!), especially during school holidays… luckily, I only had to do it for a couple of days, although I do love spending time with them!
As it turns out, I’ll be getting to see them again next week for a few days, but more about that in a future post!