What colourful nonsense is this Friday Blog? The end of a week  when play has been at the heart of everything and soft play has been the giddiest of all the play events.

Soft play areas are vast creations of indoor multi-storey, multi-sensory ,padded, wipe clean  climbing frames for the under tens. Our visit yesterday was to a Cornish Copper Mine themed one. Earlier in the week we were in soft-play Steam Train world.

Nothing about these places is subtle. They are loud, brash, palaces of pleasure and excitement. Adults use the crazy plastic construction in order to supervise their small people, but clambering and climbing over brightly coloured, soft shapes, with very little chance of physical harm is such a fun thing to do, it surprises me no-one has ever built one of these things to adult proportions.

Over-enthusiasm on my part has led to minor injuries in the past. Grown-up backs and knees complain mightily the next day. I kid myself that it is because everything is a little too small and awkward for me, but the truth is, I have circled the sun many more times than the under tens for which a soft-play zone is designed and I am not as pliable as I once was.

https://www.morwellham-quay.co.uk/miners-adventure-play

A well stocked cafe with good quality coffee and snackage soothed my aches and dried me off after a quite different sensory experience. Working Wi-Fi would  have been advantageous, just for five minutes, for a brief phone call. Miners Play is in an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and no phone signal. Staff were very helpful in pointing out the exact spot where a signal could sometimes be found in the middle of an outdoor field. Twenty minutes in the rain found me a signal,and with calls done I returned to coffee, a bacon sandwich and somewhat ironically working Wi-Fi.

Admin done I returned damply to my family. Still adventuring wildly,there was still an hour to go in our session. Small sweaty hands pulled me to enjoy their moments of triumphant clambering. Small sweaty hands. Nothing better