I’ve never quite managed to find a public soft-play centre in London that doesn’t make me want to kill myself… until now.
Play
This could so easily have been just another generic soft-play centre, but the owners have clearly put a lot of thought into making it stand out from the crowd.
I always feel slightly uncomfortable about members’ clubs and their keeping-out-the-riffraff vibes, so this felt like a nice, inclusive alternative.
I would genuinely be more inclined to go if it was called Bertie and Boo’s Dystopian Nightmare (actually, that sounds awesome).
Play cafes are the eternal saviour of the sleep-deprived adult-in-charge-of-a-small-person, but sadly the pandemic has kissed goodbye to/coughed all over a hefty chunk of our favourites.
I can’t abide an ugly soft play centre, but if it’s tastefully appointed with a muted colour palette, clean lines and the odd kitschy add-on I’ll gladly climb aboard.
Little Penguin opened back in January, in what was inarguably the worst moment to open a play cafe in the history of play cafes.
It was a not-so-lovely THIRTY-SEVEN DEGREES on the day we visited, which is literally the same temperature as a living person’s insides.
Hobbledown describes itself as an “adventure farm park”, but I feel like that almost downplays its brilliance.
They’ve been arranged in a smallish enclosure, almost like a dinosaur zoo, which makes it pretty hard to miss any and also pretty hard to lose any small children you might have with you.
