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.
Play
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.
Coronavirus is weird. Like literally someone in China ate a bat last winter and six months later we’re driving to Enfield to play jumped-up crazy golf.
