…and other cheap and cheerful ways to keep the kids amused during the holidays.

Half way through the six week holidays. So far so good. But what to do for the next 3 weeks?

Out of money, out of ideas, I thought I’d jot down those day trips that the boys still talk about fondly. Things that were so good, so epic, and so awesome that it would be a shame not to do them all over again.

I was expecting tales of bonfires, of sleeping outdoors, of trips to Peppa Pig world, of frolicking in the sea. After mining my kids’ treasure trove of all-time favourite memories, what do they actually talk about constantly?

Here are the day trips that my kids would recommend you all try:

Narrowly get crushed by a falling apple tree. The kids were lucky. The swingball wasn’t. They wish we could relive the day “there was a noise so loud we could hear it in our tummies.”. I wish the apple-tree related nightmares would cease.

Go to the Natural History Museum. Remember absolutely nothing about the trip other than the fact that when you were on the raised walkway in the dinosaur exhibition you needed a wee. The crowd is so large you can’t get off the raised walkway to get to the toilet. Watch Mummy down ½ a litre of water so that there is now an empty vessel for you to wee in. Watch Daddy waving over-enthusiastically at a T-Rex head to distract circa 1000 hot and bothered tourists from the fact that Mummy is getting you to wee into the empty bottle whilst she feigns interest in the literature about the Cretaceous period.

Walk home in a hail storm so bad that no less than three people in three separate cars pull over on the verge of tears apologising that they cannot fit you in their car to take you home. Trudge on while the front of your body slowly turns to ice and golf ball-shaped weather aims itself at your head.

Leave the house to be faced with the sheer delight that the postman has dropped at least 56 filthy rubber bands within easy walking distance from your home for you to adorn the handles of your scooter with.

Go on a bus. Destination: irrelevant. Go home on a bus.

Pack for a day out bush crafting and ice-cream eating when 10 minutes before you are about to arrive at the award-winning venue, the car gets a flat tyre. Skid into a tumbledown estate and await the arrival of the AA. Eat a picnic that quite frankly assumed it was destined for better things whilst watching an actual tyre being actually changed for a new tyre that is actually yellow.

Go to soft play on the day someone unknown to you is going to do a poo at the top of the slide. Make it your day’s mission to solve the ‘poo-dunnit?’ mystery.

That’s my kids’ top tips for perfect holiday fun. What’s yours?