The Big Chill

The Youngest’s birthday weekend culminated in a trip to Chill Factor(e) in Manchester.

I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking when I booked it for the day after the closing night of the play, but booked I did and threw in an extra child for good measure.

We left in plenty of time, so had an early lunch at McDonalds which gave Matty and her friend ample time to eat their body weight in chicken McNuggets and continue to torture m’boy.

The building itself is a very distinctive structure on the Manchester skyline (I don’t think there are too many indoor ski slopes around the area), so I snapped this as we made our way to the entrance. As we got our winter gear on, I was a little worried that we had overdone it with the level of clothing – others seemed to be wearing trainers and leggings, whilst we were decked out in boots, waterproofs and thick jackets – but the instant we made our way into the snow area and the -6 degrees temperature hit us, I could not have cared less about how we looked, at least we were warm! 

The next hour vanished in a flash as we sledged, slipped, slid and spun our way down the small slopes on sledges, matts and inflatable doughnuts. It was great fun and the birthday girl had a blast, which was the most important thing. It was quite odd emerging from the sub-zero temperature back into the sunshine, but it gave the children’s feet time to warm up as they sat on the boot of the car and demolished the remainder of Matty’s birthday cake.

It was a great way to finish a long, challenging yet fun week and none of us needed much rocking as we laid our heads down to sleep.