My mother and I have just spent the early hours of this evening in the Hell that is a children`s party in a Wacky Warehouse. Bah Humbug! Sounds like I`m being miserable I know - and the kids did love it - but what a headache. Near where we sat, close to the under 5`s section, 14 hyperactive boys around 8 or 9 years old ran rampant, chucking balls everywhere, mainly trying to knock out one of the lights. We sat patiently for 15 minutes getting rained on by balls - a fact that was studiously ignored by the Wacky staff who turned a blind eye to the manic behaviour of the group of boys. Finally, I lost my temper when A ball torpedoed towards our table knocking Mums drink everywhere, over the table, floor, coats and everywhere else. I went over to the staff who were gathered in a group having a good chat, totally oblivious to the chaos and told them what was going on. They looked at me blankly, obviously not noticing anything - but one did come over and tried to get the kids to behave, calling their parents to control them. One man, who seemed to be looking after them came over and I told him about the kids throwing a ball at our drinks - and he said "Oh - I`m sorry about that" before hopping it, pronto! Never offered to replace drink though. I just hate rudeness so much!
Finally, we the two hours were up and we could go home. But what happened to the lovely parties I used to have as a child with Pass the Parcel, Musical statues and so on. Oh the joys of having small children. NOT! in this case.
Good night then - from the Cantankerous one

Ps - The conference in Newcastle was good and we stayed in a lovely lodge right by a goreous old pub. But! Theres always a but then, teenage son, came down with a really bad tummy bug on the Friday which lasted all weekend, so we had to cancell the Ice Skating Party on Saturday and just watch tv in the hotel. Never mind! We did manage to purloin a nice bottle of wine to sip while we watched the telly. But why do things never go straight foreward? I`m sounding more like Victor Meldrew every day.