Madhouse diaries : Inflatable Fun & Gamers' Day

 

You may remember me telling you last year about an Inflatable Sports Day in the town centre. It looked right up the Madhouse kids' street and it was free so what more could we ask for ?! We went along and had lots of fun, and, when I saw that it was coming back, I turned to the local magazine to find out the times and dates. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that Pierre had become the poster-boy for this year's event ! Even funnier was that on the same page, just below, there was an article about the teacher exchange in Norway with a picture of me and the rest of the group !

Well, this year's event was a much smaller affair - there were just a few bouncy castles and bouncy assault courses - but Pierre had great fun all the same.

As did Juliette ! She may be about to head into her teens and is starting to get the attitude that goes with it, but there are still frequent glimpses of her childish streak (thank goodness !)

 

She bumped into a couple of her schoolfriends so they had a go on the bigger kids' attraction - a padded bar that goes round that you have to jump over without falling over.

They were all hopeless, which was very entertaining !

The week after was another free event - Gamers' Day. I wasn't sure how much this one would appeal but we decided to go along for a look. Before we even got inside, Pierre was very impressed (and slightly spooked) by the enormous Transformer-like robots - especially when they moved and looked straight at him. The one on the right even gave me the shivers - it reminds me of the machines in War of the Worlds !

 

Once we got inside, we chose to head to the retro tent and the kids were soon busy playing on the arcade games. Some of the games, such as Bubble Shooter, still exist on facebook and tablets, and the kids couldn't get their head around the idea of us in "the olden days" going to an amusement arcade and spending money just to play one round !

Apparently it's more fun playing on the video arcade version.

 

But I'm sure it was just the novelty value because people were waiting their turn just to play that really simple game whose name I have forgotten which is like ping pong with a moving square block. Certainly nowhere near as exciting as modern games !

Madhouse Daddy soon disappeared over in the pinball corner.

And was soon joined by the kids, who thought they were great fun and very exciting.

We went over to the hi-tech tent and watched people in the drone park for a while, but the queues for the sit-in aeroplane simulators (that I also remember from the amusement arcades of my youth) were phenomenal.

 

Quite a few people were watching the Street Fighter tournament on giant video screens ...

 

... but the kids wanted to go back to the retro tent.

 

We used to have (and probably still have in the garage somewhere) exactly this console - the original Playstation - and the Tomb Raider game to go with it !

Such simple graphics and gameplay but the kids still loved it, although the fuzzy TV screen images soon gave them a headache !