It was 4 degrees and drizzling sideways when we walked from the car to Tropical World on Wednesday, and by the time we were through the first set of doors, with the air at 28 degrees and the coats coming off, Alfie had already decided that the whole of half-term was a success.
February half-term this year ran from 17 to 21 February. Linda and Steve had the kids in Bramley on the Monday and Tuesday while I was at the office, which cost us nothing and cost Steve one trip to the chippy. That left three days of our own, and I set myself a target: all of it for under £30.
The kit for all three days was the same, and it lives in one drawer: a flask of hot chocolate made at half past seven, a bag of sandwiches (cheese and pickle, ham, and a pasta salad that survived better than I expected), four apples, and a bag of flapjack I'd made on Sunday. I like a day out that starts with a list on the fridge rather than a debate in the hall.
Wednesday: Tropical World
Rob's rota day off fell on the Wednesday that week, so all four of us went. Tickets were £14.00 for the four of us with the Leeds card discount. (I looked up the full price afterwards, and I'm choosing not to think about it.) We parked on a side road by the park gates, which was free, and walked the last few minutes with the hoods up.
We ate the sandwiches in the car first, because a greenhouse at 28 degrees is no place for cheese. Inside there were butterflies landing on Isla's hat, meerkats standing up like small guards, a nocturnal house where Alfie whispered for the first time in his life, and the crocodile, which he decided was "basically a dinosaur" and then refused to leave. Isla spent £2.50 of her own pocket money on a rubber lizard in the shop. I'm counting it in the total, because I'm honest.
Thursday: Kirkstall Abbey
I work from home on Thursdays, so I shut the laptop at 2:45 and we drove down to Kirkstall. My office on the trading estate is ten minutes from the abbey, and I've worked there since 2022 without once walking round it. The grounds are free. The wind came straight up the valley from the river, and the stone looked wet-black and enormous against a white sky.
"Where did the roof go?" Alfie asked.
"It fell off, Alfie. Hundreds of years ago."
"Did anyone get hurt?"
I said no, with more confidence than I had. We drank hot chocolate from the flask standing in the nave, with the wind taking the steam sideways, and Isla sat wrapped in the picnic blanket in the old cloister and read a chapter of her book. We stayed forty minutes. That is exactly as long as anyone's fingers lasted.
Friday: Leeds City Museum
On Friday Linda and Steve drove us into town. Steve said he wanted another look at the Egyptian mummy, and then insisted on paying for the car park, and won't be told otherwise, so it isn't in my total. Entry is free. We did the mummy first, then the trail sheet from the desk, then a long stretch in the gallery where you can press buttons that make things light up, which was the part Alfie was actually there for. By half past twelve there was a queue for the cafe that went round a pillar, so we ate our sandwiches on a bench on the ground floor, in a corner out of the way. Nobody minded.
What it cost
Tropical World was £14.00. Three days of sandwiches, fruit and a flask of hot chocolate came to £9.60, and the rubber lizard was £2.50, so £26.10 in all. That left £3.90 of the target, which went on nothing, because I'd planned it that way. We were tired and a bit cold and nobody was bored, which is a good half-term in my book.
I know a lot of the cheap days out in Leeds are cheap because someone else has already paid for them: the city, the council, a very long ago monk. I'm grateful for it. Alfie was asleep before we reached the ring road on Friday, with the trail sheet still in his fist and a small drawing of a crocodile on the back.
