Play doesn't cost a penny

When I was younger a trip to the theme park was a rare treat. It was even rarer to find ourselves heading down the M55 to the glorious Blackpool Pleasure Beach, as our ‘day-out budget’ could only stretch to the wonderful world of Morecambe!

However all of these expensive days out could not live up to the freedom and simple pleasures of playing outside with a football, or going on the swings at the local park.

A recent poll by Sainsbury’s asked 1,500 five to eleven year olds in the UK to rank their favourite summertime activity in order of preference, and the results showed that the joys of the great outdoors was preferred over spending money going to the cinema or to theme parks. 

Parents seem to feel a great deal of pressure to entertain their children, and for some reason see expensive excursions as the answer. Maybe it is a lack of creativity on their part, or simply that they just don’t understand that all a child wants to do is have fun. One of my favourite things to do was to get a balloon and play tennis over the couch using my hand, pretending to be the mighty Tim Henman. Who needs the IMAX!

There are plenty of things going on throughout the country as people are taking the fight to childhood obesity; from national Playday’s, to residential areas campaigning to close their streets for the day to allow their children to play outside. It is great to see people making the effort and trying to get their children active.

It doesn’t have to be a big deal……just let your children play.

www.playdale.co.uk

Inspiring the Next Generation

As ‘The Who’ belted out a fantastic rendition of ‘My Generation’ to the lucky crowd at the Olympic Stadium and millions of proud Brits at home, there was only one thing on my mind; we are Great Britain and we are here to stay!

After a fantastic two weeks of pure action and drama, the Olympics had surpassed my expectations and left me feeling proud and excited for the future. From the consistent lows of watching England’s national football team crash out of competitions, it was quite surreal to see our team striding to success in such a glorious manner.

29 gold medals is an unbelievable achievement and a real testament to the commitment, determination and talent that Team GB showed in this year’s Games. This success bodes well for the next generation, as we try to ride the wave of glory and push forward towards world sporting domination. Funding is going to be made available for children all over the country to receive quality training and the first class facilities that we need to help nurture them into future stars.

This is a great thing that may finally start to help tackle the fight against childhood obesity and inspire the next generation to put down their PlayStation controllers and get active.

Rule Britannia indeed!