Rant time

Why oh why oh why is this country so crazy....

We took DIME to the Time Capsule today. We did swimming in the morning and then ice skating in the afternoon. This was all good fun with no mishaps, and I was even told that my skating has improved since our last visit there 4 years ago. In between swimming (swallowing half the pool and being dunked/splashed for an hour) and skating (wobbling round and crashing into the side boards) we had lunch.

Lunch
I can't remember how much we paid for lunch, it was small bottle of juice a burger and chips. The two main rants I have about this were that the burgers were lukewarm (held on hot plate) dried, tasteless and had no salad in the bun at all. The chips were ok. They gave us diet juice as part of their healthy option. So basically the meal was at best mediocre, and several kids left theirs. At the side of the burger was a coffee area, using Costa's name, cups and beans. This coffee was just like you would get at a Costa anywhere in the world.

So North Lanarks council have no issues with providing decent quality fresh muffins croisants and good coffee, but the rest of their food output is fried from frozen, with no salad and served up dried and frankly disgusting. So the kids spent their money on sweets and crisps. It is crazy.

Photos
Worse came when we decided that we might want some pictures of the event. Not the swimming, but the ice skating. There were large signs saying we needed to ask at reception. I sent our TL to go and ask. He came back with a nice big form in which I had to list my details - name, address, telephone number; my organisation, my position in the organisation, my reason for taking the photo(s), what use would be made of the photo(s) and would I benefit commercially. You might think from this that I would then be allowed free reign to take pictures round the ice rink.

Oh no!!!!I then returned the form to the centre manager, who after 5 minutes said we could go down early and take a group picture but must have the camera away before the public came through. We complied and then got our skates on and went onto the ice. Its craziness. Even the social worker present agreed that it was madness.