There are certain lies you tell yourself as a parent during half term. One of them is "this will be a lovely, calm activity." Another is that a trail described as magical will not, at some point, involve someone lying face down near Boots.
The Brunel Shopping Centre is hosting an interactive trail from Saturday 24 October to Sunday 1 November, built around the fantasy world created by award winning author A.F. Steadman. The centre has teamed up with Swindon Story Shed and the National Literacy Trust, giving children the chance to solve riddles and collect clues as they move between shops. It is, by all accounts, a genuinely nice idea, aimed at getting children reading over the holidays rather than simply asking for another Freddo.
In theory, this sounds brilliant. A trail that encourages literacy, gets families out of the house, and keeps small people occupied for an entire week without a single episode of a cartoon about talking trucks. What is less widely advertised is that any trail through a shopping centre during half term also functions as a logistics exercise of the sort normally reserved for people landing aircraft.
Because let us be honest about what a shopping centre quest actually involves. It is not one clue. It is six clues, three toilet breaks, one unscheduled stop at a shop selling only socks with cartoon characters on, and a negotiation about whether we are getting a hot chocolate now or after the next riddle, which somehow takes longer than the French Revolution.
Brenda Pask, 72, of Old Town, who has lived there since before it was old, said she remembered when keeping children entertained involved a colouring book and the firm instruction to sit still. "A trail," she said, unimpressed. "In my day the trail was round the back of the shops looking for empty pop bottles, and you got tuppence for your trouble, not a certificate."
By riddle four, the youngest has decided the real quest is finding a bench. By riddle five, our eldest has solved the clue, lost interest in the prize, and wandered off towards a display of Halloween lanterns that are not, strictly speaking, part of the trail but are, apparently, essential to her wellbeing. I'll be honest, by this point I have stopped reading the clues and started reading the exits.
And yet. There is something nice about watching children actually want to find words rather than avoid them, even if the words are hidden near a branch of Greggs. Maybe it's just me, but a trail that gets a child excitedly shouting about a dragon in the middle of a shopping centre beats one more wet afternoon of negotiating screen time.
Would we do it again? Probably. Would I bring snacks, a backup plan, and lower expectations about how quickly riddle three gets solved? Absolutely. The real magical world, it turns out, is just getting everyone out of the centre with the same number of shoes they went in with.