Funfair.

When you’re ten, the funfair is a place of excitement and adventure. Of exhilarating, brightly-coloured rides with flashing lights, booming music, smoke machines. Of games of chance, with exciting prizes for the lucky few who can master them. Of ferris wheels and helter-skelters, taking you up high for a never-before-seen birds-eye view of an otherwise familiar place. Of the scary ghost train, where you enter if you dare. Of rainbow candyfloss, dodgems, bouncy castles and magical memories.

When you’re the parent of a ten-year-old the funfair is an extortionate death-trap, where every ride is an opportunity to part with your hard-earned cash in exchange for a terrifying few minutes of wondering whether this rusting metal bar is really enough to prevent you from being flung to your certain doom. Where you’d really rather a game of hook-a-duck didn’t land you with a giant knock-off Disney stuffed animal, or a cheap plastic sword to cart around for the rest of the day. Where a terrible, overpriced coffee doesn’t soften the blow of a fiver for a bag of spun sugar that you know will extend bedtime by at least an hour.

Sometimes parenting is just about ignoring the rational parent within you.