The Clubs That Aren’t There

How did I ever write this blog every day last year?

Summer declared on Monday night that she wanted to go to a camp, so a quick booking later meant she was off to art camp the next morning (with a questionable lunchbox). Which left just River and me.

There’s been a lot on social media and in the news recently about the lack of holiday clubs for SEND children. Summer has always loved clubs. She just enjoys being around children her own age.

Sadly, they’ve never really been an option for River. If he attends a local holiday club, I have to pay an extra £15 an hour for a 1:1, which just makes it unaffordable. If I was going to pay someone that, I’d rather pay a babysitter and he’d get one-to-one time doing exactly what he wanted to do. Realistically, in a general holiday club he’d probably hate the noise, the waiting around and being expected to join in with organised activities unless there was a very big incentive.

I’d hoped he could go somewhere local this summer, but I just found out I’d needed a specific form signed before the end of term. I had absolutely no idea, so there goes that plan.

I don’t actually need him to go anywhere, but a couple of hours so I could have a nap, read a book or just sit in silence, maybe in a dark room, might be nice.

Learning to Enjoy the Quiet

Anyway, back to Tuesday.

We did our little walk to the shops. He’s getting much better at staying with me now. I used to have to take his pushchair everywhere for safety reasons, but I kind of have the opposite problem now. I’m not allowed out of his sight or touching distance. His favourite thing to do is hold onto my thigh while we’re walking, which I can tell you isn’t easy and is quite overwhelming in this heat, but at least I know exactly where he is.

He gets to choose a “treat”, which is usually something from the bakery, and then we walk to a tiny park where nobody ever seems to be. We sit on the bench, eat in silence and he happily plays.

It’s an odd balance with River. Since he learnt to communicate with words, he can be very loud. He hasn’t quite mastered volume control yet. He loves to narrate everything or talk endlessly about the things he enjoys, but then, at other times, he wants complete silence. No talking. No background noise. Just sitting.

A few years ago, I would have found that painfully awkward. I always felt the need to fill silences, as though they meant something was wrong.

Now I find them calming.

Just sitting together without having to say anything has become one of my favourite parts of the day. It’s also probably the only time I get a proper mental break, so I’ve learnt to appreciate it.

The Help I Didn’t Ask For

Kate (Kay-Kay) came over for the afternoon and evening and, looking back, I realised she was supporting me in lots of different ways without either of us really talking about it.

She chatted while River happily sang into the karaoke machine, she even sat through an episode of The Traitors with Summer (which, if you know Summer, is a pretty good act of friendship in itself) and then, when the kids were occupied, she quietly started sorting.

Well… technically she’d started the night before in the garden.

I’d mentioned that I was feeling overwhelmed by the clutter, but I could never seem to find a slot in the day to actually tackle it. Every time I started, somebody needed something and I’d be pulled away.

The two of us spent three hours filling a bin bag with what I can only describe as stuff – broken magazine toys, dried-up Play-Doh, old slime and mystery bits of plastic that must have belonged to something once upon a time.

She straightened the books on the bookshelf. Such a tiny thing, but the room immediately felt calmer.

Summer said, “I like it when our house is tidy.”

I smiled, agreed, and resisted the urge to add, “There is actually a way you could help me achieve this…”

Afterwards I felt surprisingly emotional. Not because we’d filled a bin bag, but because someone had seen I was overwhelmed and helped without waiting to be asked.

After Hours at the Zoo

It would have been nice to relax at this point, but there was no time because we were off to the zoo.

This wasn’t just any zoo visit though. This was an early evening SEND session, where the zoo was closed to the public and only a handful of families had the opportunity to experience it in a way that worked for them.

Of course, getting there is never the easy bit.

The first Tube was fine. River sort of zoned out after a few stops, but changing at Green Park onto the Jubilee line was no fun at all. It’s incredibly loud and he wasn’t happy. Thankfully it was only two stops to Baker Street.

The plan was to have dinner first and then head to the zoo. The problem was we didn’t really know the area and we weren’t entering through the main entrance, so there was a lot of wandering around a very hot Regent’s Park while listening to repeated cries of, “Where’s the zoo? I want to go to the zoo!”

Eventually we found some expensive chips and juice and, if I’m honest, by this point I was ready to go home. But we’d come this far.

We rang the number on our booking form and were met by a member of staff at a side entrance. I immediately spotted another family with their son who also had additional needs. Summer found a little sensory room and happily played with River and chatted to his sister while we waited for everyone else to arrive.

There were five families altogether, all with children who had different needs. Some had reins, some had specialist buggies, some wore ear defenders. Every family there knew that a normal day at the zoo just wasn’t an option.

There was a team of four staff members or volunteers who walked us around the zoo and told us all about the animals. Whether River took in many of the facts is another matter entirely, but he absolutely loved exploring. He spent most of the evening reading the signs “MUMMY, WE’RE GOING TO AFRICA!”, shouting the names of animals, laughing every time somebody mentioned poo and gradually becoming braver around the staff. By the end, he was happily marching up to them announcing whichever animal we’d just seen.

Of course, it wasn’t just about the animals. There was climbing on statues, investigating every map, plenty of running about and, inevitably, a stop at the playground. There was no pressure to hurry along or squeeze everything into a timetable. Everyone understood that the children would enjoy different parts of the evening in different ways.

Before we started, we asked the kids which animal they were most looking forward to seeing. Summer chose the capybara (which, for reasons I’m still trying to understand, has become the coolest animal in the world) and River chose the lion.

We finally reached the lion enclosure. I was so excited for him. The lion was perched on a rock looking wonderfully calm, not remotely interested in any of us.

River took one look.

“IT’S TOO SCARY!”

…and walked straight through.

Never mind. Maybe next time.

The tour lasted about an hour and a half and involved a lot of walking, so we were definitely ready to head home. After one final stop for juice, it had to be an Uber back. River was asleep within five minutes. He woke briefly when we got home, realised nobody else was staying up and sensibly decided to go back to sleep while we quietly washed his feet and tucked him into bed.

The Support That Makes It Possible

Looking back, the week so far was full of different kinds of support.

There was the reminder that so many SEND families still don’t have access to the holiday clubs that other families can book without a second thought.

There was Kate, who reminded me that support isn’t always about grand gestures. Sometimes it’s someone sitting in your garden, listening to karaoke, watching The Traitors and quietly straightening your bookshelf because they know you don’t have the headspace to do it yourself.

And then there was the team at London Zoo.

For those of you who’ve read my Accessible Adventures posts before, you’ll know I spend a lot of time searching for opportunities like this. It’s something I never imagined I’d have to do. When I first realised that the things I’d looked forward to doing with my children: the zoo, the aquarium, theme parks, weren’t going to work for us in the usual way, I felt a huge sense of loss. There was a time when just leaving the house felt impossible.

Now I find myself quietly collecting places and experiences that make it possible for River to be himself.

It’s not just River who misses out either. Quite often, Summer does too. There are days out we’ve decided not to attempt, places we’ve left early and plenty of occasions where we’ve split up so one of us can take Summer somewhere while the other stays with River. It’s become normal, but that doesn’t mean it’s what we’d choose.

That’s why evenings like this mean so much. We got to experience it together. Summer got to see her capybara, River got to shout animal names at the top of his voice, climb statues, play in the playground and decide that a perfectly relaxed lion was, in fact, “too scary.”

It took more planning, more travelling and definitely more expensive chips than I’d have liked.

But for a couple of hours, we weren’t working around barriers. We were just another family at the zoo, making memories together.

I’m incredibly grateful to the people who give up their time to create evenings like this. They aren’t just opening the gates after hours; they’re opening up experiences that so many families thought had been taken away from them.

Sometimes accessibility isn’t about doing something different. It’s about giving families the chance to do the ordinary things that so many people take for granted.