THE worst of all half-terms is here, and the streets are teeming with crazed children and their anguished guardians. Looking to escape them? Try these sanctuaries:
Classrooms
During the rest of the year – apart from the 13 weeks holiday teachers need, to rest – they’re crawling with irritated kids. Now? There’s no quieter place to swig Bell’s from the bottle than rooms decorated with facts about Shakespeare or long division. Hard to get into, but the reward of perfect silence will be worth it.
Sewers
Initially unappealing. But reframe your mindset with positive thinking and you’ll relish the quiet hours you spend down there. More than just a system of underground tunnels filled with human waste, they’re an exclusive subterranean club where you can network with rats undisturbed. Though passing fatbergs may remind you of the obese kids.
The tip
The absence of whinging nine-year-olds, so prevalent in museums, is just a fringe benefit. The main attraction are the skips filled with treasures like stained mattresses and broken hairdryers. You could happily spend all day there on a discarded deckchair, watching car after car dispose of household waste. Once you’re in your 30s, this is Disneyland.
Quarries
Quarries naturally repel children because they’re dangerous, boring and no longer have the positive associations of 1970s Doctor Who. They can still be punishingly dull place to piss away a week, but ask yourself: would you rather hear a middle-class child in Sainsbury’s demand brie, or your own voice echoing around a big rocky pit? The latter.
Industrial warehouses
You’ll find these peaceful wonderlands quietly tucked away in unassuming spots all over the country. Charm the foreman and you’ll be able to browse shelves of wholesale stock for hours on end. If you’re lucky, you might even get to have a spin on the forklift. Don’t let the kids find out. They’d love it here.
The exosphere
The thin, outermost layer of the Earth’s atmosphere is as far from pesky children as you can get and blissfully hostile to life. Up there, the only company you’ll have are satellites, peaceful companions when compared to shrieking children in the care of indifferent grandparents. How to get here? Call SpaceX and explain you’re a Tesla owner.
