Oh bollocks. I've just signed up to a series of kids activity sessions. I'm 37 and I don't have kids

[HighKicking]

I'm a member of a martial arts club that do adult and children's classes.

They sent an email yesterday with different summer offers.

One of their offers was six activity sessions (martial arts based sessions and more general social sessions) over July and August. The activities are: A craft afternoon, A movie evening, A sparring workshop, A small-group training session, and A trip to a local adventure playground.

I thought it looked great and so I signed up.

Then I forwarded onto a friend who pointed out that it's for children to keep them entertained over the six weeks holidays. It's not intended for 37 year-old, professional, child-free women.

In my defense (geddit) - I've done loads of non-martial arts stuff with the women's class including craft evenings, book groups, trips out etc. Plus, I kind of forget that the club does children's classes because I'm never there when the kids are going in or out. So, I'm telling myself it was an easy mistake to make.

I need to ring the club and tell them I want to cancel but I feel like such a bloody twat.

I can't lie and tell them I booked it for a child who's changed their mind. They know I don't have a child. Bollocks.

Would you like to join my martial arts club? In the past year we've done a picnic, cinema, bakeoff, archery, karaoke, guided tour, go ape... Not a child in sight!

Oh mate, you’re only 37 (and a half?)

Just try to style it out!

@EddieHowesShithousingMags I am on a train and scared the poor woman next to me laughing at one finger one thumb 😂

Name changed to say that my friend did worse. His primary school had his class all enter a city-wide creative writing contest on the subject of bravery. He wrote a really vivid account of heroically saving his entire family from a raging house fire. A while later his teacher told him that his story was one of the winners and that he was invited to a presentation event to receive his prize. Which, when he turned up to it with his mum, he discovered to be a rather fancy affair with a big crowd in attendance and even the mayor. Unfortunately it turned out when my friend's name was called that his class teacher had massively misunderstood the assignment and it wasn't a creative writing contest, it was to honour children for acts of real life heroism. So my friend, who had never rescued anybody from a fire but was just quite decent at descriptive writing, got called up on stage to be erroneously awarded a Child Of Courage award by the Mayor, falsely lauded by all in attendance, and photographed by the local newspaper.

to be fair wouldn't an adult size adventure playground be absolutely marvellous 😂

😂😂 This has made my day. I love the idea of a grown up professional woman having a stress busting afternoon at an adventure playground.

Good luck changing it and thank you for the giggle @HighKicking

Once signed up for a surf lesson, turned up and it was a group of 6-8 year olds. They looked well pissed off when I flew past them on the waves as they had been in lessons all week!

@Agapornis Yes, please, that sounds perfect.

@HeReallyDidThis Amazing, I absolutely love that.

@Mariposista That's exactly what it is. It's called the 'Adventure Playground' but its just a local park with giant, adult-sized equipment and a zip wire. It's fabulous - we've done several martial arts training classes on it.

What I'm taking from this is that some activities need clearer guidance on their advertising.

@HighKicking pm me if a central ish London based club suits you! Or sign up and only come to the social events, ha. I'd also happily gatecrash the kids events with you!

To be fair, they should run courses like that for child free women of a certain age. I for one would bloody love it.

I mean tbf it sounds like a great course, you should go.

This did make me laugh 😂

I've just called them.

I didn't style it out with a fake child or a grand gesture. I told the lady - who I know well - that I've been having a really hard week at work (I haven't), and failed to engage my brain and didn't realise it was for children. I said that it didn't specify ages and the activities sounded amazing even for adults. I asked if there were plans for any adult events.
She laughed, a lot. But she told me that another fully grown adult club member had called yesterday and asked if it was children only. So I felt a bit better. But that person actually has children so was asking about accompanying them, not just showing up on her own like an absolute blancmange. So I didn't feel that much better.
I got my money back. And she's added ages to the Event page. And she said that she'd look into putting on some adult activities over summer.

Thanks for all your moral support. I'm off to a class tomorrow evening so I need to psych myself up for that one 😂

@Agapornis Sadly, not near central London. Otherwise, I'd be there!

Back when my children were preschool/infant school age, the plygroup i took my younger one too decided that since the Mums enjoyed the painting sessions so much,cwe would have an adult one.

It was fantastic... we hired a local bar, put on a curry, and had pottery painting, cocktails and curry, women of all ages.

Reminded me of this mortified man 😁

Open the pic for his full caption

OP your post has made my day. I have been chuckling at the prospect of you booking yourself on a kids holiday club since I read it.
You have a great relationship with your inner child! Plus you have spotted a gap in the market.

I genuinely cannot imagine how on earth you made that mistake. So strange.

Maybe if you tried...🙄

😂That’s brilliant! That’s actually a rather endearing mistake to make and the activities do sound fun.

Tried to sign my 14 yo son up for a class called 'Adolescents Life Skills Course'
Looked really good, offered in person training, handouts from each session and a Facebook group for ongoing support.
I thought it was going to be cooking, finances and he'd meet some more kids his own age.
Got quite far into the sign up process before it became apparent it was for bloody dogs!
You have my sympathy OP. I quite fancy the craft afternoon myself!

That's so funny.

Tell them it was for a friends child or something, and they changed their mind.

Agree it looks brilliant 😁maybe martial arts and crafting summer activities for childfree women could be a money spinner??

I tried to explain in the OP. I'm pretty oblivious to the child-focused stuff that goes on at the club. And the women's class do quite a lot of social stuff so having a craft afternoon etc. for adults at the club isn't that unusual.

Plus, there were no ages listed anywhere on the advert or webpages.

I don't usually get emails about kids-focused stuff there but, the lady just told me, they sent this advert to adult members too because lots of adult members also have children at the club.