Teenagers in charge? If you'd asked me a few days ago what my kids would want to do on their dream weekend break, I'd have thought they'd say watching satellite TV, playing video-games, and shopping. They normally have next to no interest in anything else, however much I try to sell them the idea of a cultural break in Windsor, or force them on an outing to a museum.
OK, they'll stir themselves for a trip to a theme park; or even the beach, although it always takes an age to drag them out of the house. But try anything a little different - say, a trip to a castle, boat ride down the river or a walk or cycle around a country park - and it's as if you've asked them to write a 10,000-word essay.
So, when we gave them the chance to be in charge for two days, I was shocked that both my teens (Chioma, 14, and Emeka, 13) came up with a long list of extreme activities, none of which we'd ever done before. Had I simply misunderstood them all these years?
I was delighted, though. I love the idea of adrenaline sports, even though it has been about 20 years since I last indulged. But I came back down to earth with a bump when I realised where most of them were to take place.
"You could do anything you want, go anywhere you want, and you've chosen ... Milton Keynes?" I confess I've never actually been to Milton Keynes, but you know what I mean.
It turns out, though, that the kids knew what they were doing. The town has quite a reputation as an extreme sports hotspot. First stop was Wake MK, a watersports centre on the outskirts of town, where we tried kneeboarding. It does exactly what it says on the tin. You kneel on a surf-type board, gripping a handle hanging down from a cable 15ft up in the air, and are hauled around the lake.
"I'd seen this on TV," explained Emeka. "I love the idea of gliding at speed across the water." Get it right, and you'll be dragged around several circuits of the lake. But you have to hold tight, especially on corners, and stay balanced when the water gets choppy. While I enjoyed this a lot, the kids found it tricky to get the start right and kept falling in. And tumble off at the wrong point and you have a long walk and chilly swim back to the start.
As I proudly ended my first circuit, I noticed Chioma in the lake ahead of me, and realised I was on course to run her over. I remembered the instructor's safety talk: "If you see someone in front of you, just let go of the handle." But I forgot the next bit: "... and as you fall off, roll over to the side". As I came off the back of the board, it flipped up and bashed me in the eye, leaving quite a gash.
In need of a warm-up and some relaxation, we headed off, about 20 minutes down the M1, to our hotel, the Luton Hoo. The stunning converted mansion is swaddled in 1,000 acres of Capability Brown gardens. The kids had asked for "somewhere posh" but the luxury was beyond their wildest dreams. Emeka loved how at every corridor corner a member of staff said "Good afternoon" or "How are you?"
The kids' favourite thing was the Jacuzzi bath, while the icing on my cake was the snooker room where my son played his first game on a full-size table. I also loved the fact that there were bikes for touring the grounds - and, amazingly, the kids chose to make use of them.
Back in Milton Keynes, later that day, we headed to the Xscape Centre's Sno!Zone - an indoor slope with real snow. As a family, we've always liked the idea of skiing, but have been put off by the cost of flights for everyone (the teens have three younger siblings). But here was somewhere we could afford to learn together, and our instructor took all seven of us. They normally teach people in smaller groups, and I'm sure we might have learned slightly more that way, but we weren't fussed at all. We parents had great fun laughing at how useless and unbalanced the kids were. Then they got to laugh at even-more-useless mum and dad. And by now everything seemed like a bonus, anyway. Our walk and cycle around the Hoo had been as much as we'd have normally done on an away day.
Straight after the skiing we went to Airkix, also in the Xscape Centre, for indoor sky-diving in a vertical wind-tunnel where the powerful upwards air flow keeps you afloat. Taking turns to enter the tunnel, the instructor grabbed us, then showed us how to lie flat, bend our legs, keep our arms stretched out, head up and let the blast of air push us up.
The kids managed this fine and felt like they were really flying. For me, though, it was like multi-tasking - I'm just no good at concentrating on so many things at the same time. I sank down, hit the side of the tube, and at one point flipped over altogether. At the end of the session, our instructor showed me up by demonstrating what's possible - flying up and down Superman-style, floating upside down and spiralling in circles.
For our final activity, we drove to Ware in Hertfordshire for some Aqua Sphereing. Three of us squeezed inside a huge plastic bouncy ball to be pushed off down a hill. At the start of the ride, the assistant asked us to pose for a camera shot through a hole in the side of the ball. As we said "cheese", he threw a bucket of cold water over us. We were still recovering from the shock when he gave the ball a shove, and, by the time we'd reached the bottom, we'd had an intense 30 seconds of screaming, laughter and exhilaration. We'd been flipped over and over and were totally drenched. Hilarious fun.
Although my entire body was aching by the end of it, and the kids hadn't learned a thing about history or art, the weekend was a revelation. It was good to see them taking such an active interest in planning things. Doing
web searches and reading reviews, and I hadn't even heard of any of the places they chose.
It made me think that maybe I'd got them wrong: that it's not that my normal suggestions are too active for them; it's that they're not active enough, and don't give them enough of an adrenaline buzz. "It was one of the best weekends ever - Emeka and
I should plan every weekend!" said Chioma later. Maybe she has a point.
• The Luton Hoo Hotel, Luton (01582 734437, lutonhoo.co.uk), rooms from £220 per night B&B. Aqua Sphereing at Spheremania (UK-wide) from £57.74 for two. Indoor Skydiving at Airkix Skydiving from £49pp. Wakeboarding lessons at Wake MK from £63.62pp. All the above activities and hotel can be booked through Buyagift (0844 888 2882, buyagift.com). Skiing lessons at Sno!Zone (0871 222 5670, snozoneuk.com), at three UK locations, from £27 adults, £23 juniors; private lessons from 1-4 people from £150-£250 per hour.
