Christian Travelers Guide

Tube Town GingerBread House (official photo)

 Having done a LOT of moving around in the last couple of years (and twice had our worldly belonging restricted to what we could fit into the back of our car) I have a massive appreciation of toys that can be stored well. Actually it's probably a bit more than massive appreciation, it is a deep and sincere love of toys that can be put away and preferably in the toy box (although I ought to add that particular aspect of loving toys is not one shared by anyone else in this household, the boys not caring a stuff about tidying away toys, to my endless and eternal distress).
A part of this obsession and self imposed toy cull every time we move means that we have very few toys that take up lots of room. We have tried out Wendy Houses / indoor tents a couple of times, but they have never lasted the test of time. Either they come with annoying metal bits to make up the tent (which then bend and break as soon as the boys try climbing on the house) or they are absolutely impossible to collapse down. The battles I've had with some of the indoor tents have gone into family legend - and the tents have gone to the great toy recycling place in the sky when I've had to make a decision about whether to keep them or not.
So I was intrigued to see whether the Tube Town Inflatable Gingerbread House would live up to its billing: An inflatable toy house that is easy to put up, easy to take down and can be stored away in a neat little bag. I have to admit I had visions of awful camping holidays, battling to put up the tent, struggling to get it to deflate and then spending hours forcing it into a tiny bag that is clearly to small for what it is intended to hold.
How wrong can you be? I pulled out the Gingerbread House and within 3 minutes it was up, ready to go. I should probably add that I'm also 41 weeks pregnant so if there was ever a time when I wasn't going to be able to do it, this was it. When the time came to put it down, I just pulled the rapid release valve and that was that. Collapsed House. Marvellous. Even more marvellous is that they have put the valve just on the underside of the house, taking it out of sight of my boys and therefore preventing the them trying to pull the rapid release valve out themselves, preferably with their brother inside because my how funny that would be. Other Mothers of Brothers will appreciate that feature.
To stop me whittering on forever here's a few 'why we love it' pointers

• It goes up, it comes down. I'm sure there are very clever reasons why it works so well, but they give you a hand pump, slot it in the right slot et voila. Admittedly I spent a few moments trying to inflate through the deflate valve, but you know, these things happen.
  
• Roll it up and it goes in a bag. With the pump. And it doesn't take forever to get it into said bag either. Marvellous.
  
• The House is pretty big, big enough for my tall 5 year old to stand up in. Big enough to house my 2 boys and 2 more of their friends for tea. The dog may have joined them briefly too.
  
• It is light (guess that is the joy of being inflatable). Which means that the boys could easily pick it up and move it around which they promptly did. An enormous den including the Gingerbread House (exits on 2 sides), the back of the sofa and a large cardboard box was duly erected and kept them quiet for ages.
  
• If they try and climb on it (which being my boys they instantly did) it collapses gracefully to one side, depositing child lightly upon the ground much like what happens when they climb on bouncy castles that haven't been inflated properly. We had a few potential collapses onto people inside the house, but so far noone has been flattened by the roof burglars antics.
  
• There are pegs to anchor the house into the ground if you are outside.
  
• The House didn't deflate despite being climbed on, over, around, through and in by four children all afternoon.
  
• Having given them tea, crumpets with jam inside the house, I was concerned it would be a bit difficult to clean, but no trouble there. Wet cloth, wipe once, job done.
  

• It's pink. If you are 5 and male, pink is not what you want your latest den building accessory to be. We just about swallow our dislike of pink to play in it because the rest of it is so fun, but it took a bit of persuading. I'm also a bit grumpy about the pink thing. There's already a pink Princess Castle on sale. Quite why everything has to be pink I don't know. I mean, boys think castles are great too, just not in pink. BUT, when I asked TubeTown about this they confirmed that a few non-pink items are going to be launched in the UK soon, including a Dragons Lair Castle which would be far more up my boys street. I'm going to refrain from launching into a whole rant here about why can't people just do A Castle or A House which the boys or girls can then use their imaginations to build and decorate it into how they want it. But Grrrr none the less.

• The cost is £49.99 for the Gingerbread House and £79.99 for the Disney Princess Castle. This seems a little steep to me, but you do get a very good quality of toy for the money, which will last and will be played with.
  
• Errrr, that's it.