As far as I’m concerned summer isn’t over! Okay the weather may have been changeable last week and all you autumn adorers were already checking out woolly jumpers and planning Halloween parties but I am determined to stay in summer- ideally until October when we go on our big holiday! I feel the weather heard my plea today by giving us a fabulous scorching bank holiday today- just need this for another month at least please and thank you. (Ignoring that it says it’s gonna rain tomorrow)

Luckily for me Trinity Shopping Centre in Leeds* came to my rescue last week bringing the beach (well,kind of) to Leeds and inviting me along for the ride (literally) with ‘Club Trinity’.

They’ve installed a 30ft slide from one floor to the other that we had to ride down to the beach area! I won’t lie I thought I was going to get stuck- either my body wouldn’t go around the curves of the slide or I would sit too tall in it. Seriously. However as long as your under 2m tall (and above 1m from memory) and 18st you are good to go on this ride.

Apparently I look so happy in this photo but I’d describe it more as relieved! (Thanks to Kellie for the shot!) I got quite a static shock on my way out thanks to my love of polyester and my fear of losing my mules on the way down!!

Luckily I got to chill out on the giant hammock with Kellie to try and recover. If you do the same and upload a hammock selfie with #clubtrinityleeds you could win £1k to spend at the centre.

We then proceeded to enjoy cocktails and canapés from Cielo Blanco and lounge on a flamingo. If it had just been sunny I could have looked up at the glass ceiling and imagined it was summer, but a plane over head and some blue skies was enough.

To continue the summer vibes afterwards I went and had the ice cream of all ice creams at Trinity Kitchen, because if it’s summer you have to have an icecream! Now I love Mr Whippy ice cream, when I got married we even had a surprise ice cream van turn up for our guests (and us) in the evening! The fact our local ice cream van thinks it’s acceptable to basically sell crappy soft scoop (like vanilla basic ice cream) from his is just a travesty in my eyes! I mean we have Thaymars about ten minutes away from us and Northern Bloc dominating the north when it comes to soft serve ice creams and they go and serve crappy vanilla! Anyways rant over, this Thai Khrim ice cream is also next level. It’s not just about the gimmick either it is super super yummy. I went for the large, create your own, unlimited toppings one. The guy making it understood me and my need for food (I’d had no tea and most of the places there were closing up- the nacho place had even run out of guac!) so we concocted the best ice cream.

Think chocolate mint, Jaffa cake and marmalade mixed, with cream, marshmallows, brownie and an Oreo for good measure. Not exactly the healthy choice buuuuut so darn good! The ice cream is literally that -so creamy- and it tasted amazing, if I do say so myself.

Complete summer goals!

If you’re a little more sensible then I highly recommend one of the new editions to the Kitchen Big Grillie Style. You may remember me talking about it in my post about fab American Eateries and it was so good I went back- this time with some colleagues and we tried all three burger offerings and halloumi and the fries. Other worldly. And so darn filling too (which scuppered our plans for the ice cream I’d hoped for again!!)

If you’re around Leeds and fancy a break from shopping then Club Trinity is open until the 3rd September (10-6/11-5 Sundays) let me know if you go!