Things to Do in Leominster

At The Pottery Paintin' Place, ceramic renderings of Darth Vader and Princess Leia join mugs, plates, and piggy banks atop a series of shelves. Visiting artists pluck one of these achromatic items from its waiting place before coating it in a colorful design and handing it off to a staff member, who fires it in the on-site kiln. Each piece of art emerges from the kiln able to withstand ovens, dishwashers, microwaves, and most apocalypses.

The shop's master potter, Brian Murphy, further encourages artistic expression with pottery-throwing courses, during which participants design their own ceramic creations. The newly expanded party area holds up to 24 painters, who can partake in refreshments brought from home during one- to two-hour celebrations. On-site summer camps and after-school programs cater to the younger crowd with tie-dyeing, glass-fusing, beading, and homework-torching.

Joyous sounds reverberate off the walls at Mason Recreation Center, a decades-old entertainment emporium managed by a staff committed to keeping its guests entertained. Pins clatter on dozens of lanes designed for candlepin bowling, a variation on tenpin bowling that uses smaller balls and cylindrical pins that are not cleared away between frames so bowlers can hear their faint screams. The staff engineers the fun activities, hosting open bowling, overseeing league competition, and throwing birthday shindigs in private rooms. On several tournament-size tables, billiard balls clack against one another, and in the onsite arcade, video games bleep and purr like robots napping on magnets. In warm weather, the staff unfurls an 18-hole miniature golf course and opens an onsite sweets station that serves freshly scooped ice cream.

Armadas of softball-sized red balls line the 10 alleys at Putnam Street Lanes, awaiting their turn to rocket toward the narrow, tapered pins characteristic of Worcester's own candlepin bowling. Computerized scoreboards keep track of obliterated pins, and score-boosting bumpers pop up upon request. During cosmic bowling, the center's neon walls alight with psychedelic effects to hypnotize the red balls into doing bowlers' bidding, be that picking up spares or retrieving a chocolate bar from the candy shop. Guests of legal age may bring their own alcoholic libations to enjoy as they imitate Fred Flintstone's famous strike celebrations or Queen Elizabeth's infamous gutter-ball tantrums.

Cinema World’s movie theaters engage all of their patrons' senses with an ample lineup of amenities: digital-sound quality, 3-D images, the smell of freshly buttered popcorn, sweet sips of soda, and cushy chairs you can touch because they definitely are not holograms.

Twin Springs Golf Course presents memorable shot-making challenges in a nine-hole, par 34 course that meanders through tree-speckled meadowland and small, rolling hills. The course's two eponymous springs come into play on all but three holes, forcing players to fight off swirling winds, large sand traps, and the impulse to chop down intervening trees with underperforming irons. At Twin Springs' signature hole, the 318-yard, par 4 sixth, golfers can opt to reach the green in two with conservative, 150-yard shots around a dog-leg left fairway or go for the green in one by cutting the corner with a Herculean drive that must soar over a gallery of towering pine trees. Golfers can stretch their swing at Twin Springs' driving range, where PGA teaching professional Bob Keene presides over private and group lessons. The aromas of sandwiches and appetizers emanate from the Twin Springs Bar & Cafe, which lets guests enjoy a post-round nosh while watching live sports or catching a cool breeze on the spacious outdoor deck. Visitors can also relax in the club’s new lounge or host small events such as a bridal shower, birthday party, or team meeting in the banquet space.

Lady T’s relationship with the occult is hardly a new one. She got her first set of tarot cards at age 9 from her father Richard, an avid historian, and since then, she has explored her powers as a psychic, a scryer, and a witch, eventually opening her own magickal boutique. The shop is welcoming, eschewing shadows and secretiveness in favor of bright colors and mystical wall art. Shelves covered in gauzy fabrics hold bottled spells and candles, and packets of herbs hang from the walls. Lady T and her fellow conjurers offer their services in psychic and tarot readings and the casting of spells, and also teach classes in building wands.