just another morning here

By all accounts Abigail had a great day in London yesterday … picture courtesy of Rog & Ruth

She’d taken the rest of her Christmas/birthday money and we’d said to R&R just to make sure she didn’t buy rubbish – and she came home with this Bike Pipe – which apparently R&R would have classed as rubbish, because we had a phonecall asking if it was okay! Abbie first spotted it in September and we palmed her off at the time, saying we’d get one for her birthday, and then we forgot and couldn’t get it on the Science Museum website … so anyway, she is over the moon and they are all out on bikes this morning annoying the hell out of the neighbours

We went to Covent Garden to imbibe some of the atmosphere, and managed quite well. All of us enjoyed the London Transport Museum, and it has plenty there for littlies too, so the children enjoyed themselves. Abbie got lost in the tube …

… and we also have some classic shots of the girls after we broke the news that the Portico wouldn’t be making it up to meet us later in the day due to unforeseen illness, they look so sad and gloomy! (Unfortunately they have particularly bad red-eye too, so I’m not blogging them!)

It was a fascinating museum though, I was amazed at how early (it seemed to me) the underground was developed and built – in fact, it’s still generally quite amazing, in my opinion. Maybe I’m just a country bumpkin …

Anyway, after the museum we had coffee, cookies, fruit, and roasted chestnuts (doesn’t that sound like a good lunch to you?!) and listened to music of various sorts around the piazza, watched some clowning about act or other … then ended up wandering down to Trafalgar Square, where, of course, the pigeons were the main attraction.

We decided to find a cinema after that, we’d been wanting to see Supersize Me ever since we read about it, so we did! Josiah slept through most of it, but the girls watched it all with us – fascinating stuff. Obviously after that, tea at MacDonalds was out of the question … so we set off to visit Hamleys and find somewhere to eat.

Hamleys, what a den of iniquity – they’re just out to take your money!! Steve was standing by the books waiting for us to come back from the toilet when he heard someone say “there isn’t anything here that my child hasn’t already got, and books, well, that’s just like buying a paper bag, isn’t it?” in a derogatory tone – and at that point we decided to leave, as it seemed to be the pervading attitude! And there was me wondering why the book section was so small – get me to Waterstones any day! (Incidentally, there was a large and lovely Waterstones just across the way from our hotel, with a Costa Coffee inside it – very tempting!!)
Having said that, I was sorely tempted by a bear factory teddy – one day, maybe, if I have a jolly good excuse.

Anyway, I digress. We ended up finding this lovely little restaurant – the Red Onion purely by chance, but it was really nice, the food was fantastic and the service was good too. Despite a long wait for their food with no mass-produced children’s activities the kids were really good, and for the second time this week a waitress complimented us on their behaviour. Made us feel like all the dinner winner stuff had paid off, at least.

Home again, for the last time, so we took this picture just for the sake of it!

The kids really enjoyed the tube travelling, from the ticket machines to the escalators to the actual trains themselves – and Joe liked the sound of the word ‘Goodge’, I think, because he kept repeating it over and over …

Running out of catchy titles now ;o)

We went to the Tate Modern today – walked over the Millenium Bridge to get there, just for the fun of it.

We all enjoyed the gallery – the kids and I left Steve to enjoy the upper floors by himself though, they’d had enough after one floor! Spent a long time buying books in the shop, and I was particularly pleased with some Art Activity Cards I found (for only �8.50!) which I think will keep us going with arty ideas for a while.

Took a cab to the Eye, which thankfully was open today! We all enjoyed the flight, although I do wish we’d had a clearer day for it – but there wasn’t really one all week, so there we go. The kids loved it!

I liked this photo – Joe’s other obsession apart from swords was Big Ben, and we waited for the hour a couple of times just so we could hear the bell chime, so this pic was quite fitting really.

And, yet another photo with me in it, some kind person in our pod took one of all of us so I have to include it really.

After the flight the children played in the park nearby, cue almost decent photo if I’d had a wide angled lens …

And while they were playing, Steve and I observed group dynamics in more than one group of schoolchildren who happened to be in the vicinity, very amusing. Considered the Saatchi Gallery or the London Aquarium but instead decided to meander home for a nap before going out for dinner. The restaurant of choice was yet another chain of tourist friendly outlets, Caffe Uno. To be fair, it was very nice and again, good value for money, the children were amused by their menu pack things, and it was near the hotel. Obviously, being named after the kids’ favourite card game helped, too. OK, a good indian would have been more up my street, another time maybe!

For some reason, the Natural History Museum can’t be known by its name, instead it must be dubbed ‘the one with the dinosaurs’. We spent ALL day here on Thursday, including Dino-box lunches, and Steve & I were wrecked by the end of it!!

We had a really interesting discussion on our way round the Earth Galleries after both of us had got incredibly annoyed with Anna for rushing round not reading things and seeming to not take things in or listen when we tried to explain things. It felt so frustrating, and yet she was really enjoying herself. I had to tell myself (and then Steve, obviously!) that this is precisely why we home educate – so that we don’t prescribe the way in which our children learn, and so that we can encourage them to enjoy themselves while they’re learning. I mean, I read the labels of most things I looked at and can’t remember much of it now, so what good would it have done her?!!

So, we did the Earth Galleries first, then the dinosaurs, then spent what felt like hours in the Creepy Crawly section (yes, they’re still obsessed with bugs of one sort or another), then lunch. After lunch we did the Human Body section, then went downstairs to the ‘hands on’ area.

This part of the museum is aimed at 7 – 14s, but Anna wanted to go down there, so we did. There are computer databases and trays of exhibits to look at, the idea being that you think scientifically and investigate your tray – Anna, of course, did not want to do things in the prescribed manner and just wanted to look at things down the microscope. Again, she would have stayed here for hours!!

I’m quite sure that despite not doing things in the way they expected, she learned plenty from her own investigations.

Meanwhile, Abbie really enjoyed following the instructions and filling in the boxes, weighing, measuring, etc.

Funny how they are SO different, those girls.

Josiah liked the museum too, although by this time I think he had the distinct impression that EVERYTHING here was dead. He did some rubbings of a snakeskin down in the hands on area, and I had to take a photo of him with this section of tree trunk – which he declared to be a ‘Dead Pie’

I laughed, a lot. Quite a good scientific conclusion, I think!

After that we went back upstairs and at the children’s request, did the mammals section, which just about finished us off! Another tiring day – more pasta at the hotel tonight