just another morning here

We told the kids that today would be a mystery trip … I think Anna had half guessed what we had planned, but not enough to be sure of herself. We started off by visiting the British Museum, anyway, as it was so close to our hotel. What an incredible building, never mind the stuff that’s in it!! The girls did one of their activity packs to do with Egyptian Mummies, which they enjoyed (although I hated its prescriptive nature, but there we go). After that, just looking around, we happened upon a lady showing british coins from the different periods of history, and the girls were absolutely fascinated. Especially by the more recent coins, I don’t think they’d realised that British coinage had changed so much so recently.

They would have stayed here forever, but we dragged them off – they got caught up looking at Greek coins too, round the corner, with another lady … all very educational I’m sure. Josiah was on a trail looking for swords – and I think he found some in every part of the museum that we visited, so that was a hit as far as he was concerned.

After that we decided to let the children in on the secret, that we had tickets for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that afternoon. The girls were really excited, so Josiah got caught up in their excitement, but I don’t think he really knew what was going on. Anyway, we set off for the Palladium, and got there with time for a coffee and rest beforehand. Some people rested along the way – for some reason Josiah found this an extremely comfortable place to take a nap – I need one of those outrageously named and priced pieces of fabric! But he’s probably too heavy for it anyway, it would break!!

(photo of me especially for Nic, although you know what I look like now so it’s kind of superfluous!) Joe fell asleep on my back at least three times during the week, and he is SO heavy!!

We all really enjoyed the show, it goes without saying, really. Josiah, it turned out, was expecting to see something on a screen, like the cinema, and he was really awestruck when it started, his face was a picture. Not to mention the moment that the car actually ‘flew’! It was very very well done, impressive to the end. Jason Donovan sang well, but seemed a bit grumpy (??) although the show as a whole made up for it – I would definitely recommend it – makes me cry every time (how sad am I?!). Steve enjoyed it too, I hasten to add. The children are now singing snippets of the songs, I’m going to have to get them the CD just so they learn more than the snippets!

As if the day couldn’t get any more full or better, we decided to go to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. The kids had really been looking forward to this, and we did have a lovely time there. The children were thrilled by all the moving animals around the place, although it is somewhat noisy to eat your dinner accompanied by trumpeting elephants and roaring cheetahs. Still, it was really fun, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. It had taken Steve and I until tonight to realise that because we were on public transport we could drink – how it took us so long to figure that one out I shall never know! Anyway, we made up for it this evening and in the days that followed!! None of my photos came out very well really, because the lighting was dim and my camera’s crap, (not to mention the wine) but here are a couple.

This dessert was called a ‘Volcano’ and had to be ordered, just for the sparkler. Abbie shared with Steve and I

Got home late and fell into bed again – well, I guess it wasn’t that late, but it felt like it!!

Unbelievable as it was to some (!!) we made it over to the Science Museum for 10am, and despite having our friendly camera crew with us we had an enjoyable couple of hours there. Abbie really wanted to go back but we didn’t manage it, so that’s something for another time.

We ended up trudging the whole way across Kensington Gardens to find the playpark (although we weren’t the only ones!!) and all really enjoyed our time there – the park is lovely and there were some great games going on I think. Abbie especially enjoyed seeing Piers again!

Slight disappointment as Anna didn’t manage to rope Poppy into her TV thing, because despite having asked Kensington & Chelsea Council for permission and having paid £100 to get it, it then turned out that Kensington Gardens is royal property and therefore not under council jurisdiction anyway – so no filming allowed. Still, it was a relatively amusing episode for Alison and I plus an entourage of vaguely related children to have traipsed over to the lake and then be held up by a police car!

Lovely to meet fellow muddlepuddlers too, although it was too short! Maybe that was our fault – we headed off around 3pm for our river cruise – organised by the tv people so we didn’t complain too much, especially as they were chauffeuring us around as well. So that happened, then they did a bit more filming by Tower Bridge, and after that we were free to go (phew! We’re off to see the editing this week though, so that should be fun).

Thought we’d do a spontaneous evening London Eye ride, as it was a nice evening, but our plans for that were short lived too, when we got there and found that it had closed early due to a private function!

Ho hum – so that night ended with pasta & pesto cooked in the hotel kitchen. Steve & I tried out the babysitting and went out for a walk after the children were asleep, which was pleasant – ended up in Tescos buying lunch for the next day – how sad is that?!

We started off Monday morning by agreeing to Anna’s number one choice of activity, the London Dungeons. This started with a fair bit of excitement, oohing and aahing, but after managing to get as far as the toilets, the children had decided it was too scary. Then, two minutes into the pathway, something sudden and noisy happened, and Anna in particular got completely freaked out! At that point, we decided it wasn’t worth the rather large entrance fee to have to keep reassuring the children, none of them were enjoying it, so we hotfooted it back to the entrance, got our money back, and were let out of the escape route. Apparently it happens all the time. Anna kept the souvenir book and has read it from cover to cover, and doesn’t seem too perturbed about the whole thing – just as well, really, because it is one of those things she won’t ever be allowed to forget!

Anyway, our exit via the ‘let me out quick, I’m too scared’ door didn’t go unnoticed by the vigilant Original Tour Bus ticket seller on the other side of the road, and as it had been something we were planning to do anyway, when he collared us we bought tickets and did the whole bus tour thing from start to finish. Abbie really enjoyed the children’s commentary – she kept saying ‘oh, they just told us about that’ (as we pointed things out) but then couldn’t remember what they’d said.

Joe did get somewhat bored by the end – no swords on the bus, although we did spot lots of statues with swords, so that placated him a bit.

Lunch was the first thing we spotted when we got hungry, most days – in this case, KFC. After that we headed over to the Tower of London and really enjoyed looking around there.

This swordsman was holding the first real sword of the week, and Josiah was really excited by it!!

Joe particularly enjoyed all the armour, guns, lots of swords, etc. In fact, we saw a ‘real’ swordfight outside, which was great, and a few days later in Hamleys Joe remembered the names of the different swords he’d seen, so it all went in. He bought himself a little toy archer from the shop with his pocket money, which was actually a lovely little souvenir. I really don’t mind indulging his interest in swords too much – maybe he can take up fencing when he’s a bit bigger!

We liked the Crown Jewels too, although I couldn’t help thinking that the giant golden punch bowl was just ever so slightly over the top.

After all that, the girls’ money was burning a hole in their pockets and Anna ended up buying a London T-shirt. Abbie managed to save her money till the next day, but it was a struggle! We were exhausted, so bought some fruit on the way out of the tube station near the hotel, so when we got home we ate it and abandoned all thought of any more of a meal than that, conscious of the fact that we all needed to be up and out again the next day.

Not unusual for some, but going on holiday by train was a relatively big deal for us! I have to say I prefer being able to strap my children into the car, as neither train journey was particularly enjoyable … and both seemed interminably long!

Anyway, our travelling was happily uneventful, we found our hotel easily, and on our first night went out for dinner at a nearby Garfunkels – nothing special, but it was close, cheap and the kids activity menu things kept the children occupied.

The hotel was nice – comfortable, clean, friendly, central, and everything we needed it to be, really. Not a lot of space for relaxing in our room, and the lounge was a smoking area, so we didn’t spend much extra time there other than evenings, but it was still perfectly nice. We didn’t use the babysitting much, mainly because we were too knackered to go out by the time the children were settled!