Things to do over May half term in London

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

DSC01748This is a guest post by Angus Carbarns, blogger and travel writer. He’s previewing some of London’s half-term activities because we are skipping off to countrysideshire again. Yes, you read that right. Two trips to the country in one month. What has become of me??

Anyhoo, thanks to Angus for these tips. Usual disclaimers apply etc etc…

Half term is the perfect opportunity to get away with the kids and enjoy a trip to London. We’ve put together a guide to enjoying a great value family holiday in the capital.

We’re fast approaching the latest half-term holiday break and across the country families are scrambling for ways to fill the days. If you’re in that boat have you thought taking the kids on a trip to London?

DSC01795There are loads of activities taking place in the capital over the half term break – the kind of stuff that you can enjoy just as much as the kids. And with a bit of forward planning a London half term break doesn’t have to be that expensive either.

If you’re not careful, the bill for a family holiday can quickly spiral out of control but we’ve got a few tips to help you control your budget and make savings on your half term holiday. Here are a few tips to help you cut your costs:

  • Book early: If you’re planning on flying to London or catching a train to the capital then you should book as early as you can to take advantage of lower advanced fares. And check the information on travel companies’ websites to see if they have any money saving family deals.
  • Get picky with your accommodation: The recent economic difficulties have provided some unexpected benefits for budget travels as the demand for low-cost accommodation has seen a surge in the sector. You’ll find a great range of cheap hotels in London like the Premier Inns spread across the city that offer not only good value but also high levels of quality.
  • Look for the freebies: The best thing about going to London is the range of half term activities that the city boasts. The second best thing is that a lot of these activities are free, meaning you keep costs well and truly down. We’ve picked out some of the best free child-friendly activities you can enjoy in London over the half term. They are just the kind of activities to keep you and the kids occupied, so read on.

DSC01755Trawling through the free attractions in London can be a bewildering experience – there are so many great things to do. To help you out, here are some of the best:

  • Back-packs and Trails: The Victoria and Albert Museum will be running this great event throughout the half term week offering your kids the chance to learn about the exhibits at the museum in a tremendously enjoyable, interactive way.
  • Family Art Fun: The spectacular Horniman Museum & Gardens is celebrating flying and swimming creatures in this family fun day. The event is free but ticketed so book your place now to avoid disappointment.
  • Spy Kids: The Museum of Childhood is offering spy-themed programme of family fun this year over half term. With interactive events taking place throughout the day, and the chance to win a prize, the museum promises a great time for budding 007s.
  • Play in style: If the weather is good over the half term week then spend a bit of time in the fresh air at the Diana Memorial Playground.  The huge park in Kensington (pictured top) is full of the kind of obstacles and objects that’ll fire your kids’ imaginations – including a huge wooden pirate ship that’ll be sure to get the timbers a-shiverin’… aaarrr!
  • See science live: The Science Museum (below) is a great place to take the kids at any time of the year, providing an educational and enjoyable day out. To take the experience further you can take the kids to see scientists carrying out live science activities in the museum, using visitors as volunteers for their studies!

DSC00387How do you intend to spend your half term holidays?

Posted in What I suppose you'd call "tips"....? | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Crazy Chimps Revisited – 11/05/13

Posted on May 11, 2013 by

IMG-20130511-03023Our local soft play, Crazy Chimps, has been overdue for a revisit since we made a hasty exit from the opening party. There have been a few weeks of glorious weather, when the park has beckoned instead….and there was that inconvenient trip to middle-of-nowhereshire last week. But this Saturday was rainy and grim and we had nothing else to do, so we left Eva sleeping at home and headed down there.

(Nathan was at home too, in case you’ve hit the “Social Services” speed-dial key. I imagine most readers have their fingers on that key every time they read the blog…)

It’s changed a lot since we last visited. I met the owner, Sally, on the way in and she was kind enough to show me round to see all the new bits. There’s a lot of them, so hang on…I will try and remember!

Firstly, the toddler area. On the opening weekend, it looked like this:

cc3and it was in between the door and the playframe, so the babies were all a bit trampled by the older kids rushing towards the trampoline. But now, it looks like this:

IMG-20130511-03027There’s a green music-wall on one side, and a low white wall on the other side, enclosing the space so that the bigger kids are diverted around the outside. And the music wall includes a glockenspiel and some drums:

IMG-20130511-03029Then, within the toddler area there’s a separate bit for babies, which is even more enclosed, like a giant play pen:IMG-20130511-03026and that has all the foam blocks and things in that babies like to throw around. So, I think we can all agree it’s much improved. Safer and more stuff to play with. I know a few other parents were worried about the babies being trampled, so it’s handy to know you can stash them away!

There are also a few new sections – a hair salon, with ingenious car-shaped seats for kids that Roo rushed to as soon as we got there (sadly I didn’t get a photo), a treatment room and -coming soon – a cinema room that can be hired out for parties. There’s a cafe as well, which sells teapigs tea and innocent smoothies. I do love a cup of teapigs.

IMG-20130511-03025The play equipment looks different as well, with leaves giving it a jungly look:

IMG-20130511-03035There’s also a reception-operated gate between the play area and the outside, which should reassure parents again. And new tables with little chairs, and a screen showing CBeebies for when kids need a bit of time out:

IMG-20130511-03039I had a chat with Sally about the pricing too, and she assures me there are some good deals coming up, like a lunchtime entry price that includes a snack box. The 30% off admission also runs till the end of May and there’s also membership available.

Anyway, Reuben had a great time running around, jumping and stacking. He told me “I like the trampoline, it’s soooo springy” but he also liked the ball pool and the light-up slide. We also utilised the toilets a couple of times and they have those child-seat-within-adult-seat things that his friend C has. Very clever, and he managed to…err….perform in the right place (less said about other occasions the better). It wasn’t too crowded this time, the atmosphere was a lot more peaceful, although it was fairly busy and I was mainly able to watch him from the cafe area. So, a definite improvement on the opening party and we’ll be going back. I would recommend other local parents give it a look as well.  For more info, visit the Crazy Chimps website

IMG-20130511-03042Disclaimer: On this occasion, I was given free admission to Crazy Chimps to review the changes. All opinions remain honest and my own.

Posted in Token attempts at exercise (leisure centres) | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A Quick Reminder About LolliBop

Posted on May 5, 2013 by

LolliLogoLORESI’m in the depths of the countryside right now, with only Eva’s bodyweight in chocolate between me and those malicious looking sheep…but just a quick reminder that LolliBop tickets are on sale now! And why not have a quick peek at the LolliBop Harlem Shake? Normal service resumed soon!

And another update….Sid and Andy have just been announced. Whoop!

Posted in What I suppose you'd call "tips"....? | Tagged | Leave a comment

Ladywell Fields – 27/04/13

Posted on April 27, 2013 by

DSC02427

I have a couple of previous connections with Ladywell Fields. The first is that I used it as the name of a 1930s transvestite in a choose-your-own-adventure-poirot-spoof I wrote for a friend of ours. Along with her friend Victoria Busstation.

The other is that I’d been there before, around 6 years ago. My friend Varnia was working in Lewisham Hospital at the time and I used to go and meet her for lunch. Together, we explored the wonders of hospital cuisine, as well as the very literal pub a few doors down, where a burger in a bun was just that – no sauce, no salad of any kind. Just meat and bread. They probably called a spade a spade as well.

One day, I decided to get the train from Ladywell home instead of jumping on the 436. I walked out of the back of the hospital and was confused to find myself in the middle of a nature reserve. Even more confusingly, there was a train station in the middle of it, which took me to London Bridge in a few minutes. It was like a little bit of countryside in a grotty bit of Lewisham. That’s London for you – full of surprises.

So, my transvestite’s namesake was well overdue for a revisit. It was baby Joshua’s birthday, so we went for a picnic in the North field. We parked on a road that ran parallel to the field on the map, but turned out to be separated by a railway line. Luckily my Google Street View research had shown something green at the end of the road, and yes there was a big bridge which led to the north field:

DSC02417

It was curvy with wide steps but also a tarmac slope that someone had just stuck on top of half the step. It wasn’t the slickest job. But it was accessible by buggy, and that was all that mattered. Incidentally, finding parking was a lot easier than it was on our last trip to see baby Joshua, thanks to the tactic of “checking where you’re going before you leave”. I think it’s really gonna catch on!

ROO PLAY

So, we found the right field and lost Reuben. There was a large play area with a zipwire in it and apparently it’s physically impossible to walk past one of those. I left him and Nathan there and me and Eva went to find the picnic, up at the station end. Roo came back to join us eventually, but he was drawn to the zipwire again and again.

ROOZIP
The rest of us hung out next to the stream, conveniently near the loos and with its own little wooden play area. DSC02431Reuben did enjoying pretending to be a look out and shouting “ship ahoy!” at passers by.

roo ladywellAt one point, he decided it was warm enough to paddle (one 2-year-old had already had a dip) and changed into this rather fetching wellies-and-wetsuit combo:

DSC02463It was pretty clean water, for South London and there was a kind of beach where you could get in with going through the stinging nettles. If it had been warmer, I would have joined him but it was mostly cold enough to be wearing cardigans and jackets all round.

I did join him in a gentle game of pooh sticks, on this perfect pooh-stick-playing bridge:

DSC02462Won one, lost one, drew one. Not a bad result for two bad losers.

It’s a surprisingly tranquil spot for deep South London, especially seeing as it’s sandwiched between a hospital and a railway line. The weather threatened to rain but never convincingly did until we were ready to go and so we made a break for it. And we’d been pre-warned that things might get muddy, so we dressed Eva entirely in mud-pallette boys’ clothes. Her pretty girly things just show the stains…

eva ladywellVERDICT: A great place for a picnic and for kids to explore. Keep an eye on them near the river.

More details here (official site)

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

10 Things I Hate About Now – A Rant about Misinformation

Posted on April 22, 2013 by

DSC00444

There are almost too many things making me cross at the moment. Through not-much fault of my own, I clicked onto the Daily Mail website 9 times in 2 days last week. I don’t know why it kept happening, but everything I googled on my phone (“Saucy pictures of David Tennant”, “Babies with excessively sweaty heads”) resulted in me unwittingly clicking through to DM. I can’t always see the domain from google, so the first I know of it is when I see the headline – “Babies with sweaty heads are all dying from IMMIGRANT CANCER caused by people on benefits” or “BAN THIS FILTH – Join the Daily Mail campaign for no more saucy pictures of David Tennant, ever.” But misinformation is not just spewing out of the tabloids – it’s everywhere, from Facebook to natural parenting forums. It’s too much for me to form into one coherent post, but I’ve been making a lot of lists lately. So, I’ve written a list of 10 home truths, to counteract all the things that are being repeated around the internet and are just not true. Apologies to anyone who wanted London/Toddler related things…some of these are relevant, many are not. I couldn’t really find a picture that summed this whole post up, so that’s Roo watching Tweenies with ear protectors on when he was about 2. Take from it what you will…

1) Measles is not the same as Chicken pox

Measles is not a standard childhood disease that you need to “get out of the way”. It’s a killer, and it’s currently at epidemic proportions. I generally believe in the philosophy of “An it harm none, do what thou wilt” (a steal from Wicca there) i,e. your parenting decisions are your alone and we should respect each other’s different style. BUT when it comes to vaccination, other people’s decisions not to vaccinate put my children at risk. Specifically the one who’s too young for her MMR. Luckily, in the light of the outbreaks in Wales and Manchester my GPs have agreed she can have her MMR early. But people who treat measles lightly make me furious. If you don’t believe me, do you believe Roald Dahl? And don’t get me started on Andrew Wakefield and his cronies…

2) The Czech Republic is not the same as Chechnya

This should be a no-brainer to anyone with a GCSE in Geography (not an O-level, they didn’t have those countries then). Two Chechens have been accused of the Boston bombing. But apparently that’s too complicated for some tweeters. If you’re on Twitter and you also happen to control the American nukes, please note that Chechens do not come from the Czech Republic. And it wasn’t Zooey Deschanel’s doing either.

3) If you have dieted every day for 30 years, that’s not a diet. That’s an eating disorder.

Yes, Samantha Brick. I’m talking to you. Go and spew your bitter bile somewhere no-one can hear you please and try not to create a new generation of anorexic teens. Listen kids, eating disorders are not cool. And neither is writing for the Daily Mail.

DSC00519

4) Religion and science are not polar opposites.

I’m a Christian (not a Wiccan as I may have suggested above). I don’t spam Facebook repeatedly with half-baked ideas, so can I politely ask atheists not to do the same? Latest culprit was a photo saying “In Science we trust”. Here’s a crazy thought for y’all – most Christians believe in science too, and some of us even take advantage of technology every day, just like you do. I think you may have us confused with the Amish.

5) There is no reason for a 4-year-old to be in the same place as a loaded gun

I wrote extensively on this somewhere else, but let me re-iterate the main point for you. If 4-year-olds are frequently managing to shoot people, there is something wrong with your gun control. Think on it.

6) You don’t need fancy gadgets to raise your baby

Yes you do, according to Upspring, a company who sell gadgets to help your baby walk (as opposed to the EXTREME risk that comes with them cruising around the furniture) in gender-stereotyped colours. And kits to measure whether there’s any alcohol in your breastmilk (hint: if you’ve had a drink, there probably will be. If you haven’t, there won’t. But everything is fine in moderation). Apparently, they are meeting “numerous unmet needs for mom and baby”, but essentially they are all gadgets to – in the words of Duncan Bannatyne – solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Baby not walking by 9 months? It’ll get there…

7) Breast pumps are not a good indication of how much milk you’re making

…which leads me on to an Upspring product so controversial it’s worthy of its own bullet point. If you’re worried about your milk supply, what should you do? Use a pump to measure how much you have and get it analysed by their software? Noooooo! I have only anecdotal evidence for this, but the most profilic breastfeeders aren’t also the best pumpers. You can feed a child for 2 years yet still be unable to pump more than a dribble. Because…and this is the real shocker….babies work differently to machines. I think they have a different mechanism or something.

The best advice I’ve heard about supply is if you’re worried about it, try going to bed for a whole day with your baby (set up your bed for safe co-sleeping with a bed guard  and no thick covers), a whole bunch of snacks and a ton of juice and just cuddle and feed while watching a boxset of something trashy. For mums who already have a child, this sounds like heaven…but it’s meant to be good for getting milk a-flowing.

DSC00456

8) Sometimes, in the middle of a crisis, you should admit you’re wrong

You, Andrew Wakefield. You, Andrew Wakefield’s mate Jayne Donegan. You, posters on Natural Mamas who say that the measles outbreaks won’t change your mind on getting your kids MMR’ed.  Even if you can’t admit you’re wrong, at least you could stop spreading your poisonous anti-MMR propaganda. Haven’t you done enough? This guy sums up the whole sorry mess better than I could.

9) It’s OK for 3-year-olds to spend their days playing “with no real purpose”

Daily Mail again, front page today…blaming nurseries for raising kids with no manners who are unready for school. Err, don’t they play a lot in Reception too? Don’t forget that we start kids at 4, which is way earlier than some countries. Being ready for school doesn’t mean they’re ready to sit still for hours on end. Reuben’s nursery does a damn fine job in a tough, inner-city estate area. They let the kids play – some teacher-led activities, some free play but they can choose – and at the end they have some learning time in groups. 3- and 4-year-olds learn through play and anyone with half a brain (ie not a DM journo) knows that.

And will people stop comparing our kids to the bloody French?! Yes, French kids sit still and do what they’re told but I’ve met French teenagers – they’re as bad as ours and they have more to rebel against. And then they grow into repressed adults. Whoop-de-doo. I think I’ll raise my kids the way of my ancestors thanks – the classic Scottish/English/Hungo-Judeo/German way. Question for you DM – how can you simultaneously be so xenophobic and yet still harp on about how our kids should be more French all the time? That kind of paradox will surely destroy the universe one day.

10) Water is a basic human right.

Shush, silly Nestle man. Don’t say anything else. Ever. I would start boycotting you if it wasn’t 17 years too late. And you know what? I don’t even miss it? Milky bars aside, your chocolates are rubbish anyway…

And relax! That felt better! Do you agree? Disagree? Leave a comment saying which ones you would fight me on….good luck to you ;)

Posted in Rants | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Sunday News…

Posted on April 21, 2013 by

cc1

I seem to be doing a lot of these kind of updates at the moment. If you’re an infrequent visitor to London, it probably isn’t interesting and please accept my apologies. If you’re a resident of SE11, it probably is interesting, and I accept your large boxes of chocolates. Anyway, I have two things to tell you.

Firstly, the lovely Nathan went and got me some pictures of the new playground at Victoria Tower Gardens. It wasn’t his primary mission – that’s a whole other story – but he thought he’d take some while he was passing. And here they are:

play1 play2The long snake-y thing seems to be some kind of water feature, as it has a hose coming out of one end. I love a bit of water play, so it’ll be nice to have somewhere that’s just over Lambeth Bridge from us. There’s also a slide and a tyre swing (not, as Eva’s godmother thought, a giant seesaw. Thanks to Nathan for these. You’re my best reader!

cc2

The other thing is that Crazy Chimps (top and above) is now officially open and, perhaps in response to the feedback on the prices, they are offering all customers 30% off until the end of May. That takes the price for me, Roo and Eva down to £8.12 off-peak (until Eva turns 1 in two weeks but I’m in extreme denial about that), so we may well visit and report on the new baby apparatus and the other improvements they’ve made since the launch.

So, that is the news for today. Hopefully some more interesting posts coming soon….

Posted in What I suppose you'd call "tips"....? | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

LolliBop 2013!!

Posted on April 18, 2013 by

LolliLogoLORES

Some of you may remember my sugar-hyped, sun-stroked review of LolliBop 2012. It was crazily hot, crazily colourful and crazily fun. We met a ZingZilla and we saw – among others – Alex from CBeebies, who I had the weirdest dream about the other night….

Sorry, I got a little confused there. The point is, LolliBop last year was ace and it’s back again this year. There’s a change of venue – it’ll be in the former Olympic Park, currently undergoing renovation and soon to be reopening as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. That means it’s in Stratford, which may seem like a trek, but we went there in the summer (not for that big sporting thing) and it was easy-peasy on the Jubilee Line from Waterloo. It’s even accessible, which you can’t say about last year’s closest stations!

IMG-20120819-00944It’s on for 3 days again – 16th, 17th and 18th August – and the line-up tends to be the same each day. But if you’re keen, you can book for all three… Early bird tickets are available now at http://www.lollibopfestival.co.uk.

IMG-20120819-00926Acts haven’t been announced yet, but like last year there’ll be a mix of music acts and presenters on the LolliBop Live stage, and theatre acts at the Lollipalladiam as well as lots and lots of interactive activities, an Enchanted Forest and the LolliBop Kitchen. We spent hours there last year and still didn’t get round everything. There is more than enough to keep a 3-year-old entertained, but this year we’ll be visiting with a 4-year-old and 1-year-old (probably) toddling. Could be an exhausting day! Fortunately it knackers the kids out too:

IMG-20120819-00971Book now. It’ll be ace. And we’ll be there. What else do you need?

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Where to live in London with a toddler pt 7 – Battersea

Posted on April 14, 2013 by

IMG-20130308-02656Battersea is at the heart of what’s known as “Nappy Valley”. There are bugaboos everywhere. It’s mostly affluent, although it’s funny that the two things it’s best known for are a derelict industrial building and a refuge for stray animals. It’ s long and thin, with no particular centre and is home to shops that you just don’t find anywhere else, like “The Glass Shop” and “DoorWorld”. Sadly, “DoorWorld” is not as exciting as it sounds.

So, what is there to do there?

Battersea Park is lovely, and one of my favourite parks in London. It has a small children’s zoo and a massive boating lake. It might also be where the cycling scene in “The Great Muppet Caper” was filmed, but don’t quote me on that. There’s also the Latchmere Leisure Centre, with swimming and soft play and the very lovely play cafe Eat Play Love. You can see why so many families flock there.

Connections to Central London

Overland to Victoria and Waterloo

Night buses N19 and N44

IMG-20110902-00287

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Crazy Chimps Opening Party – 14/04/13

Posted on April 14, 2013 by

cc2I am in shock. It wasn’t Crazy Chimps’ fault but oh my…We’ll get to that bit later. It has something to do with that oh-so-angelic boy driving the yellow truck. We’ll get there.

So, today was the opening of the long-awaited Crazy Chimps in Kennington.We were there and so, it seemed, was half of Kennington. It was packed. Eva had just woken up and was staring around in confusion. Reuben, by contrast, got involved straight away and we lost him for a few minutes, until he re-emerged from the playframe.

cc1The space wasn’t huge but they fit a lot in there  – ball pool, some slides, baby area, trampoline and a cafe. There was some food out, and a cold beer for Nathan, which was nice. And a LOT of small children. It was a bit manic, and all the children were getting more and more hyper.  I put Eva down to play in the baby area, but she got knocked over by some bigger kids and was a bit wary after that.

The good points are that the play equipment is all new and flawless, the trampoline is huge and they had some exciting touches like a light-up slide. Eva liked the foam blocks in the baby area, but she did try and sink her teeth into them so I took her away from those. Roo thoroughly enjoyed himself and ran around like a loon. And Peppa Pig even made an appearance, although we didn’t pin her down for a photo.

cc3Now for the not-so-great points – it was very newly finished. The paint on the fences seemed a bit sticky still and there was a bit of building dust around. I reckon they have time to sort that before the official opening though. A few parents mentioned that the baby area could do with being fenced off, as it’s between the main door and the playframe, so the older ones rampage through it on their way to play.

cc4And the big one – the pricing. Every parent I talked to was surprised at the pricing. Peak-time prices are £8.80 for a 3-16-year-old and peak includes after school on weekdays. Given that it’s right next door to Roo’s nursery (and hopefully his school as well) it might have been somewhere we frequented on the way home, if he needed to blow off steam. But probably not for £8.80. Eva is turning 1 soon, so she will be £5.20, and even off-peak she’d be £3.80. Compare it to Bertie&Boo, which is a similar small independent playhouse – it was £2.90 for Roo and free for Eva, on a Saturday afternoon. Wavelengths, which is also brand new, was £2.50 for each of them, at any time.  Plus, you have to pay Adult entry at Crazy Chimps (£2.80/£3.50), which is unheard of in South London. I’m guessing rents are pretty high in Kennington, and I know they have to cover their costs, but it would be irresponsible of me not to report back the word on the street.

Basically, it’s £21.00 for the 4 of us to go on a weekend day or £6.60 for Eva and I to go off-peak. It’s a bit off-putting when there are so many free playgroups around. Every parent there was doing similar calculations so I know I’m not alone. But it would be a nice place to hang out if it was more affordable. And SO very local. I’m a big supporter of local business and am prepared to pay a bit more to an independent business (like the Tea House or Kennington Bookshop) but I would have trouble justifying the price of this.

And what happened at the end? Are you ready for this? Already a bit frazzled from the crowded party, neither Nathan or I were quite ready to deal with Reuben stripping off in a slightly inaccessible part of the playframe. But we watched with horrified eyes as he took off his trousers, socks and pants with another small boy watching him, also in horror. Nathan yelled at him  through the netting, Reuben screamed the scream of the overtired-boy-caught-doing-something-naughty, I got stuck in the ball pit trying to get to him and Eva started whining. Nathan eventually struggled through the playframe, extracted the screaming boy, put his clothes back on and we frogmarched him home.

No, we have no pictures of that. But the mental images will be burned on our eyes forever. Apparently, he was “getting ready for the slide”. Sounds like a recipe for friction burns to me…

VERDICT: A nice, local soft play but the pricing is a bit scary.

More details here (official site)

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Where to live in London with a toddler pt 6 – Greenwich and Blackheath

Posted on April 13, 2013 by

DSC01925

I may have described Greenwich as the countryside in the past and I stick by that. It’s very nice, pretty expensive and unsurprisingly has lots of families about the place. Nearby Blackheath has a village-y feel and by saying that, I mean it looks like an actual village. There is a big green, lined with huge houses and a church. Forget “Peckham Village” – Blackheath looks like what you’d get if you asked a class of 10-year-olds to draw a village. It’s almost a comical contrast when you’re on the 53 coming out of Blackheath. Greenwich is also very historic-y and has easy access for getting out of london. You might infer from that that getting into London is trickier and you’d be right…but that’s the price of living in the countryside.

So, what is there to do there?

Greenwich Park is vast and lovely and has nice views over London. There’s the National Maritime Museum, with a nice kids’ section and a Picturehouse cinema. There’s the Cutty Sark as well, though I haven’t been there and the cable car over to the Excel Centre.

What do the locals say?

(About Blackheath) “I love the Park. Good Schools. The small village feel. Independent shops on the high street. Decent transport links. Doesn’t feel too Londoney”

DSC01915Connections to Central London

Overland (various) into London Bridge, Waterloo East and Charing Cross

Jubilee Line (North Greenwich)

Night buses N1, 53, N89

Posted in Uncategorized, What I suppose you'd call "tips"....? | Tagged , | Leave a comment