Where not to take a toddler in London

(or…what I’ve learnt today)

#1 Pret a Manger picnic in “Euston Plaza”. Your toddler will chase the pigeons. The pigeons will eat your lunch. The old guy next to you will shake his head despairingly. There are a lot of bloody pigeons.

#2 Euston tube on a Saturday, when you don’t realllllly know where you’re going. Apparantly the northbound Northern Line isn’t in the same place as the southbound. Who knew?!

#3 The V&A. This isn’t from today, it just fits this list. I may have missed something but isn’t it all priceless ming vases and glass stuff?! I went there in desperation at 6PM on a Friday after Roo had been (unexpectedly) good all through an afternoon tea in South Kensington but needed a runaround before the long bus trip home. It was dark, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum were both closed. What would you do?! Spend half an hour ducking under roped off bits to haul him back out is what I did….

Places to take a toddler in London:

To a gallery to play with dirt. Who woulda thought it?! Ok, this is only one for the day when the gallery happens to be running a toddler-friendly “play in the dirt” session. It was ace, it really was. I am planning to get some poster tubes and make my own giant sand pens and let Roo trail sand round the house. Err….on second thoughts no. And neither am I going to let him try another cat litter-based “lucky dip”. One day only, son. Hypocritical? Sending mixed messages? Letting him throw dirt about the place when he got into trouble for doing that very thing at a friend’s house on Wednesday? Why yes, I am confusing this way. But such is the way of mothers…

Certainly one I’d recommend if it wasn’t a one-off. Next, we went to East Finchley, which would be another pin in the map if we’d gone anywhere but my Uncle’s house (he does have an enormous, enclosed garden though. You should go there). Some fun was to be had sitting in the waiting room, watching the choo-choo-choobs going in and out but that’s really only applicable if you’re specifically sitting on the platform at East Finchley, waiting for your husband to turn up because he left you in Euston to go back to Camberwell to pick  up the car after its MOT to drive back to Kennington then come up to East Finchley. This was a sudden change of plans that you hadn’t accounted for (who would have thought the old girl would even pass her MOT?!) and that is why you found yourself a) having your lunch eaten by pigeons b) getting lost in Euston c) feeding your toddler a packet of Quavers for his lunch and d) stuck on the platform at East Finchley cause you couldn’t get all your stuff down the stairs on your own.

In hindsight, there are things I would have changed about today. Hindsight is a great thing.

And here endeth the lesson.