Southbank Festival of Neighbourhood – 07/06/13

Things are getting worse. But there’s only a month to go until I’m out of this trap and can finally start to move on. Until then, it’s just a steady decline to oblivion.

I’m talking, of course, about my very old and extremely untrusty CrapBerry. Its battery life – never great – has been shrinking faster than my Jewish Great Aunts and right now, I’d say it’s as short as Auntie Edna but heading towards an Auntie Myra. Admittedly, dropping it in the bath didn’t help. But the point I’m coming to is that I saw some pretty cool things at the Southbank Centre on Friday and I have no photos of most of them. Because CrapBerry died in my arms. Again.

It was all a bit of a spontaneous trip. 1PM saw Reuben safely dropped at nursery and Eva and I standing on the road outside, dithering about whether to do the sensible thing or the fun thing. The sensible thing would be to go to Tesco and buy food for dinner, as well as crafty stuff for kids’ church. The fun thing was going to the Southbank and seeing whether we could get a free scoop of ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s.

We did the fun thing. This would have been a really dull post if we hadn’t. Besides, X texted to say she was she was in the vicinity, so we decided to hook up with her on our ice cream mission. Which was a success! Bless Ben & Jerry’s and their habit of giving away free ice cream!

Mmmm, blondie brownie goodness! X was mainly excited about the spade-spoon that came with it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate her Peanut Butter and Jam thing. Baby Joshua was enjoying his too, until he dropped it. Classic rookie mistake…

While we were queuing, a crowd of people were gathered at the fence around the back of the ITV studios, with cameras. My imagination was starting to conjure exciting ideas about who it might be, including one scenario where a Jedi and a Timelord met over a mansize tub of Caramel Choo-Choo. But no, it was some bloke from EastEnders, Booooring!

So, we went to play in the sandpit instead. This same fake beach appears every summer at the Southbank Centre in some form of other, but this was a bit of a step down from last year’s very exciting rainbow sandpit. Didn’t stop Eva and Baby Joshua from getting stuck in though. The beach was there as part of the Festival of Neighbourhood, which we didn’t have much time or phone battery to explore but here are some exciting things we spotted about the place.

It’s a bit dark, but here’s one of the giant hedge-y sculptures known as “Neighbours”

And this is from outside the “Beanotown” exhibit, a collection of pieces about my favourite childhood comic (including original artwork and a Beano-themed shop). Sadly, I didn’t have Reuben to put his head through the holes like he normally did. But we did own this actual annual.

And one of these fan club badges! It was all a bit exciting. I didn’t get shots of the graffiti-wall in Dennis’ treehouse or the Beano guitar. Or in fact the new fountain outside the Royal Festival Hall that you can play in. Or the greenhouse by the Golden Jubilee bridges. But it was all there.

Darn CrapBerry. I’ll be back with more…

Read more here (official website)