It’s a Long, Long Time from March to November Part 2

Posted on December 9, 2020 by katese11

I enjoyed doing my last set of March-November photos so I thought I’d finish off the months. We left Nathan and I  enjoying lunch on the edge of lockdown 1. It gets worse before it gets better…

Thursday 19th

In March – an emotional week has resulted in the first almighty migraine of lockdown. I think I took this photo to try and convince Nathan to come home from the office and pick Eva up.

In November – Eva has taken to sleeping on the floor. I think I took this photo cause she’s cute when she’s asleep.

Friday 20th

 

In March – Nathan is home from the office but keeping up his Friday Tieday tradition

In November – this pretty much sums up the state of affairs in America by this point

 

Saturday 21st

In March – one of many, many games of Heroquest between Nathan and Reuben over lockdown

In November – one of many, many koala hugs between Nathan and Eva

 

Sunday 22nd

 

In March – our first ever post-church Zoom

In November – I’m watching myself leading worship at church on my home telly but am wearing the same grey dress in both. You can’t tell from the photo but I’m actually wearing the same grey dress in the March picture as well.

 

Monday 23rd

In March – On the first official day of homeschooling, the children erect an elaborate tent in the back garden

In November – Covid has stopped children from changing into their PE kit at school. We’re not sure why, but it means Eva has to be sports-ready every Monday morning

 

Tuesday 24th

In March – Eva has painted a tiny teacup to look like Harry Potter

In November – Eva made a cheese scone at school and is posing with it by the sunset window

 

Wednesday 25th

In March – Reuben has taken to making Harry Potter characters on the wii and making them duel

In November – Reuben has stuck a puppy inside an infinity gauntlet. Standard.

 

Thursday 26th

In March – Eva is by that same window as she was a few days ago in November. There’s a sunset

In November – hey look, another sunset…

 

Friday 27th

In March – Eva is bored enough to start sweeping crumbs out from the inside of the sofa

In November – Every day that I get to drop her off at school, I am truly thankful

 

Saturday 28th

In March – trying to fight the boredom of a lockdown Saturday with an app that makes pandas appear in your lounge

In November – trying to fight the boredom of a lockdown Saturday by dressing as characters from “Gravity Falls”

 

Sunday 29th

In March – a brief spurt of creativity sees us decorating the front yard with pastel chalks

In November – a brief spurt of productivity sees us collecting six new dining chairs. Gauntlet still atop dining table.

 

Monday 30th

In March – a choir rehearsal on Facebook Live

In November  – a choir rehearsal on Zoom. Oh, how things have changed.

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It’s a Long, Long Time from March to November

Posted on November 18, 2020 by katese11

 

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Wandering Around Walthamstow

Posted on October 27, 2020 by katese11

I did a couple of posts called “Walthamstow Wanders” around 2015ish. Back then, we were still new to the area and were wandering around because we were discovering things and places and it was all very exciting. Nowadays, the discovery phase is very much over and we’re wandering around the North of Walthamstow because there’s a pandemic and it’s somewhere we can get to on foot.

Dour times.

Still, there is some fun to be had in the North of Walthamstow. I only realised a few days ago that the Feel Good Centre had reopened its Extreme Park so we booked in there, after quite some grappling with the infamous Better app. The Ninja Run and Clip n Climb still aren’t open but the soft play is and so are the trampolines. Which was quite a novelty for both kids, given we hadn’t been there since March. Frankly, even the bike/scooter ride there in the rain is a novelty when they haven’t left the house in days (well, Eva at least).

It wasn’t the ideal day but it was the only day I had off work so I was determined to make the kids have some kind of wholesome fun that didn’t involve killing people on Fortnite. And I think they did have fun.

The Extreme Park was weirdly crowded, given it’s Covid Times and Roo complained a few times that littlekids were getting under his feet. It was also the usual drag of having to wear a mask for an hour while they played, and so not even being able to get a coffee. But for all that, it was Better fun than sitting around watching Mummy take conference calls all day.

And on the way back, they enjoyed this selection of horrifying Halloween masks in the party shop near the Billet:

 

And I enjoyed spotting a rare twin variety of Walthamstow’s most famous native species – the dumped mattress:

While this looks slightly miserable, I should point out that Roo and I also headed that way a few Saturdays ago and that day it was glorious weather:

We had a spontaneous meetup with C’sMum in Lloyd Park and got a bonus cuddle with C’Mum’sBrother’sDog, thanks to C’sMum’sBrother. So that was a much more serotonin-filled trip, with the sunshine and the puppy. But today was pretty good too. One day we’ll leave Waltham Forest for something other than church but until then…..Walthamstow Wanders for the Win.

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Yes, There’s a Stigma. There Shouldn’t Be But There Is

Posted on October 15, 2020 by katese11

 

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day and for reasons best known to myself I’m writing about Facebook comments on a BBC News article. I know, I should not react. But the reaction to an article about miscarriage stigma utterly baffled me. It was an overwhelming “What stigma?”

 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there should be any stigma around miscarriage. It should be something that every family should be able to talk about. But the work is dismantle that stigma is not yet done and just claiming ignorance of it ever being there isn’t a helpful attitude to take. It’s like people who claim that racism isn’t a problem because “I don’t see colour”. You don’t solve a problem by refusing to acknowledge it was ever there.

I should also say I’ve never had a miscarriage. I’ve had two pregnancies and I have two children. I’m one of the lucky ones because so, so many women that I know have been through it. And yes, there is a stigma.

It’s stigma that stops families announcing pregnancies in the first trimester because they don’t want to also have to announce a miscarriage. It’s employers expecting women to be back at work straight after it happens. It’s the expectation that women will stop being sad about it a month or a year or ten years later. Or the expectation that they’ll stop being sad about it when they get pregnant again. And then there’s the lack of understanding around pregnancy after loss  – the constant paranoia about every twinge and every moment of stillness in the later trimesters. We all need to understand that subsequent pregnancies will never be as anxiety-free as that first one. Until this is all acknowledged and widely talked about, the stigma will never quite go away.

It is great that so many women who commented on the BBC article had experienced positive and sympathetic reactions to their miscarriages. But we all need to understand that every family’s experience is different and sadly, not every family has that positive experience. Others who commented that miscarriage was a “private family affair” also missed the point – telling women to stay silent about their trauma only exacerbates that trauma. How do we not know this by now?

I don’t know how best to go about dismantling the stigma that we still see around pregnancy and infant loss. I’d hope that my friends know that they can talk to me about their losses, even if they were a long time ago. But I do know that calling it a “non-issue” is insulting to so many who have been through it and feel like they can’t talk about it.

I hear you. I see your pain. It is genuine. Let’s hope we can get to a place one day where everyone feels that their pain is equally heard and seen.

Be kind to yourselves today, parents of lost ones. And be kind to yourself tomorrow and the next day too.

 

 

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A Shout Out to the Worship Leaders

Posted on October 13, 2020 by katese11

 

It occurs to me that I’ve written about my life as a lockdown choir leader – oh, and THAT made cheery reading – but I haven’t written about one of my other roles  – that of a lockdown worship leader. Oh don’t worry, I’m not here to convert you. I doubt this post will convince anyone that the churchgoing life is an easy one right now. I mean, you don’t even get a free cup of tea any more. It’s rubbish.

But I wanted not just to write about myself but to give a shout out to anyone else who has been leading worship through this strange old time. It’s been hardgoing, hasn’t it? Everything you love about worship – leading a group of people through the medium of music – has been largely absent and that warm feedback you get from the congregation replaced by the unforgiving glare of a camera phone lens. I have sung more to the internet these last six months than I have my entire life I think and it hasn’t always been easy or gratifying. Every little glitch is repeated for all to see and the things you never needed to worry about IRL suddenly become all too apparent. Not just your voice and playing but your face, your clothes, the state of your house….it’s a magnifying glass for your every insecurity.

I know, we’re not supposed to be self-conscious. We’re supposed to understand that this is all for the glorification of God, not of ourselves. We do understand that on a head level. But also, we’re human. I think.

It’s also been a time of real distinction between the wealthy and high-tech churches and…well, the rest of us. When you’re already feeling insecure, it doesn’t always do your soul good to see the amazingly slick offerings of the megachurches. It’s been great for humility but not so great for motivation when you’re sitting in your garden shed in the rain clutching a guitar and hoping the shed roof doesn’t collapse before you finish recording verse 3. That said, we’re blessed to have some youthful people in the church who have mastered video editing and live-streaming (and clearly, at nearly 40 I am not counting myself as one of the youth). I know that not all churches have found it easy to adapt to this new tech-dependency.

Life on the screen was weird enough but worship leading has not got less weird since returning to in-person church. It’s still captured on the internet – live-streamed onto YouTube in our case – but there’s only one take and that take is done in front of a sparse and silent congregation who are all wearing masks. Don’t get me wrong, the congregation do a lot of encouraging eyebrow- and forehead-work while I’m singing at them but it’s a very different experience to the usual feeling of leading people in song.

So all of you fellow worship leaders who have been ploughing on through videos and in-person weirdness, consider this a socially distanced pat on the back. It’s been tough and strange and it’s not going to be over for a long, long time. But keep on keeping on. And just remember why this we’re doing this. Also, remember that it’s a great opportunity to roll out obscure 90s songs that the congregation would probably hate because they’re masked and distant so, even if they complain, you can’t hear them. Hallelujah!

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The Confidence to Sing

Posted on September 15, 2020 by katese11

 

Around 2004, I went on a 6-week course in an arts centre in Islington called “Confidence to Sing”. I revisited that same arts centre last year as it happens…in those BeforeTimes when we could wander about and take in arts shows as we wished. Anyway, Nathan mocked me a little for going on this course because confidence in singing has never really been an issue for me – he said it should be called “Opportunity to Sing”.

Anyway, it turns out that in 2020 I lack both the confidence and the opportunity to sing. Not that I’m not confident about singing to the internet because, heck, I’ve had to do a looot of that lately. What I’m not confident about is getting my choir back together and singing again. And that’s not my fault – the guidelines have been crafted in a way that have consumed hours and hours of choir leaders’ time poring over them trying to work out whether we’re officially Allowed to Sing.

And that isn’t what any of us want! We don’t want to find a loophole, to have to reimagine ourselves as a protest or a frisbee team in order to be able to gather and sing. We want to be told that yes, we can go ahead. We are choirs, a legitimate segment of culture that shouldn’t have to shoehorn itself into “education” or “exercise” in order to sneak by.

If it’s not safe to sing together, that’s fine too. We spent months waiting patiently for the results of the research and during those months, we adapted and ran choirs on Zoom or Facebook Live, even though remote singing is far from ideal. We shed members at every turn and we grimaced and carried on. Then at the start of July, professional singers were allowed to sing again and we amateurs again just had to deal with it and keep going. And then on 14th August, a thrill ran around the amateur choir community as we were finally told that singing probably wasn’t going to bring in the apocalypse after all. The new guidelines were ambigous and there were some implicaiton that we could still only sing in groups of 6 but clarification was on its way. On 21st August, the OneVoice Campaign published an interview with Barbara Eifler, CEO of Making Music, and she finally gave us all that certainty we needed. We didn’t need to limit numbers, we just needed to risk assess and plan and clean and we could then we could finally get our choirs back together.

So that’s what we started doing. Risk assessing, planning and cleaning. And, well you probably know the latest. Exactly one month after amateurs were given the greenlight, it flipped hard to amber. We’re back to a state of confusion with mismatched guidelines and the number 6 hanging over our heads as if the Devil himself had put it there. Our clarified Performing Arts guidelines still stand, we’re told, but then the guidelines for the hire of community facilities specifically name choirs as a group that might not be able to stop ourselves mingling. We’re in a world where choirsters can’t be trusted to distance but toddlers can. What kind of madness is this?

We have done our share of waiting and we shouldn’t now be forced to hide away, singing quietly in case someone catches us out. We want to have the confidence that we are doing the right thing. Some of the bigger choirs came out straight after the “Rule of 6” statement and confidently stated that they were exempt, for various reasons. But the exemptions list came out and, where sports teams and exercise classes sat, choirs did not. So while I’d love to have that confidence, it doesn’t feel like it’s a confidence that’s well placed right at the moment.

But we did have a sing! After all that risk assessing and planning, we had something in the diary for 13th Sept. So, we were distanced, limited and outdoors but we sang for an hour or so the day before the rules changed and it was glorious. Just wish I knew when we’d be free to do it again…

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I’m Calling Time on Parental Guilt

Posted on August 30, 2020 by katese11

 

Every parent knows about parental guilt. It’s handed out in the postnatal ward, along with the Bounty pack. It consumes you when they’re a newborn, hits your last nerve during the toddler-antics phase and reaches previously undiscovered depths as they start school and you’re thrown into this new world of phonics and homework.

Well, I decided earlier on this year that I was done with it. Because of this year, pretty much. As a working mother, I obviously carried the Standard Issue Anthology of Working Mother Guilt (the SIAOWMG) around with me, which contained  dates of every Sports Day I’d ever missed and Google Map print outs of every time those bleddy trains didn’t work and I was late to pick up. It was a pretty weighty object to tuck under my arm every day but it was the price of having a job and I just kinda accepted it, only occasionally wondering why the Anthology of Working Father Guilt looked a lot more manageable.

But this year has changed everything. For once, there have been no Sports Days (Hooray!). And for another, I’ve had to do that same job with my children here the whole time. Aside for three short days at drama camp, Eva has been home all day, every day since the middle of March. Roo had a couple of weeks in school before the end of Year 6 but, other than that, has largely been present too. Right at the start of lockdown I made a conscious choice not to replace my SIAOWMG with a homeschooling version of the same and we just rolled with the complete lack of learning that Eva was doing. I don’t think anyone believed that I wasn’t even attempting to homeschool but I really wasn’t. I was attempting to take on a new project at work, train a new starter and keep the family fed with no home deliveries and no food in the shops. That seemed to be plenty of challenges without taking on schooling as well.

So, with a lack of new guilt and the old standard guilt moving largely into the N/A column, I feel a lot freer. After all, how can I possibly ever feel guilty again about not spending enough time with my kids? We have been together constantly. Everything I used to do without them, I now do with them, or at least with them in the house. Not just work but leading worship for church, running a choir, facilitating a home group session, taking part in an exercise class or even listening to a preach….it has all been avec les enfants.

And some of it has been fun. Other bits less so. But there’s no denying that we parents of 2020 have been tasked with something that no other generation of parents has been asked to do – to provide the complete and all-encompassing care package for our children, with no option to hand them over to a teacher, babysitter, grandparent or even a fellow parent for a few minutes while we go to the loo. For weeks on end, we didn’t even have the option to leave the house for more than an hour or use a playground or sit on a bench or interact with other humans outside our household. Months down the line, we forget how strict those first weeks were and how well we did to not be in a constant state of wailing bansheehood. Or maybe you were in that state. It would be totally understandable.

That’s why I think we should throw off parental guilt for good. We have paid a parenting price this year which puts our accounts firmly into credit for years to come. We have played more games of Qwirkle and Carcasonne than you ever would in ten years’ worth of rainy caravan holidays. We have bent our own house rules and allowed the horrors of child-led painting into our workspaces while we’ve watched aghast, unable to move off our conference calls. In other words, we have done a shedload of parenting.

Of course, this might all be Big Talk. I say that I don’t feel guilty about the sheer number of screen hours that have facilitated these months of indoors time. And I largely don’t. But then I saw someone share an article on how screen time causes depression in kids and the familiar sinking feeling hit my stomach. Only for a moment, though, as I dismissed it by reminding myself that Eva’s screen hours have made her into some kind of whizzkid coder and she can now type faster than she can handwrite (as long as you’re not too fussy on spelling). Reuben swears his video gaming has helped his co-ordination and ability to sense danger in the real world, which comes in handy when he’s crossing the road. In 2020, screens have become a necessity in lieu of real life and that’s how it has to be for now. So there’s no point feeling guilty, is there?

 

 

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A Harwich Holiday

Posted on August 23, 2020 by katese11

It’s been a year of Plan Bs, hasn’t it? And none more so than in the holiday arena. Our trip to Italy at Easter was cancelled, so we took a very cautious approach to the back-up plan….low-key, localish and isolated. Cheap enough to be able to cancel if needed and close enough to get back in a hurry. Three nights at the Essex seaside.

Not that it felt very local to get to. Google’s helpful suggestion of avoiding the M25 ended up with us avoiding the A120 as well and joining hundreds of other cars in a traffic jam around the narrow roads of rural Essex. At one point we slowed just outside a gardenful of adorable dogs, only to come to a complete halt a few metres down the road and out of sight of them. A little later, a cross man in crocs came out of the gates of his substantial property to stand by Eva’s window and glare at us. That was awkward. Eventually tho, we left CrossCrocMan behind and were on a straight, flat road all the way to Harwich.

I think we must have been to Harwich twice before, as we’ve definintely had two nausea-filled North Sea cruises. The first was in December 1999, when we went to Hamburg with friends and got stranded there for three days because of high winds. We had an excellent time. The second time was a year or so later when Nathan and I cruised over that rocky sea to Denmark and back, being sick all the way. We did not get stranded and we did not have an excellent time.

Either way, I didn’t remember Harwich itself. It was just the gateway to seasickness. But we found a holiday let at a snip of a price and some extensive googling suggested there was something of a beach there. The chief complaint in the Google reviews was that there were “too many dogs”. That would not be a problem for us.

The googling was correct – there was a beach. We headed straight down there as soon as we’d unpacked…the kids needed a bit of a stretch after two and a half hours in the car. We were just going to wander down to Dovercourt Beach and have a look and definitely not get wet… You can imagine how well that went.

So with sopping wet kids, we decided it was time to go and find dinner and they would probably dry off on the way, right? It was sunnyish and I was rightish. We got chips and battered sausages from the Fish House and went back to the apartment to eat, promising more beachiness the next day.

Except we slightly miscalculated. City rookies that we are, we’d forgotten to check the tide times and so our plan of going shopping in the morning, home for lunch and then to the beach had one or two flaws. We’d also forgotten to check the weather, with was sunny but with a yellow warning of wind. By the time we were beach-ready, the beach was far from ready for us. In fact it had disappeared. The wind was somewhat bracing and the waves, which were up to the sea wall, were described by Eva as tsunamis. This might have been a slight exaggeration but we weren’t fully confident of having a swim that day. So we walked the length of the seafront and found a park just next to the leisure centre where we could wait until high tide had been and gone.

It was still a Bit Blowy. But Eva liked it because she said it made her hair look good. Depends which direction you’re facing really.

While we were in the park, the coastguard turned up, which is another ominous sign. The blue flag was changed to red and I wandered back to the seafront to watch the “tsunamis” crashing against and over the sea wall. It really was quite impressive but we weren’t about to defy the red flag and make more work for those nice coastguards.

So we went to the Rainbow Cafe instead. It was possibly too windy to even have coffee as we were seated outside, Covid-securely, and had to hang on to the paper cups in case they flew away. But the kids and Nathan had very nice cake on very nice, solid china and that was happily stable on the table.

By the time I’d persuaded Eva to let me finish her cheesecake, high tide had passed and the beach was starting to re-emerge. There was still no swimming – the red flag was still up – but we could go onto the shingle and dig a big hole.

Nathan was wearing his facemask on the beach at this point, not because of Covid fears but because the wind was whipping up what little sand there was and throwing it directly at his face. Yes, it was that personal. And then he drew my name in Elvish on the sand, which looked kinda personal in the wrong sort of way.

We’d been out in these high winds for three hours by this point, so it was time to go home and prepare dinner and put some cream on the sandburn. I don’t know if anyone has ever successfully and easily cooked dinner in someone else’s oven but this certainly wasn’t going on the leaderboard as a win. Let’s skip straight to the post-dinner stroll on the beach, where the tide was at its lowest and gloppy sand pockets had opened up between the breakers.

We had a fine old time, wandering around the paddling in the little pools of seawater. We spotted a few dogs as well – not our first spottings because, as the reviews said, there was a bit of a canine abundance at Dovercourt. We’d met a very friendly black spaniel earlier and her owner had let us have a stroke. Now the sunset seashore session was spotted with adorable dogs playing fetch and scampering through the water. Much like Eva was doing.

The next morning, the winds had died down and the sea was much calmer. We’d checked the tide times so managed to get to the beach in the morning when the sea wasn’t too far out or lapping at the sea wall. It wasn’t super warm but Roo and I managed two good length swims in the shallows and even Nathan and Eva put their toes in. We also dig another deep hole, getting down to some previously-unexposed steps, down which Eva tipped a bucket of water to make a somewhat sludgey waterfall. There was a bit of a castle to go with the moat too and a pile of sand. Of course, as soon as we moved off the beach, this pile of sand was pooped on by a white bull terrier called Star. Such is the way of the doggyfneria.

As we sat eating chocolate brownies on the promenade, we met another friendly dog called Stanley, who was a rescue dog. His owner again let the kids have a cuddle and, as you can guess, that made them extremely happy. It might just be that they’re finely attuned to the prescence of dogs, having missed them so badly during lockdown, but there really were a LOT of dogs around the beach. There was even a labradoodle staying in the flat above ours at the holiday let, which caused the kids much joy when they bumped into her in the hallway.

The tide was coming in again so we headed towards Cliff Park to enjoy a bit more of the sunshine before going home for lunch. There was a pirate ship in there, and a bouncy swing thing that seemed to be the Number One attraction among the kids. I quite wanted to go for a walk up to see the other lighthouses but Reuben’s sore feet insisted on taking us home instead.

Dinner that night was, once more, courtesy of the Fish House. It isn’t quite true that life is too short to waste time cooking but this holiday was certainly too short for that. Besides, they did an awesome battered sausage. Then after dinner, Eva wand I went for another sunset scamper on the beach and met yet another friendly pup who was very keen to show us lovely yellow frisbee.

And that was it! A night’s sleep and then a drive home that was quicker than the outbound trip by at least an hour. Turns out Harwich really isn’t very far away at all. It was a modest and short holiday, especially compared to what we’d originally planned at Easter, but it gave us a bit of a break and a change of scene. The beach wasn’t crowded, so it was very easy to socially distance – except from dogs – and having a private apartment lent itself well to social distancing as well. I’m not sure we’d choose it over Italy any other year but for a 2020 getaway without fear of quarantine, it absolutely did the job.

 

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Legoland – 08/08/20

Posted on August 9, 2020 by katese11

Well, this is a bit different to the life we’ve been leading for the last few months. A day out at a theme park you say? That’s not in Chingford? How very extreme. I’ll admit I was a little nervous when reading TripAdvisor reviews about what a Covid deathtrap the whole thing was but we figured we could always cut it short if it didn’t safe. It was like we’d be losing any actual money because we’d paid for our tickets using Clubcard vouchers (there’s been something of an uptick in the Tesco spend since all of us starting being home for every meal).

As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad as long as we were sensible and other people in the queues were too. But more on that later.

We’ve been misdirecting the kids about this all week. They knew we were going somewhere on Saturday but I didn’t want to drop the LL bomb in there just in case something went wrong at the last minute. The local lockdowns (yeah, the *other* LL bomb) have been so swift and severe that it wasn’t until we were actually past the M25 that I felt confident of being able to go. Besides, it’s fun to tell the kids that we’re taking them to an orphanage or the Museum of Accountancy. Only issue is now that Nathan is desperate to visit the Museum of Accountancy IRL, even though I made it up on the spot. It’s The Wall of Calculators that is the big draw for him, I think. Or maybe The Well of Excel.

Anyway, they figured it out. I made a joke about an elven archer a few days back that apparently was a big giveaway, as was the minifig t-shirt I left out for Roo this morning. By the time we got to our usual Harvester, they definitely knew.

Of course, our usual Harvester is a bit different in these Covid times – none of the constant grazing from the breakfast bar and making your own toast just for the fun of it. Instead, your server takes you to the buffet and you point out what you want, which does take away the gluttony somewhat. Still, with a full English and the Southern Fried Chicken that Roo didn’t want, I was still pretty gluttonous. Nathan compensated for the lack of hand-toasted crumpets by going for the “add steak” option for the first time. Roo order the chicken, bacon and waffles but swapped his chicken for my scrambled egg, prompting much in the way of debate about which came first. Eva was the only one who properly ordered from the breakfast and she ended up with an unholy mixture of weetabix, strawberries, yoghurt, maple syrup and chips. The last two went really well together apparently.

Stoked and stuffed, we headed to Legoland itself vowing to ignore the brown signs and follow Google Maps’ much more direct route. Except we missed a turning and ended up going a third route that was neither of those options. I’ll report back when we finally get this figured out.

So, we got to Legoland. I realise that was a lot of preamble. We parked in a socially distanced way and donned our masks to go through the gates as it was moderately crowded. Not that we came within a metre of any strangers but it was the kind of situation where we could have. Everyone is temperature checked on entry, using an exciting at-the-forehead kind of gun and we passed that test, despite three of us having the meat sweats from breakfast. We were in! I didn’t dare to believe it but it was finally happening…an exciting day out after so many dreary Saturdays at home. We celebrated with a photo in front of a TARDIS.

It takes a bit of getting used to when and where to wear the masks but I think we had it figured out by the end. Any indoor queues were masks-on and any queues that were too tightly snaked to be able to socially distance from the people in the next row over. Reuben, at just-turned-11 was very good about wearing his mask when he needed to, even though I swear he thinks the age limit is made up specifically to troll him. Ninjago – our first ride – was an indoor/outdoor queue so, although we had them on the whole time, there was probably a bit where we didn’t need to. That was also the bit we were stuck in for the longest time as we encountered the first of many ride-cleaning delays. I’m not complaining that they’re cleaning the rides, obviously. Luckily, the outside bit had the Ninjago movie playing on screens, to keep the kids distracted.  The queue was also fairly distanced, with people largely sticking to the markers on the ground and not pushing in to the gaps…that would be our experience for much of the day, although it was notably easier on the newer rides where the queuing system had obviously been designed to give queuers a bit more space (not with Covid in mind, just with…yknow…basic human dignity in mind)

I’d downloaded the Legoland app for this visit and it gave us a good, if not perfect, indication of how long the queues were going to be. The Ninjago queue was actually a bit shorter than the app had said, so that was a winner to start with. And the ride was very fun too  – you sit in a carriage and move around different 4D scenes of various beasties attacking you. Only your ninja skills can defeat them! Sadly I don’t have any ninja skills but Reuben and Nathan did pretty well.

The next ride we wanted to go on was the Haunted House Monster Party, near the back of the park. It gave us a bit of a chance to stretch our legs before another queue. And this one truly was as it said on the box – 60 minutes, almost to the second. Eva lost her nerve halfway through queuing and thought it was too scary but we told her she’d enjoy it once we were in there. Spoiler: she didn’t. Whoops.

We passed the queue time by playing a round of “Lord of the Rings Alphabet Battle”, in which Gandalf emerged as the ultimate victor. I’m watching “Return of the King” as I type this tho and he’s not much of a warrior. In that final battle, all he does is swish his hair around. On a related note, Reuben was keen to flag up how un-Hobbit-friendly Legoland was. The height restrictions would prohibit many of the smaller folk from going on the rides and every ride insisted on shoes, which are not a hobbity wardrobe staple. So something to bear in mind if you’re taking a small, hairy friend with you.

Anyway, back to the ride. We went into the Monster party room, where a Vampyre directed us to have a boogie before letting us into the dining hall. But there was another ride cleaning delay, which broke the atmosphere somewhat. But eventually, we took our seats at the table for a disorientating ride where the whole room seemed to rotate around us. Eva was pretty terrified by this point and kept shouting “Stop the ride! Get me off!” but it was over in a flash. Which is just as well because I had my arm round her and her heart rate was getting a bit alarming.

Time to cool down and calm down. Did I mention it was 30C yesterday? We’d packed a 2L bottle of water but were all craving something a bit colder and more interesting. Last time we’d gone for the refillable cup option, it had been pretty frustrating as each refill involved a 30 minute queue at a food stall for a tiny bottle’s worth of refill. But this year, we’d spotted new Coke machines around the park, which dispense all manner of exciting drinks if you bring the right cup along. It was a princely £12 and Nathan had to queue for the cup, which doesn’t come pre-filled. So he bought a couple of bottles of Coke at the same time just to stave off that mad thirst while we regrouped and prepared to join yet another queue just to refill. In the end, I took the kids to the playground at Duplo Valley while Nathan went to get the refill. It was half one by this point and nominally lunchtime but the combination of the heat and the big breakfast had stopped any of us being particularly hungry. Reuben made a token attempt on half a buttered roll I’d packed but even he wasn’t feeling it.

While we’re on the subject of Duplo Valley, be prepared for disappointment if you want to use the Splash Safari and Drench Towers (and who wouldn’t when it’s 30c??) Slots have to be prebooked and are only released online two days beforehand. I was out with the kids on Thurs and by the time I got home, all the slots were fully booked. So there was no opportunity to cool down, even if you stand right next to the splash area and hope for a bit of water spray.

We weren’t really up for another mega-queue at this point and we were right next to the Duplo Airport so that seemed like an easy next ride. The helicopters have had a makeover of late – Eva specifically wanted a gold and pink one, whereas a couple of years back she’d chosen red – but Eva’s piloting skills have not evolved accordingly. It was a bumpy ride. Still, Nathan grabbed the opportunity to get on his aviator shades. Wonder if Graham Coxon would think he was looking really ace?

It was actually quite nice and breezy up there, which was good because Roo and I had a sweaty walk ahead of us. We were heading up the hill for the Viking River Splash and I could only hope there would be some sweet, sweet water splash on this ride. Especially as the estimated queue time was 80 minutes.

Now this is a prime example of a queuing system that makes distancing tricky and I think it is one of the older rides. The end of the queue extended up the hill but once under cover, the rows are close together and standing on the floor markers only separates you from the people in front and behind you, not from those to your side. Even tho there was no explicit instruction, I kept my mask on for the whole queue and took it off for the ride (no masks on water rides as getting them wet renders them useless). I know that mask wearing doesn’t necessarily protect me but it felt like the responsible thing to do in a queue that wasn’t ideal in terms of spacing and being semi-indoors. Plus, I saw a kid in the next row put his mouth on the wooden hand rail. Yeesh. I’m not OCD about hand sanitizer but I definitely whipped out the gel before I took my mask off.

If you’re wondering where Nathan and Eva were at this point, they’d gone on the Fairytale Brook, which is one of Eva’s favourite rides and my least favourite, ever since I gave myself a month-long knee injury on it in 2018. We weren’t up for any post-Legoland hospital visits this year. Of any kind.

After that, Nathan texted to say they were waiting for the Aero Nomad ride. We could see their ride from our ride and Reuben thought he could spot them on the top. So he stood up in the boat and waved, before I shrieked at him to “Stay seated at all times!” I know I wanted to cool down but I wasn’t up for a full on capsize, which was quite possible with only two of us in the boat (one perk of distancing). Don’t worry tho, he sat straight down again and we didn’t go over. I didn’t even get splashed, which was something of a disappointment. But the queue had only been 45 minutes, not the 80 intended so that was a plus.

We were crazy-thirsty again by the time we came off tho, so we went back down the hill with Reuben shielding his eyes as we went past the Spider Spinner. We were planning on heading Nathan and Eva off as they came off Aero Nomad but as we passed, they were only just going on. Some complicated sign language got us the refill cup, tho we almost got a ride with them without queuing which makes perfect sense from a distancing POV (as it was one family per balloon) but I would have felt awfully guilty if we had. So instead, Roo and I went to Heartlake City to experiment with Sprite flavours – this fill up was strawberry, grape and vanilla. Tasted a bit artificial if I’m honest but Roo enjoyed it.

That was around our fourth refill I think and we had calcuated that we needed five to get our money’s worth. It’s not made entirely clear how the cups work but I think there must be some kind of chip in the bottom that allows you to operate the machines for the day. It objects to repeated refills in a short space of time so when we only got a shot of Cherry Coke because the syrup had run out it didn’t then let us have another refill for a few minutes. I guess this is meant to deter people doing what we did and buying one cup for four people. Around 3PM the queues were massive as everyone was clearly starting to run out of water and the machines would let you top up water bottles free of charge…by around 5PM, however, we had the run of them. As long as we didn’t down a cup of Coke in three minutes or less.

All of this refilling and chugging was to have edgy effects as we were queuing for Laser Raiders. You can guess what the tension was but it wasn’t helped by the inexplicable lack of staff at the first gate. Again, we were queued fairly tightly and indoors, so masks were on and this didn’t help with communicating with your kids in a delicate situation. Plus the kids’ area was shut off but in a way that was so ineffective I didn’t even notice i.e. there was a kid-sized gap in the barrier where they’d usually go in. Other kids were already there, watching the movie, and so ours joined them. There was an announcement about not entering the kids’ area but the first time I wilfully misheard it as *adults* not entering the Kids’ Zone and only clocked on the second time round. I was Sprite-high, OK? I can’t be expected to be in full control of all my faculties. But the net result was again trying to summon our kids back out of the area and instruct them on how to get to us, all with masks on and trying not to raise voices. Tricky. But also New Normal. Why the spacious Kids’ Zone is closed off to aid distancing is another question.

Eventually, a staff member returned and let us through to the next stage of the queue, which was a long yellow tent-tunnel. The Situation was getting quite urgent by now but we had no real option to duck and run back as there were no staff nearby to get us through the gate and back out. There were some in the distance, deep cleaning the ride and that seemed to take forever. The ride itself was fun enough – a bit low tech compared to the Ninjago ride – but the tension of impending disaster meant I couldn’t relax and enjoy it.

The next stop after that was, quite natural, the loos in Heartlake City. Again, wearing a mask inside the toilet building made it difficult to talk to Eva through the cubicle door so if you have a child that sometimes need chivvying along, you’re probably best off sharing a cubicle.

By now, we were coming in to land and, with very sore feet, not much ambition to do anything else. Eva wanted to go the Heartlake Mall, where she scored a new puppy, who is much cuter than Pugsley from last year. He’s been through many name changes already, but meet the Artist Currently Known As Toffee:

We also got ice lollies in the shop because the queue was much shorter than at any of the food stalls. Result! Reuben’s only desire at this point was to try and win something by throwing something…he ended up with a blue meercat thing after spending a fiver on Hook-a-Duck. Not my recommendation, gotta be honest.

The only thing left was that Eva wanted to go to the Pirate Playground. So we did that for ten minutes or so before the playground closed at 6…and pretty much had the place to ourselves, making it easy enough to follow the social distancing guidelines.

Then just a trudge back up the hill and back to the car before stopping at Heston services on the way home for a Burger King, successfully this time (we don’t need to recap last year’s disaster). Again, it was slightly weird wearing a mask inside the servces and in the loos, but we were well used to it by then. We had managed to go all day without eating, apart from the ice lollies and the buttered rolls (the kids had sat down for a few minutes at 4PM to eat them). We didn’t even crack open the bountiful piles of crisps, popcorn and biscuits I’d packed. It was just Too Darn Hot.

So, Legoland in Covid times. Probably a mad idea but the reality wasn’t too scary. We didn’t make physical contact with any other humans and, although there were times when the distance was uncomfortable by 2020 standards, it was normally outside and most people were masked. Plus, the rides were being cleaned constantly and there was hand sanitizer everywhere, I’m going to be more careful than usual these next couple of weeks, just in case I’ve picked anything up tho. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for anyone high-risk or with high levels of anxiety about infection but it felt safe, for the most part and a well-deserved treat for kids who’ve been inside for months on end.

Hopefully by next summer, it’ll just be a bit more…normal…

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

Kitchener Park – 05/08/20

Posted on August 6, 2020 by katese11

You know when you visit somewhere in your dreams and then, years later, try to find it in real life? Well, that’s what I thought Kitchener Park was like. Somewhere I dreamt up years ago that doesn’t exist. Certainly, Google Maps didn’t have any sign of a large park with a zip wire that sat on the edge of the North Circular but still, I was sure it was there. We’d been there once, six years ago. It was the first weekend after we’d moved to Highams Park and we remembered the park from househunting in Walthamstow. Why so many years elapsed between then and now I don’t know, but it felt like the right time to revisit. After all, we had spent a lot of time within a mile radius of the house these last few months, so why not take that mile to the south for once?

Maybe it’s because a walk over the North Circular isn’t everyone’s idea of a nice stroll. You can get some great pics on a Good Sky Day like yesterday tho:

Plus, it turns out I was right – the park was exactly where I had left it. We walked down Wadham Road, over the footbridge and the entrance was a small gate right next to the steps down:

There was a large field, which had a couple of dogs running about in it…this makes it an official Doggyfneria in the family venacular and dogspotting is one of our favourite hobbies. Then next to that was an equallhy large park. Sadly the zip wire was out of use but there was a climbing wall, with spider web climbing frame:

 

Roo didn’t go on it because he doesn’t like spiders but I’m sure other kids would like it.

There were also those roundabout swings and giant net swings…more than enough to keep a bigger kid happy. It would have been better if the zip wire had been in operation but still, I’m pretty pleased with our find. It was also very sparsely populated for such a gloriously sunny day…and if These Times, sparsely populated is good.

So, basically don’t go telling everyone about it….OK?

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks), Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment