Another Girls’ Day Out – 06/04/19

Posted on April 22, 2019 by katese11

Yeah, I know…this was ages ago. We’ve been to Portugal and back since then but the Portuguese blog post will probably take a bit more brain power than I have right now and I did mean to blog this little trip around town that Eva and I did at the start of the holidays.

We started in Islington. Obviously. We were taking students from the church English Class on a field trip and we had to scoop them up on our way. It was slightly nerve-wracking trying to ensure we got all of them on the 56 together and I stood poised at the bus stop like a woman who’d never caught a bus before…but we managed it. 25 or so of them got on in Islington and off at St Paul’s and they may even have been the same 25. As we passed the Museum of London, Eva wistfully remarked that she’d like to go there again soon but it wasn’t where we were heading. Our destination was the Tate Modern, somewhere I’d visited briefly, childlessly and with an impending migraine last August.  Back then I hadn’t taken in a lot of the artwork. This time, wrangling a 6-year-old and several English students, would be much more successful….right?

What was successful was the walk from St Paul’s to the Tate over the Millenium Bridge. The students loved seeing the cathedral up close and posing for selfies on the bridge with all the London sights behind them. As a vantage point, it’s a rival for Waterloo Bridge – you can see glimpses of Parliament and the London Eye in one direction and Tower Bridge and the Tower of London in the other. Perfect for London newbies

We gathered a few more students at the Tate itself and went downstairs to establish our meeting point and for Eva and I to get our “Tate Visiting Teacher” stickers, which may have suggested we were taking more responsibility for the students than we actually were. In fact, Isa, our multi-talented intern, was in charge and I was just enjoying having a sticker to wear. We set a time to gather back at the meeting point, went up to Floor 2 as a group and then kinda lost people around the galleries, however much we tried to stick together. I’m glad they were fully-grown adults and not kids….and it did remind me why I never volunteer to help on school trips.

Before we’d left the house, Reuben was contemplating whether to come with us or not and had asked what kind of art there was in the Tate Modern – “Pointillism? Surrealism?”. While I was impressed by his art knowledge, I couldn’t actually answer his question. But yes, there was Pointillism in the Pop Art section.  I think.

Eva quite liked that section and she enjoyed the Mondrian paintings, which she recognised from Bunny’s hallway. She also really yuved this ballerina statue:

She also liked the colourful abstract paintings, like this optical illusion:

There were plenty of bits she wasn’t so keen on, including a short film on Dimitri Tsafendas, the man who assassinated the South African Prime Minister in 1966. She sat through around ten minutes of it, but told me afterwards it was a bit scary. I think it might have been the pitch black room it was being screened in.  By this point, we were almost at the assembly time so we made our way back downstairs to find at least some of the students. Like I say, I’d be rubbish at school trips.

However, I do have some skills in locating drinking places near the Thames and I successfully guided the group to the Anchor near Southwark Bridge for a very British pint and a spot of lunch on the roof garden under thunder-grey skies. Having got them all up there, I then left them to it which seems harsh but again, these are grown ups we’re talking about and they could have rescued themselves any time. Plus, Eva was getting whiney.

So we stopped in at Leon in London Bridge for our own spot of lunch, where Eva ignored the doughnut she’d asked for and stole all my lattice fries (she’d had her own sandwich while we were still at the Tate) and then we jumped on a bus back towards St Paul’s because Eva, having briefly glimpsed the Museum of London earlier, now had her heart set on going there.

I’ve no idea why. It hasn’t changed much since we went there at Christmas. But she wanted to see all the same things again and we did find one or two new things – like some giant dollhouses under the stairs and a pirate hat to try on. She also wanted to go to the Beasts of London show but it was late in the day and we hadn’t booked so I promised her we’d return another day for that one. She was fascinated by this antique museum piece tho, which only bears the smallest resemblance to what she sees on Nathan’s feet every day:

It’s safe to say the fashion mannequins at the end are among her favourite exhibits, along with the Georgian dresses and shoes. She’s verging on the superficial. But she seemed very happy when we left because when she decides she wants something, it’s sometimes easier to give it to her even if it’s a completely superfluous museum trip. Or an even more superfluous trip to the Barbican after that because the cafes at the Museum were crowded so we ended up with crisps and hipster cherryade from the Barbican cafe, eaten outside near the hazardous “stepping stones” that Reuben had terrified me with four years ago.

So that was our day out – three venues, a lot of walking, spontaneous snacking but a lot of fun for me and my girl. Right, now who wants to know about Portugal? Give me a few days on that….

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“The Tigon and the Liger” at Chickenshed – 13/04/19

Posted on April 13, 2019 by katese11

Today is a bit of a trains, planes and automobiles day for Eva and I..but only because, as most normal people do, we decided to squeeze in a theatre trip before we leave for holiday.  Nathan and Roo are coming for the  holiday bit but opted out of early morning Big Cat shenaningans at Chickenshed in the form of “The Tigon and the Liger”  – based on the book by Keilly Swift and performed by the team behind “Tales From the Shed“.

It was a kind of mixture between a typical “Tales From the Shed” performance and a more formal Chickenshed play like “Mr Stink” – it was downstairs in the Rayne Theatre and was more choreographed than a “Tales” performance but it had the relaxed informality of one. Tiny kids ran onto the stage and were embraced as part of the performance without the dancers missing a beat or ever dropping their smiles. The seating had been folded back and so we sat on pink fur on the ground and were encouraged to dance along, with the dance moves being taught at the start of the performance. As we walked in, there was already a jam going on, around the lyrics “we’re back where we belong” so there was no awkward waiting for the show to start, which can be tricky with the very littlest ones.

The show itself was fairly straightforward – two animals who don’t fit in leave their homes, eventually find each other and return to show the other animals that there’s nothing wrong with being different to society’s idea of normal. If you know anything about Chickenshed, you’ll recognise this theme running strongly throughout their work. The two creatures are a Tigon – product of a tiger father and lion mother – and a Liger – vice versa. They were portrayed three different ways in the show, with two actors in face paint taking up the main narrative bulk but with actors in full animal costumes appearing towards the end and puppets as well. There was shadow puppetry and mime and well as acting and narration. There were full-ensemble dance numbers, with the opening “Harmony” living up to its name as a standout piece. So, in short, a lot going on. The simple story stretched itself well into around a 45-minute show with no feeling of padding,  just joyful music and dancing.

Eva’s favourite character was probably the bird with the red bottom who kept falling over, and who implored us not to break the fourth wall even though we were encouraged to do just that at the end.  He wasn’t in the source text but added an extra layer of physical comedy which kids always adore, don’t they? She also really liked the dual character representing the sun and the moon – played by Chickenshed regular Sarah Connolly  – because of her sparkly hat and lipstick. At the end we got to meet her, along with the rest of the cast, but Eva was a bit starstruck (sun/moonstruck?) and didn’t quite know what to say. She enjoyed playing with the drums and the shadow puppetry though:

Another great show from Chickenshed – not many shows combine the simple storytelling beloved of pre-schoolers with the dazzle and choreography of a company well used to each other’s work. As the closing song told the audience to be happy in their own skin – with video backdrop illustrating the point – Eva turned to me and said “Yes, I’m quite happy with my skin. It’s quite nice”. And that’s how Chickenshed always makes you feel – you should be happy with your own skin. It’s quite nice.

“The Tigon and the Liger” is on till Thursday 18th April, with performances at 9:15am, 11am and 1pm. For tickets and more information, click here.

Disclaimer: I received a free press ticket in exchange for a review. All opinions remain honest and my own.

 

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“Wow Everything is Amazing” at Battersea Arts Centre – 11/04/19

Posted on April 11, 2019 by katese11

 

I must admit I wasn’t sure what to expect from Sounds Like Chaos‘ “Wow Everything is Amazing”. The promotional materials had asked a lot of questions about our relationship with technology but hadn’t answered many in terms of what this piece of theatre actually was. Was it a play? Spoken word? Performance art? Contemporary dance?

Well, a little of all of the above. Like Rebecca Bunch, it’s hard to summarize. But in one way, I can pigeonhole the genre of this piece – it was a dystopian drama and it shared many features with the great dystopian dramas we all know and love.

It opens in a church, 50 years into the future, but not a church as we know it. The unseen deity some of us currently worship had been replaced with something more tangible, yet still undefinable – the Godhead. Human in appearance, worshipped as a god and formed of mankind’s data, willingly shared. The worshippers hang on every word the Godhead says, clicking their fingers in appreciation, which subtly places it in a world where hand-clapping has become obsolete. It’s also a world where sex and race have no value judgements attached – everyone is described as either an XX or an XY and by the varying levels of melanin in their skin. Age, however, seems to still be a key discriminator, with the entire congregation described as being in their early teens and it’s hinted early on that a great misfortune befell the older generation.

It’s in this setting that the Godhead preaches his sermons. Anyone who’s watched the “Church Hunters” parody will understand that the modern church often skirts perilously close to being “a TED talk with a Bible verse” and so it is here – the Godhead spouts almost-profound messages about “the network” while the worshippers click away furiously. He’s flanked by a shiny-robed choir, who both chant and sing to reinforce the messages, and the Alpha Geeks, who effectively hold all the power in this universe.

It seems like everyone is blissfully happy – “Everything is Amazing” makes its appearance late on in a song not dissimilar in tone to the Lego Movie’s “Everything is Awesome” (which I totally class as a dystopian movie FYI). But there’s the hint about the misfortunes and tragedies of the past, the ones left “outside the Network” and eventually our 1984Winston/Emmett character starts to break free and question it all.

I won’t tell you more of the plot than that for fear of spoilers. But it’s a very slick and effective show – the small space of the Staff Recreation Room works well as the chapel, with pew-like seats for the audience making you feel like you’re part of the action. The screens at the back project images of obsolete technologies as well as a giant Godhead preaching to his flock and the lighting makes it feel suitably high-tech and futuristic. The actor who played the Godhead is disconcertingly convincing as the cyber-deity, gliding in on a hoverboard and speaking with zen-like calm even when there appears to be a…glitch… …by contrast, the 1984Winston/Emmett character, as I’ll call him, is all high emotion, bursting with the kind of curiousity that always gets you into trouble in these kinds of situtations. The ensemble work very well together,showing subtle shades of doubt as things start to unravel, and there are some high energy gospel-style dance numbers which showcase the talents of both the dancers and the choir. A special mention to our narrator character for those backflips. Amazing.

It’s only around an hour long so suitable for kids though probably older ones would get more from it in terms of understanding all the themes. I didn’t take either of mine as I went in the evening and they were both shattered and emotional form holiday club but I think both would have enjoyed it and Eva certainly would have been wowed by the sparkly dress and room-length train of The Sponsor. The show only has one more night to run at BAC – you can blame various members of my family including myself for this review being so late – but transfers to the Albany next week for three nights ( Tue 16 – Thu 18 April, 7.30pm). I would recommend trying to catch it before it moves on, even if it might make you feel a bit uneasy next time you reach for your smartphone…

Disclaimer: I received a free ticket in exchange for a review. All opinions remain honest and my own. For tickets and more information, click here. 

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“Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster” at Battersea Arts Centre – 23/03/19

Posted on March 23, 2019 by katese11

photocredit Joyce Nicholls

 

After spending time with Eva this morning, it was time for some mother-son bonding with Reuben this afternoon. Which initially seemed to consist of me clutching his pepperoni sandwich for half the length of the Jubilee Line while he read a David Walliams book and ignored me. But then we changed at Waterloo, he ate the sandwich, we did some make up and ribbon shopping and it was a proper day out for the both of us.

Our destination was Battersea Arts Centre, a place I’d last visited for a wedding in 2012 when Eva was a tiny baby. This is how Reuben looked on that visit:

And this is him today:

Sob!

It’s not just Roo that’s changed tho – the BAC has had a massive overhaul after a devastating fire in 2015. It’s striking as you walk through the corridors how extensive the damage was and the BAC have made the decision to keep the charred walls as they were the morning after the fire, although the ceiling has been completely rebuilt. Again, here’s the hall in 2012:

And I’m far too lame to have got a decent comparison photo from today. I did take a pic of this nice bit of stained glass roof tho:

We had a bit of kerfuffle in the cafe on the way in and failed to get the fries we’d ordered, mostly through my own incompetence in moving tables but not taking our order spoon with us. So apologies to anyone sitting near us that Roo was snacking all the way through – he needs constant fuelling nowadays. He did enjoy an apple juice and a critique of the cafe artwork though:

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this production from the BAC Beatbox Academy. I’d looked on the website for an age recommendation and hadn’t found one, so made an educkated guess that it would be Roo rather than Eva (she gets freaked out by anything slightly sinister). In a lot of ways, I think it was aimed at slightly older kids still – the early teens rather than the under 10s – based on some of the constant and the occasional F-bomb. Roo got a lot out of it, but I think he was slightly struggling to follow the plot as it was more of a loose interpretation of the Frankenstein story rather than an obvious narrative arc.

The show started with a bit of background from the Academy’s director and a demonstration of beatboxing by some of his current pupils. Then the lights dimmed and the six performers took their places sitting on amps, ready to guide us through a 21st century hip-hop version of the classic tale. It was hugely creative, and everything in the show was live using nothing but vocals from the six of them. It’s hard to believe that sometimes but the short piece of improv they did at the end proved their skills. The performers were Aminita (Aminita Francis), Glitch (Nadine Rose Johnson), Wiz-rd (Tyler Worthington), Native (Nathaniel Forder-Staple), ABH (ABH Beatbox) and
Grove (Beth Griffin) – all South Londoners who’d been through the academy and devised the show together.

Each performer had a different area of skill but of course there were overlaps. Aminita and Glitch were particularly prominent  and talented vocalists when it came to singing rather than beatboxing, but a version of Pachbel’s canon in 5(?) part harmony showed that every member of the group had significant musical talents as well as beatboxing. Of course, their timing was incredible but their pitch was perfect as well and it surprised me just how musically complex beatboxing can be at times.

The story was split into chapters – each dealt with an episode in the Frankenstein story, from the initial idea of making a monster, through the execution (no pun intended), through to finally the “descent”. In each chapter, they pulled out themes and developed them into stand alone songs, some more directly relevant to the story than others. These young people have a lot to say – covering off social media, body image, violence and bullying – and they were passionate as well as skilled in their delivery. There were some moments of comedy and some moments of confrontation that bordered on uncomfortable – like when they shone an actual spotlight on members of the audience and decried them as “hideous” to drive home a point on beauty standards. It wasn’t always an easy watch but it was challenging and groundbreaking and that’s what theatre should be. As I said before, it wasn’t kids’ theatre as you’d imagine it but 10 pluses would definitely find it inspiring and interesting. Reuben said he enjoyed it, even if he wasn’t always sure what was happening and I told him that’s OK….you don’t always have to understand art to enjoy it.

photocredit Joyce Nicholls

The performance ended with a bit of audience participation as we learnt a few percussive noises ourselves, then a few rounds of beatbox battles and a bit of improv at the end. It was an impressive way to showcase all the performers’ skills but might have been ten minutes too long for Reuben. It might have been that we were both hungry. But don’t worry, a stop at Pizza Express on the way homre sorted out us both out. And that’s the kind of thing we can do without Eva. Hooray!

So a really interesting show, flawlessly executed and full of hard-hitting messages. It felt very real and authentic and at the same time, slick and professional. It’s on for another few days so please do catch it while you can.

 

Disclaimer: I recieved free press tickets in exchange for a review. All opinions remain honest and my own. For tickets and more information, click here. 

 

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Big Up at Stratford Circus Arts Centre – 23/03/19

Posted on March 23, 2019 by katese11

Credit and Copyright: Helen Murray

 

Yknow, often Twitter feels unrewarding. Like shouting into a big room full of other people who are also shouting. Sometimes you get into massive fights with Radio X DJs and all their followers. And then sometimes, just sometimes, you get a retweet from the guy who did Zippy on Rainbow and ALL is right with the world. I don’t quite know if there’s a connection between Ronnie Le Drew and Big Up – the show we saw today – or whether it was just puppeteer-to-puppeteer solidarity but blimey, it made my day.

Unlike Eva’s mood when we got to Stratford this morning, which wouldn’t make anyone’s day. We found our way to Stratford Circus Arts Centre with only a few glitches – veer left round the Stratford Centre when coming out from the station – but she wasn’t being the most so-operative of theatregoers. Still, a pain au chocolat from the cafe perked her up a little just in time to go in, leaving Nathan and Roo finishing their coffee and their drawing respectively. Big Up was aimed at 3-6s so Roo had opted to hang out with Nathan at the Lego Store instead of going to the show.  We’d swap the kids over later on, which is why we didn’t just leave the boys at home…but that’s another story.

Eva insisted we sat right at the back, in the corner and then she couldn’t see. That might give you an idea of the kind of contrary mood she was in. Plus the set – some closed flight cases – wasn’t filling her with optimism. But as soon as the first performer came on and opened up a flight case to reveal a glowing set of DJ decks, she was entranced.

Big Up is light on plot and largely wordless but it’s about sounds, lights, movement and the interplay between the performers and puppets. The puppets only appeared about halfway through, so it was mainly carried by the human performers but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It started with one man – the beatboxer, DJ and sound effects guy who I believe is known as Hobbit. He set the scene for the show by laying down some beats and was soon joined by the angel-voiced Dorcas Sebuyange, who opened up another box and sang as the room filled with multi-coloured lights….the first of many “Wow” moments in the show. Another box wheeled on by the seeming-roadie Clarke Joseph-Edwards contained something of a surprise package…the fourth performer, Iestyn Evans, the acrobat and puppeteer.

Credit and Copyright: Helen Murray

With the cast all assembled, the story unfolded. Each box that was opened added something new to the story and I was a little sad that Nathan wasn’t watching, because a lot of the show revolved around setting up PA equipment and that’s how he likes to spend his Sunday mornings. Plus the occasional Sunday afternoon, untangling those great bundles of jack leads that here provided something of a plot device but to your average AV techie are just a pain in the jackside. Of course, I’m just a musician at church, so my input is similar to Dorcas’ here – to point at the microphone when it isn’t working and to look annoyed until they bring me a new one or a new lead. If only my new mics were delivered by illuminated puppet-man as they were here tho! And also, if only I could sing like Dorcas can!

Credit and Copyright: Helen Murray

Eva was starting to get restless around the halfway point because – as discussed – she was just in that kind of chair-kicking mood. But she was delighted to see a baby introduced into the show, even if it was a baby robot puppet with a nappy made out of yet more jack leads. Eva does yuv a baby. There was a song that Reuben might well have appreciated about how babies do nothing but poo and cry and wee – one of the the few parts of the show where words were used rather than just sounds – and the baby magically grew before our eyes into first a toddler and then an adult in a long coat who joined the other adults and the audience for a final dance along. I think she figured out it was just Clarke in a robot head tho.

Credit and Copyright: Helen Murray

So at the end, we were all on our feet dancing and singing along and the girl who was reluctant to do anything was later heard to tell Reuben how much she yuvved it. It was a very clever show – perhaps aimed at a slightly younger child than my almost 7-year-old – but full of impressive beatboxing, deft physical comedy and real heart. At one point, that was a literal heart made out of foam blocks. Literal heart makes it sound like an internal organ but you know what I mean. A heart shape. One of Eva’s favourite moments. I would have liked to have heard slightly more of the singing but that’s because singing is more my thing than beatboxing…there is no deny Hobbit’s talents when it comes to laying down those beats.  It was a captivating show, even for the smallest members of the audience and when it next comes to London I’d advise you to get tickets quickly before they sell out like they did this morning!

Disclaimer: I recieved press tickets in exchange for a review. All opinions remain honest and my own. For more information and tickets click here

 

Credit and copyright:
Helen Murray

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A Very Blurry Trip to France – 16/03/19

Posted on March 18, 2019 by katese11

Well, that was an interesting day. On Friday afternoon, in a fit of despair at the sight of IDS’ Brexit celebration, I pulled a Tracy Jacks and declared I was going to leave the country. Then, as soon as Nathan got home, we packed the car and left home without warning, heading to Dover to stare at the seafront with the aim of getting on the first available ferry to France.

Except it wasn’t entirely without warning and it wasn’t nearly as spontaneous as I made it sound. I just sometimes like to be a bit dramatic on social media and IDS chuckling with Tim Martin over some Turkish food was enough to make me declare something along the lines of “if you don’t hear from me in the near future, I’ll be planning to leave the country”. It was entirely true but honestly, it was something we’d been planning for weeks. A day trip to France as a kind of Brexit farewell tour. Of course, by the time it rolled around it was becoming increasingly clear that we wouldn’t be leaving the EU at the end of March but still, it was a symbolic gesture. A complicated, high-effort gesture but not as pricey a gesture as if we’d taken the Eurostar.

Still, we had our reservations, looking at the yellow weather warning hovering over Dover for Saturday. The ferry was a tenth of the price of the train, which helped me to constantly justify *why* we were on a boat in a hurricane…but we’ll get to that. We also had to pay more as foot passengers than we would have as car drivers but again…we’ll get to that.

Seeing as the crossing only cost us £40, we decided to splash a further £30 or so out on a hotel for the night before the crossing. The Premier Inn on Marine Parade looked pretty close to the ferry terminal, although Google Maps worried me by telling me it was a 28 minute walk to the ferry “via car lanes”. That didn’t sound good at all. I also found it tricky to work out whether we could leave the car at the hotel for the day while we went across and back.

But that’s why I do these things – to find out how it all works so that I can impart my “wisdom” to all of you. Here’s some wisdom – don’t go to France in a hurricane.

Or if you choose to ignore that wisdom, join me at the Premier Inn and we’ll take it from there. Yes, you can leave the car there for the day – the parking was free while we were checked in but we had to pay £6 to leave it there from the time we checked out to midnight on Saturday. At no point did we consider that we might not make it back before midnight but – spoiler – we did make it back. Just about. The £6 had to be in change and I only had a tenner so once I’d installed Nathan and the kids in our room, I went down to the bar to get a glass of wine, which pleasingly cost £3.99. I’d like to say that I enjoyed the glass of wine in the bath with a book, without flooding the bathroom…but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Oops.

Lot 105

Let’s skip ahead to the next morning, where the carpet hadn’t entirely dried out and we were busy getting blown along the promenade towards the ferry terminal:

 

There wasn’t a lot of obvious signage showing us where to go but we followed the instructions of the hotel receptionist – along the sea front and across the road at the pedestrian crossing. Well, first we got it wrong and walked right past the sign which said “No Access to Docks” before realising that the sign might actually mean something and backtracking.

Once we got on the correct side of the road, we wandered in through the big “Welcome to the Port of Dover” sign with still not much clue at to what foot passengers do. That was to be a theme of the day. Eventually we found a map, telling us to stick to the black and white walkways even though we could only see a red line that was meant for cyclists.

We followed that anyway, crossed a lane intended for HGVs and found a black and white walkway on the other side. It was a bit like following a trail of breadcrumbs but we picked our way to the terminal building and managed to check in on time. Somehow.

Then we sat on some chairs near a Costa for what seemed like an incredibly long time. Eva was looking longingly at the Tangfastics in the vending machine but I had to remind her that it was only just gone 8am and not exactly prime haribo time. She stole Reuben’s joke book and amused herself by telling us all jokes instead. Reuben complained about having his joke book stolen. Time dragged on. Luckily, the sole glass of wine I’d had wasn’t enough to give me a bad head in the morning but I wasn’t exactly filled with a sense of enormous wellbeing.

What we were waiting for was a bus. It hadn’t been at all clear on the P&O website what foot passengers were meant to do at Dover so I’d assumed there would be some kind of walkway from the terminal to the ferry, like at an airport. But no, a bus was going to drive us all onto the car deck before all the cars were loaded and drop us off there, I say all – there were probably around ten of us. No one knew exactly when this bus would turn up, hence the seemingly endless waiting time. And no one mentioned what we were meant to do when we got to Calais either.

But eventually yes, the bus arrived and drove us in circles around the port before stopping at the edge of the ramp and making us all get onto a different bus which, as promised, dropped us on Level 3 of the ferry. Anything we might want to do on the ferry started around Level 8, so it was quite the climb to get up there. Stair climbing would be another theme of the day.

Seeing as we’d boarded before all the cars, we pretty much had the run of the ship. So we went for a breakfast at the food court, where they were very generous with the replacement items (although I didn’t realise they weren’t so generous with the condiments – you have to pay for those) so I ended up with four rashers of bacon plus some scrambled egg for Roo. We didn’t really need to buy him his own, especially as we trying to encourage him not to gorge too much before heading out on the shaky seas. But we did buy him one and he did gorge himself. Luckily, we got breakfast down before we started moving so weren’t trying to eat a Full English while feeling queasy. In case you’re wondering, Eva had a pain au chocolat and a pot of jam. At least she ate *something*.

The journey over was pretty uneventful, if a little rocky. We made a base in the Family Lounge, where Nathan and I alternated who got to lie down on the squishy chairs and who got to sit in the Kids’ Zone on the child-sized red sofa. Reuben made friends with a talkative boy called Ben who liked Marvel, so that was the perfect entertainment for him all the way across. There was a screen with what looked like DC episodes lined up but no one to operate it and unlike the ferry journey to the Isle of Wight, no magic people to amuse the kids. Lucky we found Ben, really.  No one felt too seasick and Calais appeared before too long.

Now for the tricky issue of how we  got off the ship and into Calais. Nathan had spotted a sign somewhere saying “Calais Foot Passenger Exit” but neither of us knew exactly where to find that sign so we did a full loop before locating it near the Information desk. It led us down a flight of stairs where we could see a door that might link up to some kind of walkway. And then we saw the walkway which would link up to the door and it was all making sense…except that no one else was standing in this particular bit of corridor. Where were the other six of so people we boarded with? Eventually Nathan went back up the stairs to see if he could spot them and yes, there they all were sitting around by the Information desk. So we went back up there and waited…and waited some more…. it had a similar feel to leaving Dover.

It was a while before a cheery man in a high-vis turned up and escorted us back down to the car decks to wait in a very small stairwell for the bus to turn up. Obviously, every single other vehicle had to clear out before the bus could drive onboard, so that might give you some idea of how long this whole “waiting at the bottom of the stairs/waiting at the top of the stairs/waiting at the bottom of some different stairs” malarkey took. It was alright being first on the boat but combining it with last out made the whole journey about an hour longer than it should have been. I think we started looking for the exit around 11:30 and didn’t touch French soil until 13:15 French time…so 45 minutes of waiting around by my best guess. Seemed longer with whiney kids.

Once we were on the bus, things were pretty quick. We didn’t need to go through customs as we’d had our passports checked at Dover by both French and British border control  – the French officer had surprised Eva by addressing her by name and she had charmed him by saying “merci” as he handed it back. And we already knew our way out of the port and onto the main road, thanks to a mini-excursion on the way back from the Netherlands in 2017. Google Maps again reckoned a 28 minute walk to the town centre but it was more like 20 minutes, even at dawdling pace. My main aim was to “get some fresh air” after so long cooped up in terminals, buses and boats….we certainly got that. The air was so fresh that it was like having a hurricane blowing in your face. Again.

From the boat we’d spotted the Calais Lighthouse and the kids were keen to have a closer look. So we climbed the hill to see if we could climb the lighthouse but it was shut for lunch, so we just took a photo instead:

Lots of things in Calais were shut for lunch or just shut full stop. Eva, who’d not had a cooked breakfast, was whining for lunch and specifically some french fries or pommes frites as she’d been practising saying. She later informed me that she’d learnt the French word for “French” and I was suitably impressed. Less impressed when I realised she was thinking very literally and now had deduced that “pomme” meant “French”. Good try, Eva. Roo had been practising a phrase that I had cobbled together in my pidgin French – “Ma souer voudra l’escargot s’il vous plait”. Sadly, he didn’t pluck up the courage to use it.

London Loves

We did find a place to eat pommes frites, if not escargot. I’d seen The London Bridge pub on Google Maps and it made my heart sink a little to consider eating out in France in a place so heavily Brit-themed. But the menu contained things that both kids would eat, at a reasonable price and the reviews were positive and the location handy so it was a legitimate option in my mind. As it turned out, it was the only eating establishment in Calais that we passed at 1:30ish that was open and busy and ready to serve us food. So, to The London we went.

I spoke some French though. My skills in translating ice cream flavours for the kids surprised even me and I managed to more or less order for us all without resorting to too much English. The kids mumbled their “merci”s and got disproportionate amounts of praise for it. Eva didn’t eat her chicken nuggets because…she’s Eva…but made a good effort on her chips and her jus de ananas. Needless to say, her glace framboise disappeared without trace. Those of us who’d had big breakfasts struggled a bit to eat our lunches but Nathan managed his chicken burger and I had most of my “Bacon Groove” pizza although it was a little odd. I wanted something I wouldn’t typically eat in London itself and this pizza certainly fit the bill. Stonebaked base, BBQ sauce, lamb mince, boiled potatoes, mushrooms and a sparing amount of cheese. Tastewise, it was more like a cottage pie than a pizza. Not bad, just….odd. And I never eat the crusts on pizza anyway, so I was always going to leave a bit of it.

After lunch, we needed yet more fresh air and exercise so we walked around the square and looked at the statues of Charles de Gaulle and Yvonne Vendroux and the watchtower – Tour de Guet. I worked out that it was built in the 13th Century as it had an inscription saying “XIII siècle” and I know the phrase “fin de siècle”. Aceing this Year 7 French lesson recall!

We wandered past the Notre-Dame church but Eva declared that she was bored so we decided to go back to the lighthouse and see whether it was open for climbing yet. It was! We had to resort to English to navigate the tricky conditions around climbing the lighthosue in such tricky weather and our lack of change in Euros but the staff had excellent English so they did all the hard work.

(As I’m writing this, an advert has just popped up on the TV urging me to “soak up the sun” and “get that ferry feeling” aboard a P&O ferry – “where time is the only thing flying”. Thanks, but I think I got enough of that ferry feeling yesterday and time wasn’t exactly flying. More on that in a moment. Plus, it was not the weather to be thinking about sunny beaches)

So, we paid our 12EURO for the lighthouse and started off by watching a short film about the site before starting the 270-step climb. I was getting a little paranoid about making it back to the ferry on time so think we skipped some of the elements of the guided tour but we made it all the way up, even if only Nathan went out onto the balcony. It was really, really windy so they’d made us promise not to take the kids out there and I think that was probably wise because Eva may well have been whisked away as she weighs so little. Her weight had definitely worked to her advantage as she was skipping up the steps like a mountain goat though. I was ready to give up by halfway but she kept urging me on with a “come onnn Mummy! Why are you so slow?”

I’d probably been a bit overcautious in leaving an hour to get back from the lighthouse to the ferry port but I was still working on Google’s estimates, which were well over the top. It was actually about a 12 minute walk back and we got to the terminal with a full hour before the bus was departing at 4:45 to take us onto the ferry. But at least we’d been told an exact time for the bus departure, and the route into the terminal had been signposted with big friendly signs:

An improvement on Dover, that’s for sure. We were all exhausted after our lighthouse climb, so just found four seats together and slumped there, all reading our books and ignoring each other. I also plugged my phone in to charge for a bit, even though it was out of arm’s reach. My phone is so covered in sellotape that no-one would ever bother to steal it, even when it’s left unattended and the battery was almost out. We were indeed having trouble in the message centre.

When we’d checked in, the lady had mentioned that our crossing had been changed to the delayed 2:20 crossing, which would indeed be quite delayed by the time we sailed at 5:30. But we thought little more of it. Ships were still sailing and that was all that mattered. The bus arrived when they said it would and we got to the ferry fairly quickly, even though we had to go through proper customs this way with a bag scanner and everything. Not entirely sure why as, again, there were only about ten of us and no-one was checking the bags of anyone in the hundreds of cars but still…in this climate you don’t question, you just comply in whatever way you’re required to do in order to get back into the country. I wasn’t *actually* planning on starting a new life in France.

Once again, we were the first passengers on and went straight to the Family Lounge, where we claimed the sofa nearest the Kids’ Zone and collapsed onto it. There we were for an hour or so, slouched on the settee, reading and snoozing and at some point we moved out of the harbour and into the Channel, which was now even rockier than it had been on the way over. By my best guess, it was around 6:00pm French time by the time we left.

On this leg of the journey, someone did turn up to operate the telly and the kids happily watched DC Lego Superheroes for an hour or so, which should by all rights have got us almost back to Dover. But something was afoot – even though we’d been going for hours we were still apparently quite far out from the Kent coast. It later transpires that the wind we were sailing into was so strong that it was preventing us even getting close. Around 6:30 British time (so 90 mins in), we were told that it would be at least another hour. It was around that point that the kids’ DVD finished and they suddenly paid the price for staring at a screen while the floor was rocking – they both felt sick and wanted to get off the boat Right Now.  That was a low. Nathan had been sleeping but was woken up by Roo suddenly having to run to the loo. He wasn’t sick but looked a suitable shade of grey and Nathan wasn’t looking much healthier. We’d been given refreshment vouchers in Calais as compensation for a delay we hadn’t yet suffered so I was planning on getting coffee as we got close to Dover, in order to perk Nathan up for the drive home. But the timings were all messed up now and the coffee I bought for him went largely undrunk as he and Roo sat huddled and queasy on the sofa.

I was sick a lot when pregnant with Roo so had a few virtual tricks up my sleeve. Roo refused mint chewing gum but Nathan accepted and I went to Plan B for Roo – combing the decks for a fruity ice lolly to combat the nausea. I took Eva with me and had just failed to find the shop when she was unexpectedly sick in my hand. Even more unexpectedly, I managed to keep the coffee in my other hand untainted and drinkable.

She felt a lot better after that but we were starting to need to get off the ship. Another announcement around 7PM told us that we were in a queue to get into Dover harbour and that it would be another 45 minutes to an hour before we docked. It wasn’t great news when kids around us were being sick everywhere. Weirdly, the Family Lounge had never filled up although a short-tempered PA announcement suggested that there was child-led anarchy upstairs in the Food Court, with a party of school kids running around and shouting unsupervised. I think we were all losing the will. Eva alone was perky, playing in the Kids’ Zone with some older girls she’d just met.

The last announcement had proved to be accurate and we were docked around 7:50, which was almost three hours since we’d set off, given the time difference. And we yet again had no idea where we foot passengers were meant to be. A steward and the signs both suggested an area past the bar, at the very front of the ship where another door was to be prove to never open on to another walkway. We found the people we’d been on the bus with and together we stood around for another half hour or so, watching all the staff descend in the lift and walk out past the HGVs. We guessed that we wouldn’t be allowed to try that ourselves. Once again, no one told us what was happening and as it turned into four hours since we’d boarded, tempers started fraying. Eventually, someone in a high-vis turned up, escorted us down to the car deck and dropped us back at an entirely deserted terminal building where Eva finally got her paws on those Tangfastics she’d been lusting after. She assured me that they wouldn’t make her sick again and, as it turns out, she fell asleep in the car still clutching a nearly-full packet. Worked out well for me once I’d eased them out of her sleeping hands. And finally, it looked like we’d made it a la fin.

So…lessons learnt from our France trip. Could do with longer to explore as we’d planned to go to the Meccano Lab but it was just too far away to get there and back in the time we had. Don’t sail during a hurricane. And if you’re sailing as a foot passenger, be very prepared to do a lot of waiting round, imagining that you’d been abandoned and losing hope of ever setting foot on dry land again. And remember at all times that you paid more to go on foot than you would have as a driver. I’m not convinced we got our money’s worth.

But as we parked up at home at 10:30, a sleepy Reuben from the backseat piped up with “That was a nice day out, wasn’t it?” And that, for me, makes the whole thing worthwhile. Pretty much.

Footnote: If you’ve been confused by some of the slightly random wording in this post, let me leave you with two images that might explain everything. There was a theme to the day, which I hope I’ve captured here. Well, there were several themes but I’m not talking about the sickness, the stair climbing or the hurricanes. Like I said, this should make all clear. Here’s the kids at two of our local hangouts. Firstly Hugs W Mugs Cafe:

And secondly, the beer garden at the Royal Oak:

There you go….is it all clear now? Or still a bit blurry?

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

How Eva Von Schnippisch Won WWII – 09/03/19

Posted on March 10, 2019 by katese11

Photo Liz McBurney

I must admit I was a little cautious about taking the kids to see Eva Von Schnippisch. I was originally planning to go to the Thursday night show on my own and was expecting a “hilariously filthy” one woman comedy musical show. So it was surprising to hear that there was kids’ version on Saturday afternoon, with the rude bits taken out…still, I was game so we gave it a try.

Both versions of the show were on as part of the Vault Festival. We’d last been to the Vaults for a cosmic-themed Big Fish Little Fish three years so I vaguely knew where we were going but if I’d read my own post first, I probably would have taken the route along York Rd and behind County Hall instead of the long way round Lower Marsh again. Ho hum, live and learn. And it’s kinda exciting for the kids to go through the graffiti tunnels. Last time there had been Avengers graffiti but this time the Marvel theme was X-Men – specifically, a giant Juggernaut from the New Mutant Army. Definitely worth swinging by if you’re in the area with a superhero fan.

But onto the main attraction – Eva Von Schnippisch and her daring tale of espionage and romance in WWII Europe. Obviously, my Eva was thrilled to share a name with the star of the show (and my Eva takes her name from my German grandmother so technically should be an AY-va too). Roo was less excited about the prospect of a second Eva in the room but likes history and violence so yknow…something for everyone.

The story was told in a series of dramatic and musical excerpts, with recorded voices occasionally standing in for other characters, although often it was just Eva darting from side to side of the stage to represent two or more people at once. She certainly was working hard to tell the tale, with characters ranging from a British officer to a young Marlene Dietrich although one character was often mentioned but never portrayed….and that was the elusive “bad man at the top”, whose inner circle Eva was forced to infiltrate. All of these characters involved costume changes and flicking between languages and accents, all of which Eva did with ease.

It certainly was raucous, even in the kids’ version. There were fart gags galore, massed chanting and a lot of audience participation. Some of the edits were very discreet and prompted a bit of giggle among the adults – did that song really always say “bore”? – and others….err…not so discreet. There was a song towards the end which seemed to have an entire verse missing but Eva just styled it right out.  A bag of haribo stood in for more illicit substances and there were multiple references to Eva’s rubber ball bouncing skills, which I imagine was worded slightly differently in the original. It all worked, though. It added an extra layer of charm to the show and it’s always funny to watch kids’ faces as they’re wondering what the grown ups are laughing about.

My kids’ favourite moment was when a stick of dynamite exploded in a shower of glitter. Everyone in the audience clearly knew that it was going to happen except my Eva, who stood up in her seat and loudly declared “I did not see that coming”. She got a round of applause for that, which pleased her greatly as you can imagine. She also really enjoyed the manic haribo-eating at the end, although Roo was regretting not making a dash for the leftover sweets on the stage at the end.

So a semi-improvised kids’ version of an adult cabaret show may not be your most obvious choice for a Saturday afternoon outing but we all really enjoyed it. And the Vaults are an interesting venue to just hang out in anyway, so it’s worth popping in for a drink at the Craft Beer bar and just to soak up the slightly musty but very hipster ambience. Roo was dressed in trousers that skimmed his ankle because he keeps growing but actually, most of the males in there were dressed similarly. And Eva was dressed in a witch’s dress, a sheep costume and a superhero cape but she’s Eva…they both fitted in just fine. And luckily neither of them asked too many questions about the “Vulvarine” poster in the toilet. A nemesis for the Juggernaut outside maybe?

Oh, and Lambeth North is clearly the way to get there. We went home that way and it’s way closer and less stress than Waterloo. You’re welcome.

Disclaimer: We recieved free tickets for the show in exchange for a review but all opinions remain honest and my own.  For tickets and more information, click here.

 

 

 

Posted in Reviewing the Situation | Tagged , | Leave a comment

This IWD, Do One Thing for You

Posted on March 9, 2019 by katese11

Happy International Women’s Day Boxing Day! That might mean you’re suffering a prosecco hangover after attending a rip-roaring celebration of women or it might mean you’re suffering brainache from spending the day explaining IWD to male colleagues or it might mean that you have a vague, nagging sense of emptiness about how you feel like you should have done something yesterday but you didn’t because you’re still in the fog of early motherhood or the busyness of working or just the emotional labour-overload of everyday life.

That was a remarkably long sentence but hopefully it means I’ve covered most of you womenfolk off. Because I’d like to talk to the third category – the ones with the vague, nagging sense of emptiness – but all of you. But we are women and we deserve what I’m about to say.

Do one thing for you today. One thing. Not for your kids, not for your husband but for you. Do something for your own mental wellbeing and it doesn’t need to be expensive or time consuming, it just needs to be something for you.

I just did something for me and it was expensive and it was pretty lame-ass but I’m going to tell you about it anyway but it’s been the best wellbeing thing I’ve done in years.

I delegated out my laundry. I know, I know. I told you it was lame-ass and it doesn’t feel very feminist to be talking about laundry for International Women’s Day but self-care is a feminist issue and that laundry backlog was getting me down every time I saw it. It had been there years. Seriously, now it’s all back and clean I can tell how old it is by the size of the kids’ clothes which means I now have a pile of too-small clothes that I need to put on Sell or Swap but who cares? They are no longer in my fricking laundry basket. I used a site called laundryheap.com, which picked up the massive bag of clothes one day and delivered them back clean and dry the next. I didn’t even see the people who picked up and delivered because Nathan dealt with them while I was out at choir stuff both nights. Yes, it cost us but it was an instant answer to a years-long problem. We are finally on top of the laundry and it feels goooood.

Your One Thing doesn’t need to cost as much as mine or align so depressingly with women’s domestic enslavement. It can be leaving the house for a coffee by yourself. It can be telling your partner to book a babysitter for a night out for the two of you. It can be locking the bathroom door for ten minutes while you take a shower. It can be buying yourself a packet of sugar waffles and a jar of nutella in Tesco and thinking of me while you eat them because that’s like my favourite snack at the moment and I’ve given up chocolate for Lent and am totally pathetic with it. Sob.

Listen to an empowering podcast. Listen to an amusing podcast. Listen to anything that isn’t “Baby Shark”. Order yourself some new pants from M&S online. Make a spreadsheet of things you need to do and things you’ve done already and colour in those cells a pleasing and calming green (just me?). Take ten minutes to play the piano or the guitar or just sing to yourself. Draw a picture. Play some PlayStation. Get some fresh air. Go for a run if that’s the kind of thing you like doing. Put a date in the diary to catch up with a friend. Block someone on Facebook that causes you mental anguish. Leave a few Facebook groups that cause you mental anguish.

Do you think you can do one of these? You don’t have to but I think you deserve it. And if you don’t, we have another shot at the end of the month on Mother’s Day so maybe you can do something for yourself then.

And Happy IWD to all the wonderful and inspirational women in my life. May your days be free of mansplaining and may your payslip look as good as a white male’s.

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Better Extreme Clip N Climb – 02/03/19

Posted on March 2, 2019 by katese11

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll have the impression that Eva is not the bravest child in the world. Last time I’d taken her to a Better Extreme park she’d sat on the side for 45 minutes before dipping her toe tentatively into the under 5s foam pit. So you may be as surprised as I was by her request to go to the Clip N Climb at the Feel Good Centre – a fiendish array of climbing walls which you’re expected to scale with only the clip and the accompanying rope between you and a fate worse than anything you’ll see in the trampolining “Legmash!” video. But we’re keen to encourage her in new endeavours so it seemed worth spending a tenner on the off chance that she might get some kind of enjoyment out of it.

We started the day with a lively storytelling session from Craig Jenkins Storyteller.  Nathan came to meet us with Roo’s bike at the end and we had a slightly chilly walk along the Ching to Hugs W Mugs, a regular stop off of ours on the way to swimming. The magic of it is that there’s a little kids play area right outside, so you can pretty much sit inside the cafe and have a coffee while the kids play. There’s an outdoor gym across the road, which is Roo’s play area of choice and you can more or less see that one too but it’s probably best left for the kind of kids that are old enough to be crossing roads on their own <sobs quietly at how quickly that baby boy is growing up> <pulls self together and thinks about drinking coffee without children bothering me>

In short, Nathan and I had a coffee. The kids were fed – they devoured chocolate cake in  a matter of seconds before running off to play – but it felt unusually civilised.

We were almost reluctant to move on to the not-quite-so-civilised surrounds of the Feel Good Centre but we’d promised not just climbing for Eva but also trampolining for Roo so we had to go. More biking and scooting ensued, treading what’s become a well-worn path for us now. I must admit we’ve been slacking off on the biking to the Feel Good Centre over January – it’s the return leg in pitch darkness that’s the killer in winter – so have only done the trip once or twice since Christmas. It was nice to do it in daylight and it had even warmed up a bit while we were in the cafe so I could take off one of my many layers.

I’d been keen not to have to rush on a Saturday, seeing as we seem to be rushing every other day of the week, so I’d booked the Extreme Park for 2PM. Which, arriving at the FGC at 12:20, seemed a little bit like overkill. Still, we could get some lunch after all that exercise – I had a jacket potato, Nathan had a panini, kids had sandwiches from home plus a slushie each –  and there were even some kids from Eva’s year at school hanging around so I had a few fellow parents to chat to. We did end up killing a lot of time out just hanging out by the track though. Lucky it was warm, really.

What to do out there? Well, Reuben built a nest out of sticks, they ran up and down the grassy banks and Eva retold one of Craig’s stories at length, enjoying the fact that she had a captive audience. Time didn’t fly, just as Reuben hadn’t when he performed his role of “generic bird” that morning. But eventually it was 13:50 and time for final loo trips, stuff into lockers, disclaimer signing, wristbands, “Legmash!” viewing and everything else you have to do before you’re allowed in. Eva and Nathan disappeared shortly before the trampolining video started, which avoided any trauma on her part, and they watched their own video just inside the doors.

From then on, Nathan was in charge of Eva and I loosely supervised Roo (at 8+ he’s allowed in on his own but I might as well hang out there in case he needs me….it’s not like I had anything better to do). Every now and then, I’d leave Roo bouncing off the trampoline walls and wander over to see how Eva was doing. The first few times I did, she was a foot or so off the ground but not showing any signs of freaking out so it seemed like it had been worthwhile.

Then, about halfway through, the Clip and Climb seemed to empty out except for Eva and at first I couldn’t see where she was either.

Up there! No, really! My timid yittle girl who won’t even jump off a doorstep without someone holding her hand was 7.5metres off the ground and about to press the button. I don’t know what kind of metamorphosis took place at Holiday Club to make her a Climber Girl but I wish it’d happen more. She ended up completing three of the walls and got to the seventh column of the terrifying Stairway to Heaven. My flabber is still slightly gasted now.

There was no way to top that really, so we settled for stopping at Sainsburys on the way home and getting doughnuts. With obviously some basic arguing about scooter/pedestrian etiquette on the way. But relatively little in the way of tears and screaming and look at this lovely rustic spot we found for eating our doughnuts:

Bag of dog poo balanced on tree stump just out of shot. Inches from Roo’s handlebars. No, really. North Circular, giant supermarket and car park and massive pylon all also out of shot. Doesn’t this look like a perfect Pooh Sticks bridge?:

Maybe that’s where the bag came from….a willful misinterpretation of the rules.

Anyway, I’d say that was a pretty successful day out by most measures and Eva truly astonished us all. And trust me, that’s not something I say often.

For more information and to book your own Clip N Climb experience, have a look here.

Posted in Token attempts at exercise (leisure centres) | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Diana Memorial Playground – 22/02/19

Posted on February 27, 2019 by katese11

Ah, the curse of the working mother – having to fit the whole of half term into one day. That’s the way it worked out this term…the kids did three days of holiday club, one day of lazing around the house with Nathan and then I had one day with them to do Fun Stuff In London. And boy, did we cram a lot in.

The sun was shining, which always helps, and we stopped at the new branch of Pantry – Halex Vinoteca – so that I could fuel up on coffee, which I suspected I would need. Then we got on the train to Liverpool Street and changed onto the Central Line for Queensway. It wasn’t the quickest way but it was the way that Reuben chose because the Victoria Line made his ears hurt. And it was fine cause we had no particular marks to hit – it was all a bit of a spontaneous plan and were largely going where the (lack of) wind took us. Our first destination was somewhere we last visited in 2012, when Eva was a mere scrap of a thing in a sling and Reuben was proudly wearing a t-shirt with the legend “I am 3” on it. Which confirmed my suspicions that we haven’t been there since he was three. It was a playground commemorating Princess Diana, which would turn out to be something of a theme even the kids still have no real idea who she was.

Before that though, we needed to urgently pop to the loos. There are some just inside the gates of Kensington Gardens but they cost 50p and a fellow mother warned me as we went in that turnstiles weren’t working so kids had to duck underneath. I put 50p in anyway, because I’m just too darn British to do anything else…and then let Eva duck underneath to use them. I can’t explain the logic of all this, especially as there are toilets at the playground itself, so please don’t ask me.

I guess I thought there would be a queue to get into the playground, given it was a sunny day in half term. There wasn’t but it was insanely busy inside. I perched on a bit of wooden fence, called it “base” and let the kids loose on the pirate ship. Roo had his phone with him, so was allowed to roam a bit more freely but I tried to keep Eva in sight at all times….not too difficult as she had gone for contrasting pink and red clothes:

It wasn’t long before we had to break up play for lunch because I was starving and, as ever, had packed for the kids but not for myself. So they joined me in the queue for the hot food and I’m not going to say it was the calmest or smoothest part of the day but I got my extortionately expensive buttermilk chicken dippers, the kids found their sandwiches and we nabbed a perfect bit of grass which was, as Reuben requested, half in the sun and half in the shade.

If you’re thinking it looks remarkably sunny for February, it really was. That’s not just a fancy filter. Not quite warm enough for paddling but…we’ll get to that later. Both the kids were after some ice cream, which I agreed was a good idea but I wasn’t joining that food hut queue again. So I told them to do all the playing they wanted to and then we’d leave the park to get ice cream. So they played on the climbing frame at the back:

And on the swings:

And Reuben played “Baby Shark” in a minor key on some chromatic bells in the music area. Yeah, it was time to move on.

I’d found a gelataria in Notting Hill that had decent reviews on Google so we headed there. Our walk took us past the Diana Cafe, which always creeps me out a little. I mean, there are a LOT of pictures of Princess Diana in there. Like, a lot. Still, we’d taken advantage of her memorial so shouldn’t baulk at this particular tribute. It didn’t mean we were going to eat ice cream there though.

Badiano’s seemed like a much sounder choice. Their gelato was beautiful and they even had miniature tables and chairs for the kids to sit and draw at. It was a much-needed mellow half hour after the mania of the playground.

But we couldn’t stay inside for long on such a beautiful day. Eva wanted to go to the Science Museum but that seemed like a sunshine-less option, so I made some vague promises about going there later and took the kids on a long walk down Kensington Church Street. At first, they were fascinated by all the antiques shops and Eva especially liked the sparkly things:

But after the 20th antique shop, they were starting to tire of them. Luckily, Kensington is also a goldmine of Good Dogs and Eva was keeping herself busy by counting how many she’d seen that day. I think her day’s total was 28.

I didn’t really have a plan but thought once we got back into Kensington Gardens we’d find something to play on. I didn’t think there was a playground anywhere near but you never know. In the short term, they made do with a bit of tree climbing:

Then we walked through the Flower Walk but the main theme of the Walk seemed to be less floral and more verminous, as it was filled with squirrels and pigeons who were waging some kind of war against each other. I mean, SO many squirrels. It was like the doggyfnarea in Liverpool but for squirrels. We passed a few pretty landmarks:

But the kids were beginning to clock that no playground was in sight and were complaining accordingly. So, we made a rash and foolish decision. It was still warmish and we were hot after the long walk so what better way to play than in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain? It would allow us to spend yet more time dwelling on her life and use up the last of the sunshine hours. As long as the kids didn’t get their clothes wet because we didn’t have any spares and it wouldn’t stay warm for long once the sun was down.

What happened? What do you think?

Ohhhhhh dear. Time to go to H&M in High Street Kensington. It might seem like we were doubling back on ourselves when we had got so close to the Science Museum and that would be a true thing to think. It involved turning in the exact opposite direction to the Science Museum, waiting for the bus (the 23 turned up first) and then sitting on the bus in ridiculous amounts of traffic for the three stops we were intending to travel. It clearly would be quicker to walk, so we got off the bus opposite the Kensington Garden Hotel and sped-walked in order to beat the bus to H&M, which we pretty much did. Pretty much.

Hey kids, this is just the kind of crazy fun you get on Mummy Days. Entirely pointless long walks, winter time paddling and then ridiculous detours back again. But at least you get brand new clothes, pants and all!

Next, another ridiculous detour on the 49 bus. Don’t ask.

We made it to the Science Museum, though. It closed at 18:00 but I’d neglected to check the last entry time which, it turns out, was 17:15. So scooting in through the doors at 17:13 was cutting it finer than I intended, although a helpful staff member later told me that they actually opened till 19:00 during school holidays so I really wasn’t cutting it fine at all. I didn’t tell Eva it was open that late though, because by that point I was trying to get her back out again.

It really wasn’t the most productive Science Museum visit. We got in at 17:13, spent around 10 minutes changing into our brand new and dry H&M clothes, went to the Pattern Pod, spent 20 minutes waiting around for the parents of small children to realise that there was a queue for the drawing screens, had a dance in the little dance area and left. It was 17:45 by then and, as explained above, we were still leaving Eva under the impression that it was closing time.  My phone had died so I didn’t get any pictures, but you’ve all seen pictures of the Science Museum before, right? It also meant that the last leg of our journey wasn’t tracked as it would have shown yet another backtrack. I’ve added it in red paint on the map below so you can see just how ridiculous our day was:

Our final stop of the day was, of course, Burger King at Gloucester Road which is our now-standard Science Museum hack. It gets the kids fed before a long journey home and means that we avoid South Kensington station. Eva was delighted to get a Wonder Woman toy in her bag,  which Reuben pointed was called Diana. Princess Diana. I know, spooky….

 

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