London With a Teenager

Highams Park Playground – 16/10/15

Posted on October 16, 2015 by katese11

I’m a special kind of tired today. The kind of tired that you get when you go out for a rowdy curry night with the local mothers and then get up for the school run and then wait ages for coffee and then go to a playgroup in Liverpool Street and then do some blogging and then do another school run and then walk a mile or two with tired kids in tow to go and play in the brand new playground at the Highams Park. That’s how tired I am. And that’s the extent of my devotion to you, that instead of lying on the sofa, eating Pringles and watching “You’re Fired”, I’m reporting back to you on this self-same brand new playground so that you can ooh and aah and plan your fun weekend hanging out there. Also, I don’t have any Pringles.

Let’s get something yikky out of the way first – if you’ve been paying attention to local affairs, you’ll have heard about a worrying smell that’s emanating from the Highams Park lake at the moment. I regret to inform you that the rumours are true but there are two bits of good news – firstly, that it’s being dealt with tomorrow by some people with a machine and secondly, that you can’t smell it from the playground. At least, I couldn’t today. So, please don’t let that put you off.

Because, in many other ways , the park is looking quite lovely and autumnal right now:

And Eva in her new mac quite nicely blended in with her surroundings:

But onto the main event – the newly opened playground, which has had a total renovation in the last few weeks. Disappointingly, I don’t have a “before” picture (please get in touch if you do!) but it was a pretty tired looking affair, with a giant metal climbing frame, a rusting roundabout and not much else. And now? Well, it has a train:

A rocking horse that goes really fast (hence the blurriness of these pictures):

A new slide:

A new, accessible roundabout:

Two sets of swings and a toddler-sized climbing frame:

Enough to keep the kids busy, as you might imagine. The sky was getting ever darker and the threat of rain wasn’t far off, so I encouraged them to try out as many things as possible before we actually had to run for it. Which leads me neatly on to what this park is missing at the moment – somewhere to shelter from the rain. Specifically a cafe, which sells brightly coloured cakes and strong coffee and probably icy fruit drinks in the summer. Luckily, this is already under consideration and a proposal has been put forward, which you can have your say on right here. With a caffeine source on site, along with a set of toilets, we’d have lingered much longer. As it was, we stayed for an hour which is good going on a chilly October after-school outing…but I know I wasn’t the only one craving a cup of tea and a sit down by 5PM.

So, back to the stuff that’s actually in the park already. Roo was delighted to see that there’s now a zipwire and I failed to get any photos of him on it because it’s outside the playground and, slack mother that I am, I didn’t follow him when he ran off to use it. He also enjoyed the obstacle course, which is outside the playground as well. The bits within the fenced off area are more geared towards smaller ones – the climbing frame is a bit too easy even for Eva – but both of them are happy with any space to play in, and Reuben amused himself by going down the slide in a variety of awkward poses and trying to catch the wind in his umbrella to make the roundabout take off and fly us home (sadly, it didn’t work. We had to walk). A favourite of them both were these rainbow bongos:

I’m guessing you’re meant to hit them, rather than stand on them but they took Eva’s weight just fine. And Reuben’s umbrella again came in useful, as an improvised drum stick:

It also got a sound out of these giant chimes, which seemed to be curiously lacking a beater:

But mainly, the umbrella was for jumping off stuff and trying to fly, a la John from Peter Pan:

I’m glad I packed that umbrella, even if it didn’t actually rain.

Eva’s favourite things were the brightly coloured mushrooms, and she insisted on me taking a picture of her on each one. I probably shouldn’t indulge this kind of vanity, but I’m a soft touch when it comes to cute pictures of my kids:

So, I’d say that the new playground is a hit with the kids and the trip was pretty much a success. (Ohgoodgriefletsnottalkaboutthedinnertimebathtimeandbedtimethatfollowed). I’d encourage all local HPers to go along and take a look and support the park and don’t forget to fill in the forms for the cafe consultation either. Mama needs caffeine….

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged choo-choo!, East London, parks, playground, slides, swings | Leave a comment

GIVEAWAY!! Win Tickets to the Family Travel Show

Posted on October 16, 2015 by katese11

shutterstock_184282520 (00000002)p Does anyone else struggle to find a holiday that’ll work for your family? I always leave it late, book somewhere in a hurry and we have an average-to-good time, sometimes in accommodation that’s average-to-bad. But you don’t have to be like me – the Family Travel Show is here to give you wonderful holiday inspiration and some exclusive deals. There will be lots of holiday companies exhibiting, interactive activities and talks from the likes of travel journalist Simon Calder and survival expert Benedict Allen.

It’s on at Olympia on 31st Oct and 1st Nov. Tickets cost £8 in advance or £12 on the door, under 16s are free. For full details and to book tickets please visit www.familytravelshow.com or call 0844 209 7360. (Calls cost 10p per minute plus network extras). But we have a pair of tickets to GIVE AWAY! (don’t forget that kids go free, so 2 tickets will cover a whole family). Just fill in the form below, with a comment saying why you’d like to win, before Friday 23rd Oct and I’ll be announcing the winner in time for half term. Good luck! [contact-form]

Posted in Facts! And facts are important! | Tagged giveaway, travel | Leave a comment

Why Can’t Britain Just be British?

Posted on October 8, 2015 by katese11

I don’t know about you but I’ve been getting some mixed messages from the Tory Party Conference. First there’s Jeremy Hunt telling a meeting that cutting tax credits was all in the interests of creating an Asian-style working culture. Then Theresa May piped up with a charming little speech about how immigration makes it difficult to have a “cohesive society“. So, what is it, Tories? Do we want to integrate with other cultures or not?

I know where I stand. I’m all for a multi-cultural Britain – people of different nationalities, races and religions living and working together. All good. Immigration facilitates that. Still all fine. And drawing ideas and influences form other countries that might work well over here? Yup, that’s fine too. But what I do have a problem with is this wholesale lifting from other cultures and trying to somehow pin it onto Britain. An Asian-style working culture? Oh yes, that’s what we’ve been missing all this time. And where exactly do we get one of these cultures? Can we order it online? Maybe grow it in a petri dish? Or just make people work harder for less money until we feel that box is ticked?

There are so many issues tied up with this but mostly I just find it sad. Britain is constantly acting like that girl at school who doesn’t have her own sense of style so just copies other people’s all the time. You know the kind of thing – the most popular girl in the class gets a new bag, the next day this other girl has the exact same one. It’s the constant trying to be someone else that I find pathetic. I mean, I’ve spent my whole life trying to be Julie Andrews but I’m no closer to marrying Christopher Plummer so at least I know how pathetic I am. Yet, when it comes to Britain we are receiving these constant messages that we need to be a different country entirely. So much of it revolves around our children and education – they’re meant to be free-range like the Finns but yet hothoused like the Chinese and at the same time eating like the French. I’m confused and I’m sure they are too.

The hothousing of children is really the key to all this – if we want an “Asian-style working culture”, there are so many things that go with it. The pressurized education system, the oppression of the masses, the censorship of the media. To use an aptly multi-cultural metaphor, it’s like ordering the crispy duck but asking for no pancakes. Or hoi sin sauce. Or those really thin bits of cucumber. You’ll get the duck but you won’t be able to roll it up and pop it in your mouth and quite frankly, it might taste a bit rubbish. Without the hoi sin sauce, you’re going to notice all that deep-fried fattiness a lot more.

Duck, ducks…I had a point somewhere. YES! It was that saying “we’d like your working culture but without the human rights violations please” is like that metaphor. Flabby and a bit rubbish. That’s why borrowing huge lumps of culture from other people just doesn’t work. Let’s not even mention the Dutch (and believe me when I say, I actually typed “duck” there before I corrected it). It’s square pegs in round holes, jazz rhythms in worship songs, Latin grammar rules on the English language…oh wait. Scrub the last one. If you want your country to display the kind of “culture” experience by the repressed masses of China, then you’re going to have to remove all kinds of human rights as well. And I don’t for a second believe that our government would want to infringe on their citizens’ human…oh wait again. That bit needs scrubbing too. The Latin, the human rights and the duck. Why doesn’t this keyboard have a delete key?

The ever-present argument for doing this kind of cultural copyright theft is that it’ll make Britain better. Great once more. A world leader etc etc and that too is something I take issue with. We’re not the kind of country that’s best at things. We’re about as mediocre as it gets – our weather is mediocre, our food is mediocre, our general demeanour is one of restraint, our national drink is bland and our national anthem even blander. We’re a mid league-r. We’ve produced some excellent music, but it’s balanced out by how very shocking our sports teams often are. If Britain was a schoolchild, its report would show some strengths, some weaknesses but overall, kinda average across the board. And unlike Michael Gove, I know how averages work.

We’re just not cut out to be Great. I know we had that empire once but even then it didn’t really suit us. We lacked the natural authority to keep it under control and kinda panicked and had to kill whole races of indigenous people just so we could stick our flag in their hostile soil. As conquerors we did a patchy job at best. As agreeable, appeasing, happy-to-help-but-with-no-real-power world leaders we do OK. Being the beta male of the EU suits us and the sooner we admit that, the better.

So no, I don’t want an Asian-style working culture. Or an American one unless it comes with the kind of money that’ll fund an American-style therapy habit. I just want Britain to look at itself and go “yeah, you’re OK how you are”. Not “we need to kick all these immigrants out and go back to being the White Britain that we never really were in the first place”. I’m not saying “Britain should be British” in a UKIP kind of way. Hell no. And neither am I saying that the country doesn’t have problems – we have many, starting with that government of ours. But I am saying that stealing other people’s cultures is not the way to improve our own. We should just be happy with this C Plus country. With an extra star for effort.

Posted in Rants | Tagged Britain, education, politics, rants | Leave a comment

Hackney Hijinks

Posted on October 2, 2015 by katese11

Today I had the pleasure of hanging out with Bob and Boby. Now, Bob and I have done a lot of foolish things together – one of which was chronicled on this blog and most of which are not suitable for mentioning on the blog or in fact, anytime, anywhere. But tackling Primark in Hackney with two small children? That was probably madness, even by our standards.

Still, we overcame and came out with two bulging bags of stuff that included trousers for three quarters of my family and pants for the other quarter (in the interests of intrigue, I’m not going to reveal who got what). Then we went to a rather charming little park in St John’s Churchyard, which I’d heard tell of but never been to. I didn’t even notice it when we walked straight through the churchyard a few weeks back, but then we were child-free and probably a bit playground-blind. If you also have trouble finding it, aim first for the little coffee hut and then the gate to the walled playground is just behind there. Do as we did and enjoy a coffee at the same time.

The playground isn’t huge but it is a good size for toddlers like Boby and just-past-toddlers like Eva. The climbing frame was just right for her to do it all by herself, even if she had to stretch a bit at the top of the spiral bit. There’s a slide, swings, bouncy things and Bob informs me that there’s a water feature during the summer. In the busyness of Hackney Central, it’s a lovely green space and the coffee on hand doesn’t hurt.

All of which reminds me that I never blogged about another trip to Hackney last month. Our destination that time was Victoria Park and the hub cafe for brunch. Brunch was delicious – a full English and coffee for Nathan, fresh juice and sausage sandwiches for me and the kids – and we got the chance to play in the Pools Playground, a playground I hadn’t visited since Reuben was tiny. Then it was a bit of a building site and I was daunted by the sheer size of these slides:

Now, it’s fully finished and has a massive sandpit at the bottom of those same slides. The slides are for 7+ children, but 6-year-old Reuben was fine on them, and Eva managed the smallest one. Even so, it seemed like a long way down from the top:

She also terrified me by climbing all over these giant rocks:

There were a few quirky touches – the kids liked running on something that resembled a giant conveyor belt and the huge climbing frame in the shape of a suspension bridge:

There was loads of space for sand play, with the same kind of huts as they have in the V&A playground, and there was some kind of sand digger too:

It also had the same kind of unfenced feel that gets parents so riled over at the other playground. The play area kinda rambles organically on, (and of course it’s organic – this is Hackney), right back to the cafe where there’s a bouncy thing and wooden stepping stones:

There’s also some kind of spinny that that you can wind up like a maypole. Perfect for children who’ve just stuffed themselves full of brunch:

I may have mentioned this back when I originally meant to write this post, but the look Eva was going for that day was a kind of demented Snow White pineapple:

Anything goes in Hackney, right? This morning Reuben was quizzing me on what a hipster meant. You can see right here ^^ that he’s been to Hackney but clearly not enough. Next time I’ll make sure I concentrate more on his hipster education. In the meantime, we’ll go and try to find some new playgrounds no-one’s ever been to yet…so we can like them before they’re cool.

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged coffee, East London, parks, playground, slides, swings | 1 Comment

Asteys Row – 20/09/2015

Posted on September 20, 2015 by katese11

I love it when we stumble upon tiny parks that turn out to be quirky gems. That’s what happened today – on a sunny Sunday, wandering through Canonbury on the way to church (new church awooga!), we earmarked a small bit of green for a post-church picnic. I had no idea what it was called but I was confident I could find it again as it was pretty much just opposite the start of the New River Walk (new church awooga #2!).

Turns out it was called Asteys Row and I’d often seen the start of it from the 38 as it crawled down Essex Road. A long thin park, based on the curves of a river it runs behind Essex Rd station and has a lot of different parts – rock garden, playground, sandpit, green area, random bits of paving and brickwork area. Like I said, quirky.

We’d arrived with a picnic from that most local of suppliers, Tesco, and sat down on one of the Teletubby-like mounds to eat. Obviously, the kids couldn’t sit still when they could be climbing and Eva was keen to be “Ting of the Tastle” (she’s still struggling with /k/, bless her). Roo downed his sandwich quickly and ran off to try out the helter skelter:

isl7

It was a pretty cool slide, even if I felt nervous watching Eva climb it in not one but two dresses. Nathan had carefully dressed her in co-ordinated red, white and navy which she then accessorised with an Elsa dress and a tropical necklace. Happily, the necklace matched her juice, if not anything else she was wearing. I’ve heard her style described as “Crazy Homeless Princess” and I sometimes find it hard to argue with that. Still, the dress-excess didn’t impede her climbing ability:

Nathan and I said exactly the same thing when we saw this slide – that it was the same as the one in the River Park Leisure Centre in Winchester when we were kids. Can any Wintonians tell me whether it’s still there?

As well as crazy slides and retro slides, there were some bouncy things and a kind of climbing frame-roundabout:

Eva got stuck on the roundabout with a kid who a) didn’t want to go fast and b) wanted to play “Mr Tumble” with her. She didn’t like that. Both my kids have been preconditioned to dislike Mr Tumble, so her face when he opened his spotty bag and got out his Tumble Tap was one of horror. That’s my girl. Time to move to the swings:

Shortly afterwards, Roo issued a warning that saw us scarpering to Costa to use the toilets there. We rushed through the rock garden on the way but ambling back, coffee in hand, we took some time to explore the play possibilities. Roo liked climbing on the rocks:

(I assume he’s meant to? But never assume…)

And then he did some limbo on a weeping willow branch:

I was idly taking photos of the Narnia-like lamposts and posted this one on Facebook:

Which was taken entirely at random, to showcase the pretty tree and the blue sky, but turned out to be the old flat of some friends of ours. Small world, hey?

As a sidenote, Islington is lovely, isn’t it? In my mind, it’s often associated with that torturous, breakdown-inducing first job in London but there are some very pretty bits of it once you leave a darkened office in the N1 Centre. Some of the roads we wandered down looked straight out of a Richard Curtis film and probably were. Of course, this leads to sandpits full of posh kids in flat caps with their private tutors on hand but that’s Islington for you. Talking of sandpits, this was another very pretty feature:

It was almost time to go, but first the kids wanted to play on the random-brickwork bit at the end. Again, I’m not sure if it’s designed to be played with but they found things to climb on:

So, a park that’s small in size but full of character. I’m very glad we picked it. More information here.

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged coffee, North London, parks, playground, slides, swings | Leave a comment

Timbuk2 – 31/08/15

Posted on September 8, 2015 by katese11

I’ve got a bit behind on blogging this last week or so, distracted by heckling school children and getting new uniform for cabinet ministers. Did I get that the wrong way round? I don’t even know anymore. But anyway, I still haven’t told you what we did a week ago…and this is important stuff.

We went to Havering!

Yes, that’s right – 29 boroughs down, 3 to go. I’d chosen a country park for our Havering trip but, being a Bank Holiday, it was naturally tipping it down so that plan seemed like a non-starter. We passed the morning with a little housebreaking at the neighbour’s but when the rain was still not easing up by lunchtime, it was clear that soft play was the way to go.

So, which soft play in Havering? I found three candidates – Rocky’s, which was closed, KidSpace, which looked fun but was expensive (and we’d been splashing the cash merrily all weekend) and Timbuk2 in Upminster. With two candidates eliminated, we set the SatNav for Timbuk2. It got us as far as the petrol station, so then we set Google Maps for Timbuk2.

I’m normally a big advoKate of public transport in London, but this one may be tricky without a car. It’s quite far out of London. In fact, it may have a legitimate claim for being the furthest-out soft play in London that’s still inside the M25. It really is very close to the M25. Look, here it is at the end of the car park:

A quick fact, for all you fact-fans – Havering is the only London borough that crosses the M25! It’s a pity that LWAT is not also prepared to cross the M25.

You can discern then that it’s a bit out of the way. I just tried to plan a public transport map on Google and even the normally-infallible Maps had nothing. The best they could suggest was a 5 mile walk from Upminster station – elongated because there are very few places to cross the A127. But don’t despair if you don’t have a car. You’re not missing much. It’s just a pretty standard soft play. It’s not bad in any way, but nothing worth walking through a field for 2 hours for. You’d be better off at the transport-friendly Owls in Fairlop, which we spent a similarly rainy Bank Holiday at.

But enough about the technicalities of getting there – what is there? Well, there’s an Under 2s bit, an Under 3s bit, a large frame and a football pitch. The kids enjoyed climbing on the big frame and Eva managed it perfectly well without any help, but her favourite thing was this Peppa Pig car:

We didn’t put any money in it cause…we never do, but she spent about an hour sitting in it or on it or playing around it. Occasionally other children would want to get on, so she would obligingly shift to the parcel shelf but she wasn’t keen to leave it. I was terrified when we stopped at a service station on a different bit of the M25 a few days later and saw the same car…I thought we’d never leave.

Roo, obviously, was more interested in the giant slides and things he could climb on although he played a bit of football as well. There was a secure gate and no other exit, so Nathan and I just sat and drank coffee (they take card! Hooray!) at our table and watched them. There’s a bit of a bizarre system with the tables, where you can’t enter the soft play until a table becomes free for the adults. I mean, it’s nice because it guaranteed us somewhere to sit, but we had to wait about 15 minutes for a table to come up and it’s just not a system I’ve seen anywhere outside ~~Nandos~~ those really posh restaurants we frequent.

The coffee wasn’t bad -the cakes were all pre-packed and didn’t look overly awesome but I think I’m getting spoilt. One day i’ll find that soft play with fresh coffee and freshly baked red velvet cake, but this wasn’t it. Neither was it necessarily a good representation of the whole of Havering – I’d like to explore the borough a bit more when it’s less of a numbers game. But not a bad afternoon out, just a pretty standard wet-Bank-Holiday-at-soft-play one. It knackered the kids out anyway, and that’s what’s important…!

Posted in Token attempts at exercise (leisure centres) | Tagged coffee, East London, rainy day, rainy day places, soft play | Leave a comment

Wanders in Wapping – 06/09/15

Posted on September 6, 2015 by katese11

Today was a day of discovery. Like the discovery that we could make a half mile walk last half a day and other, more useful, things, Let’s start with the discovery of the Tardis of North London – Canonbury station.

Where is it? Oh so tiny and hidden behind those leafy things..there it is! This is us doubling back from up the road having walked past it on the first attempt – you can barely see that there’s a station there. So, you squeeze through the doorway and through the miniscule ticket hall and then down the steps and oh…oh…it’s….

wapp4

Bigger on the inside! Four generously sized platforms, all behind a secret entrance. Magic!

We were, as you might have guessed, travelling to Wapping. Our end destination was St Katherine’s Dock but we had time to kill so we decided not to take a bus, to walk instead, and possibly find a park along the way.

Mentioning a park to Reuben was the first major mistake of the day (there will be more). He has certain ideas about what a park should contain, and he instantly rejected the first one we came to:

I think it was called Wapping Rose Gardens and was dismissed as not having “the right equipment”. Or any equipment. That’s fine. We were just out of the station and there were more to try on the way, according to Google Maps. In fact,t he next park was just across the road. It was called Waterside Gardens and scored slightly higher in Roo’s estimation, for its river views and pagoda:

We spent a few minutes sitting there discussing the marine police station that you could see out in the river. That interested him, though he raised some concerns about what would happen in Galactus was on the beach, throwing stones at the police boats. He has many concerns about Galactus and I can’t answer them all. I also couldn’t answer his questions about playgrounds because, as I explained to him, I’d never been to Wapping before and so I had no idea if there were any playgrounds with the “right equipment” there at all. A quick google had left me feeling unoptimistic but I didn’t tell him that. Still, Wapping is pretty:

All cobbles and clean streets. That’s the 100 stop you see there – I briefly considered getting that bus to the docks until I saw that it seemed to head to Shadwell on both sides of the same road. I may have got that wrong, but the confusion threw me enough to abandon the bus plan altogether.

The other motivation for walking was to find some food. I’d packed sandwiches for the kids, which Roo ate on the tube and Eva steadfastly refused on the tube. I’d hoped there would be a little Pret or even an Itsu somewhere on the route but all I could see were expensive-looking brasseries and even more expensive-looking blocks of flats. Lots and lots of them. Even if we’d gone to the Pret that Google suggested, it would have been closed on a Sunday anyway. So, pioneer-style living it was then. With no firm plans for food or play, we ploughed on, getting increasingly agitated by the prospect of finding neither.

(Like any good pioneer, I’d bought some Branston Pickle flavoured Mini Cheddars at Canonbury, but their effects were short-lived).

Roo was getting whiney. He tried explaining a few more times exactly what he was after – a playground with slides and swings and things. I don’t call myself an expert on many things but I pride myself on knowing what a playground is, thanks Roo. He just sometimes doesn’t explain that we make these long and arduous journeys so that other children don’t have to. If we could establish definitively that there were no slides in Wapping, then someone else could just Google it, find this post and go to KidZania instead.

I didn’t even try to explain that, to be honest. We would have come unstuck around the SEO part. But I’m building to something, because I said this was a day of discovery and we did indeed discover a playground. Ladies and Gentlemen, give it up for…

The Hellings Street Open Space! We spotted it by chance from Wapping High Street and approached carefully, just in case it was some kind of residents’ only deal. As we did, Roo explained that this was what he was looking for and, furthermore, he knew that it was open because he could see someone swinging on a swing. Thankfully, he was right and the kids spent a blissful half hour or so playing on the climbing frame:

Slide:

And climbable rocks on the side:

I say the children played…well, that’s true….but it wasn’t just the kids:

There was lots of nice landscaping around the park, which Eva couldn’t quite get up by herself. She too felt the need to explain things to me that I pretty much understood already. “I keep syiding down”. Yes, I see that:

Roo was a little more able, but still needed a bit of a bunk-up on these hills:

You’ll be glad to know that my usually-ungrateful children actually appreciated this playground and didn’t even kick up a fuss when it was time to leave. It was 3PM by now, I still hadn’t had lunch and I had a destination in mind:

Make no mistake, this is a middle-class part of town. But it provided not just lunchables for Nathan, Eva and I but also a birthday present for Bob. We perched on a wall outside, ate our food and wrote Bob’s card. I hope she realises what a momentous piece of family history she’s holding – the first time we’ve all signed our own names in a card:

You can also see from this card why I don’t handwrite my blog posts.

Yes, it was Bob’s birthday and that’s the reason we were Wapping about all afternoon. So, it was probably time to actually go and meet her at the Dickens Inn. There was just one small problem:

Hmm, that’s a lot of water between where we were and where we wanted to be. Roo, as ever, had a blue-sky solution that involved finding someone to sail us across in a boat. I suggested walking around the edge of the quay instead. And that came with a few unexpected bonuses. Like finding the Queen’s barge:

And a suit of armour:

And this wobbly bridge, with particularly hazardous sides (or lack of):

You’d think that would be the kind of bridge that only a man would tackle. But you’d be wrong. In fact, it appears to be for women and children only:

Anyway, women and children and illicit man made it across safely and by now, I had definitely earned this well-garnished Pimms:

When it was time to leave, I made another very poor decision. Perhaps it was joining the crowds milling around Tower Bridge that did it, but I decided we would use the tourist way of getting to Liverpool Street – go on the tube. Now, we should have caught the bus and we possibly could even have walked it, but the signs for Tower Hill kept promising it was but a matter of minutes away. So we followed them.

At one point, we definitely seemed to be going round in a circle. I had the roughest idea of where the tube was, so walked around a dock, down a road, up another road, under a tunnel…

This was not going well. This was not the easy solution I was hoping for. We popped out by the Tower of London, so that was something interesting to look at at least:

But we still weren’t at Tower Hill tube and a tunnel that looked like it might be a tube just led to a gift shop and a massive flight of stairs. I caught sight of some TfL blue at the top, so we ascended and sure enough – the station was there. But we got to the platform and there was no sign of the Circle Line. Even when the sign finally appeared, it was still 6 minutes away. I have no idea what caused me to pull such a tourist move, but I regret it. Should have jumped on the 78 when we had the chance.

And that’s the final discovery for today. I hoped you’ve all learnt from our mistakes…but also, I hope you’ve learnt that there IS a climbing frame in the vicinity of Wapping High Street. Hooray!

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged Central London, East London, North London, parks, playground, pubs | Leave a comment

A Close Encounter of the IDS Kind

Posted on September 4, 2015 by katese11

What would you do if you had the chance to talk to Iain Duncan Smith, head of the DWP, so-called “Butcher of Benefits” and my local MP? I asked that question on Facebook and the answers ranged from the violent to the unprintable. But it wasn’t just an academic survey – I was about to be on the same traffic island as the man himself, and I wanted to be prepared.

I’ve made my feelings about IDS quite clear before – it disgusts me that someone who represents my constituency is so adept at screwing over the most vulnerable in our society. But how to articulate that?

Well, it all started with a parking issue. I live in a part of Waltham Forest that does not currently have controlled parking. There was a proposal to introduce charges, we voted and it was overturned. As a car owner, I was relatively happy about this. One of the driving (pun intended) forces behind overturning the proposal was the Rate Payers’ Action Group and they were not just relatively happy about this – they were very happy indeed.

And at this point, enter the IDS Media Machine. Sensing the opportunity for some badly-needed good publicity, IDS’ people arranged for him to have a photoshoot with the Rate Payers’ Action Group and it would go in the local paper. Iain rejoices with his constituents. Sensing the opportunity to heckle him about benefits deaths, we gatecrashed.

Not that we were rude about it, you understand. We stood there (mostly) quietly, holding our signs while the CPZ folks had their photo taken. They’d fought and won the battle they were passionate about, and we didn’t want to detract from that. When they saw us approaching, I think they assumed we were the pro-parking control gang, ready to have a rumble about permit books. They were relieved when they realised our fights wasn’t with them but the one we call the Inhuman Disabled Slayer. For the record, some of my fellow protestors were pro-CPZ but we managed to put our parking differences behind us to focus on the real issue at hand – the 300 deaths a month of people sanctioned by the DWP.

Having said that, we totally ripped off the CPZ signs to make our own ones:

We had a mix of messages – “No to Benefit Deaths”, “Yes to UN Investigations”, “No to Human Rights Violations”. All pretty reasonable, I think. I shouted a few things at IDS, to which he only responded with “that isn’t true”. Well, it’s truer than the case studies you put in that DWP leaflet Iain.

But the real action happened after I left to go and get Reuben (I may be a trainee political activist, but dammit I’m a mother first). IDS came over to talk to our gang and ended up in a heated debate with my friend Jess over whether or not people were actually dying after being sanctioned. She apparently said some incredible things to him which made him squirm (“People are dying on your watch Iain”) and she and Hanna attacked him with facts and figures. Then he talked to DrGem about the state of the NHS and how dying cancer patients are still being forced to pay the bedroom tax. He condescended, he patronised, he made calming hand gestures. He almost certainly lied about some stuff. I wish I’d been there to witness it but Reuben was already outstaying his welcome at a playdate and after half an hour of IDS solidly ignoring us, I had no reason to think things would change. So my contribution was mainly just holding a sign:

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But I could not have been prouder of my friends, who took him on (verbally, not physically) and won the moral victory. We were just a small protest- lucky as we were balanced on a traffic island – and a ragtag one, wrangling toddlers as we waved our homemade, winebox signs around. It may not have been effective – he may see this kind of thing everywhere he goes, but I’d like to think we at least gave him something to ponder. He may not sleep quite as soundly tonight as he normally does. We couldn’t possibly represent every person who has suffered under the sanctions regime but at least we did something.

See you soon for a rematch Iain?

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged East London, politics | Leave a comment

Adventures Around Stratford – 28/08/15

Posted on August 31, 2015 by katese11

It’s amazing how you can go to a place hundreds of times and yet still discover new bits of it. We did that twice this weekend – once with the Olympic Park, and once with Victoria Park, which probably deserves its own post. There will be a few posts coming out of this long weekend and I’d invite you to marvel at Eva’s ever-changing wardrobe, from BretonBunnyalike to DerangedSnowWhitePineapple. I’m too good to you.

And in that vein, I’d like to start with a thrilling shot of the ALL-NEW walkway between Hackney Downs and Hackney Central. It may not excite many people but it excites me:

A 4-minute change time between the Chingford branch and the Stratford branch! Platform to platform! And it has a lift, so you can exit Hackney Downs step-free as long as you come in on Platform 1. Honest to goodness, I tried it on Saturday and it works a treat. Not int he opposite direction though, alas.

Anyway, we were in Stratford to meet Mark and Katie, who we hadn’t seen for far too long, and spent some time hanging out in front of M&S, hiding behind a plant pot that Eva called a dalek:

No, M&S isn’t the amazing new bit of Stratford that I want to tell you about. Neither was Starbucks, our next stop, but by goodness I needed that coffee, if only to deal with the preschooler meltdown that was occurring because I was drinking coffee on a comfy green chair instead of perching on a stool. We were soon ready to walk over to the park, and that’s where we took a little bit of a diversion.

I’d bowed to Mark’s superior knowledge. We’ve lived in East London for 18 months now – he’s been there considerably longer. So when he said he knew a short cut, I naturally believed him. We ended up somewhere behind Stratford International station, where Eva and Bunny had had such fun on our last visit. It wasn’t the shortest cut, but we did find some exciting things along the way. Like a giant lounge set you could climb on:

And next to it some huge plant pots:

The kids were having such fun clambering on the giant sofa and hiding in the coffee table that we considered abandoning the actual playground and just hanging out there, next to a road that was probably called Celebration Avenue or something.

But then one of them made a break for it over the hill and we rapidly followed, pausing only to try and work out what this said:

Clearly that’s only part of it, but I think it was “My E20”. Possibly the work of a green-fingered Albert Square resident. I would say Arthur Fowler, but that would only illustrate how woefully outdated my EastEnders knowledge is.

Anyway, we followed them and they were browsing at a local Little Free Library they’d found, and ducking under the bike racks. Then we spotted a mirror maze, just next to a closed branch of Bottle Apostle. This was perfect for Eva, who loves looking at herself in the mirror:

It was cool, and also genuinely disorientating. I walked gingerly through to the middle and then had no idea how to get back out. It’s a very surreal little feature to stumble upon and I’m happy to report that none of the kids walked into any of the pillars. Close call though.

From there, we picked our way along a foresty path between shiny new apartment blocks, with lakes on either side. There was a normal path running alongside it that we could have taken, but this twisty, shady one was far more fun. It brought us out somewhere that I recognised and not a million miles away from where we’d started, but close to the playground.

Now, I’ve covered the sandy bit of the Tumbling Bay playground in quite some detail before – that traumatic day when it opened. And we’ve been there for spontaneous water play before too. This time, I was prepared for water play, with wetsuits and towels stashed in my bag…but there was none to be found. Yes, on a hot day in the summer holidays, the water was switched off. Boo!

Luckily, we had a new bit of the playground to explore. Not actually new, you understand, but we’d never been to that bit before. It’s entirely made of trees and rope, which gives it a lovely natural feel. It was also a bit scary. It’s designed for older kids – I’d guess primary-aged – but my older kid decided he was “terrified of heights” and so refused to climb on any of the narrow bridges. Whereas my 3-year-old showed no fear at all and was whizzing around at the kind of height that gives mothers a cardiac arrest:

I’m not sure this picture expresses how high off the ground she was – but look, there’s an entire child on a swing below her. All credit to Eva, she handled the skinny walkways very well, leaning right into the sides when another child wanted to pass her. Katie, meanwhile, was an Olympic Park pro, shimmying up the tree trunks and sliding down the massive pole with ease.

Despite his fear of heights, Roo found plenty to entertain him. There were the swings under the climbing frame and there was a slide off to the side:

He seemed mostly happy, tussles over the swing-queue excepted, and that meant I could spend most of my time nervously following Eva round and trying to stop her falling into this big gap:

Like I said, it was really designed on the scale of a Roo-sized child rather than an Eva-sized one but she did just fine without my nervy help. Soon though it became evident that Reuben needed fuelling. We had had one rage attack too many and it was definitely time for lunch at the Timber Lodge.

I haven’t eaten there before but it is pretty well set up for kids. There is a small kids menu and a shelf of books for them to read, including Eva’s current fave – Martha and the Bunny Brothers. On the day we went, there was a choice between macaroni cheese and tomato spaghetti which, with a drink, came to £4. Not bad value for somewhere with such a captive market. I could have split one portion between the two of them, as it was pretty big and Eva barely skimmed hers (she’d had a croissant at 11ish, so that was like lunch for her). The adult selection wasn’t amazing – just a couple of baguettes really – but I filled up on Eva’s rejected spaghetti. Mark had the passionfruit cheesecake, which looked awesome but apparently was nothing to blog home about. Shame.

All lunched up, it was back to the playground. I was amused to see a local building site apparently pinning its colours to the Labour leadership race flag:

Me too, builders. And Stella for deputy, obv. Have you voted yet? You should.

Time was getting on and we still had one mission to complete before heading home. Eva’s little canvas shoes had lasted well, considering, but with autumn looming she really needed something more substantial. And Roo was bound to have outgrown his school shoes over the summer. What to do? Well have no fear, Clarks was here to take happily take our money:

I felt mildly embarrassed when Eva took off her shoes and half of the sandpit fell out onto the carpet, but it was Back to School mayhem and I don’t think anyone noticed. Having said “mayhem”, I should probably point out that it was all very organised and we managed to leave with both children fitted and two pairs in the bag. It was definitely ice cream time.

Reuben had a hankering for slush, so we consulted our native guides and Katie suggested a place on the bottom floor. It was a gelato stand called Joe Delucci’s and sure enough, it sold slush. Handily, it was also right next to the play area so we could perch on one of the grassy hills in there and eat our icy treats while the kids did yet more playing. The play area was pretty packed and I failed to get any good photos but here’s something that looks like the inside of a whale:

There was also one of those pinboard things that we used to love as kids in the 90s. You know the ones – you put your hand against the pins and it makes a kind of 3D pring? Well, this was a giant red version and it was two-sided so that Reuben and some other boys could both push against it. In an only slightly aggressive way.

And that’s a good place to leave it. It seems that the Olympic Park is always throwing new things up for me to discover, which I love. We were there for 6 hours and finding unexpected treats all the time. They could have done with the water being on, but I guess that would have only made Eva’s shoes more disgusting when she took them off in Clarks. Small mercies…

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged eating out, ice-cream, parks, playground, shopping, slide, swings | Leave a comment

Autumn is Coming

Posted on August 30, 2015 by katese11

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Yes, it’s true. I’m wearing a cardigan as I write this. I may even put the heating on later. I know it’s August but my feet are cold.

And that brings me smoothly onto my autumn preview. Because as the leaves drop and the schools go back, there’s a whole host of fun things happening. First up is Spiegeltent in Canary Wharf. From 10th-20th September, Canada Square will host a festival of music, cabaret and comedy. There are loads of kids’ events, from a Big Fish Little Fish rave on 12th September to a Bach to Baby concert on the 18th. We’re hoping to pop down there – possibly to wave glowsticks in the air, possibly to listen to harp music. Anything could happen, folks.

If you’re otherwise engaged on the 12th, fear not. Big Fish Little Fish have a whole host of other autumn dates, now they’re back from the festival circuit. There are parties in Balham, Islington, Hackney, New Cross and even Exeter…have a look here for more info. Or if your tastes are more alternative, check out the Sunday morning IndieTots events – upcoming themed discos include post-punk and girl groups (I hear the Spice Girls may be involved but I’m hoping that’s just a vicious rumour).

Of course, no preview would be complete without a indulgent bit of self-publicising. WAM are once again performing at the Stow Festival on 19th September and I will once again be singing in the choir with them. But don’t let this put you off! There are lots of cool things going on too – have a look here for more details.

If you fancy skipping over autumn and going straight to winter, there’s an interesting looking show on at the Unicorn Theatre which will give you goosebumps…in a good way. “Breaking the Ice” is the child-friendly tale of a husky and a polar bear who become friends. It’s based on a true story and sounds utterly charming. It’s on 2nd September – 4th October.

Later on in the autumn, there’s another child-friendly theatre show at the Leicester Square Theatre. It’s an adaptation of the Donaldson/Scheffler classic “Stick Man“, which never fails to make me cry. It’s on from 7th November and is suitable for children of 3 plus, as long as they’re emotionally stronger than I am. Talking of which, don’t forget that “Railway Children” is still on at Kings Cross till 6th January.

Is that enough to keep you going until Advent? Good. Make yourself a hot chocolate and enjoy. (And then make the kids a hot chocolate too. And then clear up spilt hot chocolate. Then enjoy)

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