London With a Teenager

London Without a Toddler – Abbey Spa

Posted on January 26, 2016 by katese11

Yes, I know the post title and the picture above seem to contradict each other…but trust me, my spa “day” was toddler-free and in fact preschooler-free if we’re getting technical. The picture was taken by Nathan, at home with both kids while I relaxed in a jacuzzi in Barking. This is the life alright. I’ve visited the Abbey Leisure Centre in Barking before, to visit the Idol – that scary-but-arty monochrome monolith. That was most certainly with children, as Bunny’sMummy and I sat and drank coffee and tried to ignore the madness in front of us. Standard soft play procedure. Incidentally, I was looking for somewhere to hang out near Liverpool Street the other day and a popular days-with-kids kinda website told me I could visit the Idol at the Barbican, rather than in Barking. There is a small difference between the two, and it’s not just half an hour on the Hammersmith & City Line.

Ysee, Barking has a bit of an odd vibe. You’d more associate it with the BNP than a relaxing spa day. But as I mentioned on my last visit, the area is being regenerated, artists are moving there from Hackney and they have a brand new spa, which you can hire for two hours for just £250. If you can get a group of 20 together, as we did, that’s a bargainous £12.50 each for two hours of relaxing. There are treatments and things you can pay for on top but I didn’t go for any of those. I was pretty confident I could fill two hours with lying around and gossiping. After all, the last time I’d been to a spa I was pregnant with Roo and could barely dip my feet in the jacuzzi, let alone go in the sauna. So I was going to make full use of the facilities this time.

The gossiping bit was harder than I’d imagined. When the whirlpool is on, the water jets make a deafening noise. It reverberates around the tiled walls so casual chit chat is more like bellowing at each other. However, the jets are only on periodically, so it’s a bit more mellow in between times.

The pool is the centrepiece of the wet spa area. It’s quite big and deep – I could swim three or fourth strokes across it and we could fit nearly all of us in at once without too much awkward squashing up (believe me, I’ve had THAT hot tub experience before). In front of the pool there are showers and an ice fountain and water fountain. You’re served lemon and lime water in glasses as you walk through from the changing area but you can’t then take those glasses in. You also can’t take your own water bottles but you can pop out at any time to have a drink at the spa reception.

Either side of the pool are steam rooms – a salt inhalation room, a vapour room, a dry sauna and another one of those dark blue steamy places. Now, I forget how much of a spa visit is like an endurance test. There’s not actually that much that’s pleasurable about sitting in a sauna or a salt room, except the relief you feel when you get out. But it’s supposed to help you sweat out all your toxins and genuinely I did feel relaxed and cleansed at the end of it.

Outside the wet area there’s also a relaxation room. There, you can just flop on massive beanbags and beds and honestly, you may never get up again. It might seem crazy to pay money to just lie on a bed but paying money to lie on a bed out of earshot of our small children? Priceless.

Two hours did go pretty quickly, even without a treatment and I felt very floaty afterwards. I’d definitely recommend it for a budget way to relax, as long as you have 20 patient husbands who are happy to stay home and, in one case, vacuum out the car before we got in it. The spa provides a robe and towel for you to use when you’re there but it’s BYO footwear – in my case some white linen slippers that have been sitting in a Christmas gift set for years, waiting for their day to shine.

Apologies for the lack of pictures, but I’m sure you realise why. More information is here (official site) and plenty of lovely pictures to look at too!

Posted in Token attempts at exercise (leisure centres) | Tagged child-free, East London, spa | 2 Comments

City Adventures

Posted on January 19, 2016 by katese11

This may or may not be a clumsy attempt to fuse together two completely different days but hey, go with it. You’re used to clumsiness around here, right?

The first day was Friday and it was me and Eva strolling along London Wall in search of somewhere to eat. We’d been to a stay and play at All Hallows and considered walking down to the Museum of London, but then left her scooter outside Cards Galore and had to go back and the short version is….I abandoned that plan. I was just hungry and wanted somewhere for a quick lunch.

But it’s a depressing task on London Wall. It’s full of enticing-looking and -smelling eateries (Chilango! Vietnamese Street Food!) and none of them have anywhere to sit down in them. They’d all hollowed out their restaurants to maximise the queuing space, minimise the lingering space. Even Eva’s choice (McDonalds) has no seats upstairs and I was damned if I was going to settle for a lukewarm burger that I still couldn’t sit to eat. We ended up in Wasabi, which is always a bit disappointing, but it had the advantage of more abundant seating than Itsu. A 7-6 win if you will. And Eva liked the look of the shiny green chairs so I left her in one of them while I queued and hoped she would still be there when I got back. You’ll be glad to know she was. What happened to her hat was another tedious and annoying story.

So, over to you readers. Give me your best tips for eating places west of Liverpool Street where you don’t wait long, can sit down and buy something that a fussy 3 year old can eat (in this photo she’s eating popcorn from my rucksack). Toilets would be unspeakable luxury, but I have faith in you…you can do it. There may even be a prize for best suggestion. Maybe.

A more successful day out was had by Reuben and Nathan the next day. Eva was going to a party so they took the opportunity to have a boys’ adventure. Reuben recently studied the Great Fire of London at school and had lots of songs about the topic, so where better to go than Pudding Lane?

Apparently there wasn’t much to do in Pudding Lane, but the boys had another Great-Fire-related objective – to climb the Monument!

Only days before, Nathan had no idea that such a thing was possible. Roo suggested it and was mocked by his father for the very idea of trying to scale a solid stone tower. It was only when the internet and I agreed with Reuben that he conceded it might indeed be a possibility. You can ascend the Monument for the modest sum of £6 (Adults) and £2 (Kids)…and that includes a free certificate. So they did it – all 310 steps of it:

I was quite glad they’d left me and Eva at home – she starts whining if she has to climb the stairs to bath and it’s not quite my idea of fun either. But the views from the top were pretty:

And did I mention they got a free certificate? It didn’t exactly fill an entire day but it’s certainly better value than the Shard and my boys seemed have fun. I’m not sure that Roo had enough breath to sing “People are Panicking” all the way up the 310 steps like he’d hoped to, which is a great shame. And at least they didn’t have to find somewhere to eat in the City that was open on a Saturday…

Talking of which, get those suggestions in! I’ll start thinking of a prize…

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged Central London, eating out, history | Leave a comment

Oh My! Coffee Shop – 12/01/16

Posted on January 13, 2016 by katese11

I like to think that I am totally in tune with my readers. Like when it’s January and everyone is still pursuing their New Year’s diet, I write a post about Chingford’s Biggest Chocolate Brownie. But you know what else January is? It’s dark and rainy and miserable and sometimes you just need a big brownie in a cosy cafe. Which is why we ended up at Oh My! in Chingford yesterday. Reuben, Eva and I all had a touch of the January Blues and I’d long heard of this happy place in Chingford Mount that served cake and had toys to play with. Could this be the place we were looking for?:

It was, and you can see Reuben here making the informed decision to head towards the cake rather than towards the “No Cake”. There’s a boy who’s in no need of a January diet. No, really. There’s no fat at all on that boy and he pushes my Jewish Mother instinct into overdrive. Cake it was then.

We found a comfy squishy sofa and ordered some brownies and coffee. The kids went to play with the toys at the back along with a couple of others. I was shocked to turn round and see Reuben manhandling a much smaller child than him as the toddler tried to grab at the toys. So, naturally I told him to let go of him RIGHT NOW, at which point Reuben looked up from the toys he was quietly playing with in the corner. Turns out that a) there’s more than one child in Chingford with a dinosaur hat and b) the hat is the only way I can identify my first born. Parenting win.

Clearly, active parenting was not working out well for me, so I sat down and had my coffee instead. And, of course, a giant, giant chocolate orange brownie. I was halfway through before I remembered to take a photo, so I’m not sure this really sums up the scale of it:

But it was huge, glittery, warm and – as Reuben described it – “Double Triple Yum”. For those who aren’t mathmatically inclined, I make that 6xYum. Which is very yummy indeed. Apparently it was also gluten-free, so that’ s virtually virtuous, right?

As ever, we paid a visit or two to the toilets while we were there and I was happy to find reading material all over the walls, in the style of the Rabbit Hole. I was trying to work out what all the books were and think I saw some “Famous Five”, “101 Dalmatians” and something along the “Mallory Towers”/”St Claire’s” kinda line. Am I right?

We’d gone to the cafe after school and it closed at 5, so we didn’t have very long there (plus Eva was entering her inevitable 5pm meltdown) but it was a good way to shake off the winter blues for a little while. After all, as one of the table signs said “It is a good day to have a good day”. And what makes a kinda poor-to-average day a good one better than a giant brownie? Double. Triple. Yum.

Posted in Cake and the finest wines known to humanity (eating out) | Tagged cafe, cake, coffee, East London, North London, rainy day places, toys | Leave a comment

Ashes to Ashes, Funk to Funky

Posted on January 11, 2016 by katese11

It’s unusual for me to write about the death of a celebrity but I’m going to make an exception. Because today we didn’t just lose one celebrity, we lost several. The Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane, Ziggy Stardust…with Bowie, so they all go. We were mourning the loss of someone who didn’t just write and sing some songs – he changed the way a generation felt about itself. And the generation after that. And the one after that.

We were about 25 years too late for glamrock. Of course, we were aware of Bowie because of “Labyrinth” and because our favourite bands talked about him all the time, but we weren’t there in 1972. It wasn’t until the late 90s that I started to actually listen to his music, and it was the night before a school trip to Berlin (appropriately enough) that I heard “Life On Mars”. And then I couldn’t stop listening to that glorious swooping…when I had to leave for Germany and didn’t have it on a tape to listen to, I felt almost bereft. But then I got into a conversation on the coach about Bowie with two people who I would soon become best friends with. It’s an exaggeration to say his music brought us together but the shared love of him didn’t hurt.

That was 1998. Later that year, the film “Velvet Goldmine” came out, which presented a fictitious version of Bowie, known as Brian Slade/Maxwell Demon. We all went to the cinema in full glamrock attire and fell in love with the whole stardusty scene. The next year, we hosted a glamrock party, which turned out to be That One Party You Shouldn’t Have Thrown. There may still be parents in that Hampshire crescent who have never forgiven us for it, and I don’t blame them. When you’re walking away the next morning saying “The fire was the least of our worries”, you know there’s something wrong. But look how cool Nathan looked:

It so happened that our sixth-form college at the time was embracing of all the freak, creeps and glitterkids but even that was due to Bowie’s legacy. If he had never put his arm around Mick Ronson on Top of the Pops, would teenagers in the late 90s be happy to be openly bisexual at college? He paved the way for us to be whatever we wanted to be and to do it with style. If we could sparkle, he could land tonight.

I’m so far from alone in feeling his loss. His influence was everywhere – from the classic episode of “Flight of the Conchords” to his own appearance in “Extras”. My brother and I had a long-running argument about whether David Bowie did a prologue to “The Snowman” (he did) and “The Young Ones” taught me Bowie lyrics as soon as I could talk. Yet, he still seemed an enigma – something hard to define, and someone hard to fully understand. He truly seemed to be from another planet. Did he really just sing about “making love with his eagle”? (No) Or a “Leopard Messiah”? (No) Did he actually fall to Earth? (Possibly)

We’ll miss you Bowie, all of us. Even Eva seemed to be channelling a glamrock vibe this morning as she adorned herself with glitter and clasped her hands in prayer. And as for Roo, he visited the immortal Bowie phonebox when he was just three months old. Not that you can tell it’s him from this photo, but believe me it is.

Bowie was a man who was never afraid of a few Ch-ch-ch-changes and I’m sure he’s taking this latest one in his elegant stride. But the world will be more monochrome without him. To steal from Bunny’sMum: Goodbye Spaceboy.

Posted in Facts! And facts are important! | Tagged David Bowie, tribute | Leave a comment

Baby Regrets, 6 Years On

Posted on January 5, 2016 by katese11

This evening, because I know how to party really hard, I’ve been clearing through the inbox of the babyledweaning.com Facebook page, of which I am a mostly absent admin. I’ve been steadily ignoring the messages building up there for months but tonight, with Nathan out, chocolate on hand and a solid 2 hours of “Don’t Tell the Bride” on TV, I decided to tackle it. Sweep out the cobwebs for the New Year.

It’s hard going but rewarding. Hard going because every message from an insecure first-time mum (and it is always mums) send me right back to being that mum, weaning my baby for the first time and having no idea whether I was going to make or break him with this head of raw broccoli I’d dumped on his highchair tray. I learnt as I went along – eventually, I even started cooking the broccoli – and I have no regrets about doing BLW at all. He still eats broccoli, as it happens, and has even been known to exclaim “Yum, broccoli!” as I put it into the basket in Tesco. Shortly before pestering me for some kind of Marvel-branded firearm. Public parenting points are easy come, easy go.

But it got me thinking about so much more than weaning. I started thinking about that whole first year with Roo and the things I regret about it. Because it was never perfect – he was never perfect and I was not even in the same room as perfection – and there’s so much I regret.

I regret constantly comparing him to other babies. Worrying about his size and how small he was. I regret not using my common sense and telling myself that a baby born out of the blue at 37 weeks would clearly be smaller than one that had had five extra weeks of gestating. I regret going to the Health Visitor so often and weighing him, tying myself up in anxious knots whenever we sat in that waiting room.

I regret obsessing about the way he was feeding and snapping at Nathan every time he suggested giving him a bottle of formula. I regret never hitting on that negative correlation between stress and milk production and even though I knew in my head that I needed to relax, not being able to do so. I regret not invoking that 37-week-get-out-clause again, logicking to myself that his arrival had been a shock to both our systems and that’s probably why my body wasn’t quite ready to feed him yet. I regret not forgiving myself for those first few stressful days once we were home and feeding was actually going fine so I had no real need to obsess over it. Yup, I regret that.

I regret just not appreciating him more.

I regret all the hours I wasted trying to get him to settle on his own when he clearly just wanted to be with me. I regret letting myself be spooked by childless friends and cautious medical professionals, all telling me of the evils of co-sleeping when really, if I’d done it properly from the start it would have been perfectly safe. Definitely safer than being so damn tired that you fall asleep standing up with the baby, or on a sofa in the middle of the night.

But these regrets pass. You get to have a second child and correct the mistakes you made. The second child who arrives late, alert and ready to feed. The child who sticks to her 25th percentile even though you only weigh her once in a blue moon. The child who co-sleeps peacefully with you and lets you feel somewhere close to human again. The child who now strives to wreck all these precious baby memories by being a stroppy, melodramatic 3 year old who’ll only leave the house in a full length princess dress and a rucksack full of plastic tat.

Because once you’re through the baby phase, these great markers of parenting success – sleeping and feeding – start to fade. That baby boy is in Year 2 now and I don’t remember the last time his teacher asked me whether he sleeps through the night. (That’s a lie – I do remember it. It was a year ago when he told his teacher that he couldn’t do his literacy because “I didn’t sleep at all last night”. It was, sorry Mother, complete bollocks and his teacher recognised it as such)

Y’see they’re at school now and they have a million criteria to be measured against. They both have literacy targets (yes, even the 3-year-old) and numeracy targets and gross motor skills and reading challenges and songs to learn and stories to concoct and sports to show literally no talent at…the success matrix is now so dense and complicated that you just have to step back and concede that they’re generally OK, even if their dinner-eating skills are still “emerging” and their remembering-to-flush skills are “not yet mastered”. When yor child is just a tiny baby, all you have to measure them on is how well they sleep and how well they feed. If, like Roo, they’re not doing well on either measure, it’s easy to feel like you’ve failed.

True fact. I thought I’d failed parenting in the first 48 hours. But he still appears to be alive and he’s learnt to play X Box so, yknow, he’s thriving.

Not to say don’t be anxious about your child because that’s like trying not to think about elephants but just try and hold things lightly. Try not to have regrets. But if you do, be assured that they’ll seem a lot smaller in half a decade’s time.

Posted in Rants | Tagged baby, baby-led weaning, breastfeeding, parenting | 1 Comment

Dear Father Christmas – 23/12/15

Posted on December 23, 2015 by katese11

After some unseasonable warmth and some depressing drizzle, the weather has finally rallied and produced the kinda cold blue skies that you want just before Christmas. Well, not that cold. But blue! Perfect for offsetting the Oxford St Christmas lights:

We were in Soho to see a rather magical Christmas play at Soho Theatre but more on that later. First, a wander down Carnaby Street where there were, as ever, wonders to behold. Like these giant chocolate coins in the window of Liberty:

And London’s campest Christmas decorations:

Purple and sparkly! Which meant, naturally, that Eva and I both loved them. Reuben was more interested in the giant plug of Ganton Street:

All this was very sparkly window dressing to the main event – the morning show of “Dear Father Christmas“, an interactive Christmas play for 3-6 year olds. I have a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old so it seemed the perfect audience to try the show out on. It’s staged in the intimate space of Soho Upstairs and the kids sit on cushions on the floor:

As a wall of clocks showed the time all over the world, ticking towards 10:30 in Soho, an elf skipped around the room, chatting to the children and finding out what they wanted for Christmas. Another actor slumbered on the desk, despite Roo’s best efforts to wake him. We were in Santa’s postroom at the North Pole and Ella the Elf was our host for the next hour or so.

Now, my kids have certain expectations of theatre shows and one of the most important is audience participation. Luckily there was plenty of that. Reuben was the first to be called up to help, deftly extracting an advent calendar from under the hand of the sleeping man (Mr Tick-Tock, the clock-stopper). There was shouting, there was singing, there even was a ukelele as Ella and Mr Tick-Tock recruited the children to be elves and help to save Christmas. Us adults at the back had to be giants.

The story was simple – Santa was depressed because his polar bear friend had gone missing and the child-elves had to help any way they could. They started by sorting a pile of letters by colour into giant boxes around the room. Roo said that was his favourite bit and he was very fast at it. That was true – he was fast, but he may have grazed a few toddlers on his way. If that was your toddler, I do apologise.

Eva said she had two favourite bits – when Reuben went up to get the advent calendar and when the polar bear came back. Because yes, spoilers ahoy, the polar bear came back and there was a happy ending. I only tell you this because 45 minutes in, Eva was asking to go home because she was sad. Santa was unhappy, the elf was unhappy and Eva had what we might term “empathy overload”. As soon as the polar bear turned up though, all was fine with the world again.

Over-identifying aside, it was a jolly lovely show and a brilliant Christmas treat for my kids. It was pacey so they never got bored, the actors interacted well with the audience and the kids really felt involved. Reuben likes to feel involved. The songs were pretty, the changes of costume impressive and there was no chance to get restless – when they weren’t spotting polar bears, they were making paperchains or doing the SohoHoHoHoHoedown. The show is on for a limited period – it finishes on 2nd Jan – so if you’re in London over Christmas, I’d recommend getting down to Soho and catching a little of the North Pole magic.

Incidentally, Soho was nice and peaceful today, in a weird kind of pre-Christmas lull. We wandered about a bit afterwards and found this lovely owl-themed display in Accessorize, on the corner of Oxford Street and Soho Street:

If this sounds all far too idyllic then I’ll let you believe that it was. You don’t need to know about the disappointing visit to the shoe shop or the place Reuben insisted on going for lunch. But you do need to know that the Central Line is finally stopping at Tottenham Court Road again and we got to try out the new entrance:

This is a new mosaic, but fear not – the Eduardo Paolozzi ones are still down there on the way to the platforms. Roo, as ever, was overwhelmed with excitement:

I’ll leave it there, except to say a Very Merry Christmas to you all. See you in 2016!

Posted in Reviewing the Situation | Tagged Central London, Christmas, theatre, ukelele | Leave a comment

Sutton House’s Surreal Santa’s Grotto – 05/12/15

Posted on December 6, 2015 by katese11

I like to think my kids have a certain amount of balance in their lives. I’ll give you an example – here’s the lunch Eva and I had yesterday:

Vegan vegetable soup, hand-prepared by small children and cooked over a fire in a forest. Accompanied by freshly made bread, also prepared by children and also cooked over the fire. That was yesterday.

Today?

Happy Meals in Hackney.

There were various reasons why we were hanging out in Hackney but they’d be tedious to go into, so let’s just say we were meeting two of Eva’s godparents, Ellie and Wiley, for a McDonalds and a stately home.

Hold up, a stately home? In Hackney? I was surprised too. When I first found out about Sutton House a few days back, I assumed it was somewhere distant and leafy. Sutton, maybe. But no, it’s just opposite Homerton Hospital. How have I never noticed this place before?

This weekend they’re holding a Christmas event, billed as a Surreal Santa’s Grotto. Entry to the house is free for kids and a pound for adults and seeing Santa will cost you £3 per child. Pretty reasonable, really. Along the way there’s mulled wine, craft stalls and even some history.

We opted for the history bit first, given that Roo is totally into history at the moment. But turns out he’s only interested in the period around 1666, specifically in the area around Pudding Lane. He has a song about it. So we went into the Tudor cellar and Roo expressed some concerns about the floor crumbling because it was so old. We went back upstairs again. There we met some lovely ladies with some musical instruments and a puppet called Mr Otter. He was a friendly and inquisitive otter…some might say over-friendly (“Touch my fur!”). The entertainers were there to promote a production of the Snow Queen they’re doing in the house from 19th-23rd Dec. It’s an interactive theatre piece and sounds like a lot of fun.

Having stroked Mr Otter at his command, we went in search of Santa and found him in the double decker caravan in the garden. How does a double decker caravan work? Well, that’s a good question:

Just like that. We needed to register the kids in order to go into the grotto, so we followed Betty the Elf to the cinema room where we put them on the list and spent the few minutes’ waiting time slumped on giant cushions, watching Frozen.

It was going to be hard to move them out of there but Santa’s quite a big incentive. Their names were called and we were off to the surreal grotto…

It was pretty ornate as caravans go. I especially liked the fireplace:

Santa chatted to them for a bit and was asked some awkward questions (“If you know where I live, why don’t you tell me now”) but luckily not by my kids. They each got a present and then it was out to play in the nearby play bus

Where we all got a chance to be the driver:

There was also giant Connect 4 in the bus and some other play equipment. Outside, there was a pile of tyres filled with sand that you could lose an Eva in:

Can you see her? Can ya?

At this point, we were feeling slightly chilly so it was appropriate that Frozen was the only thing that would get the kids back inside. They watched happily with a cup of popcorn until Eva got kicked in the eye by a toddler. So then we went upstairs, to the story tent where a book played a spooky rendition of “Jingle Bells” on repeat. It really gave the room an authentic Gothic Horror feel, especially as there were some flowy white dresses for Eva to try on:

I think they looked better on Ellie, just because she really, really suited the Victorian Maid look:

We also nipped up to the attic, which had housed squatters in the 1980s. They’d decided to preserve the squat, which was a touch surreal in the middle of a historical house. It’s not your typical National Trust property:

But then lest we forget, we were still in Hackney and not in the middle of the countryside somewhere. Look, honestly, it’a London out there.

It was 4 o clock and the kids were getting weary so we started to head home, skimming the craft stalls as we did. But what a quirky gem to find a few minutes’ walk from Hackney Central! The Christmas Fair is on again tomorrow (Sunday 6th) so go and see Santa while you can but if not, go and visit another time. It’s a bizarre place but lots of fun.

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged Christmas, cinema, East London, history, rainy day places | 1 Comment

Christmas Family Theatre Preview

Posted on November 19, 2015 by katese11

I went to Costa today and I swear to you, it was Christmas in there. They had a Christmas tree, Eva was eating gingerbread Santas and I sang along to “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. So don’t tell me it’s November.

In that spirit, I’d like to let you know about some lovely festive shows that are on in London over the next few weeks. And one slightly disturbing festive show. Yes, the good folks of “Funz and Gamez” have been allowed back into Soho and near children, despite the anarchy of last year’s show. If you enjoy wild games shows with depressed Uncles belching at your kids, you’ll love this. It’s on at the Soho Theatre from Sat 19 – Wed 23 Dec at 2pm & 4pm. Tickets and more information here.

Also on at the Soho Theatre is the very Christmassy “Dear Father Christmas” which sees Santa trying to sort out muddled presents, find a polar bear and save Christmas! It’s only on for a limited period – 22nd Dec to 2nd Jan – so book your tickets quickly! It’s suitable for 3-6 year olds and you can find out more here.

Another big hitter for the 3 year old market is that queen of preschool TV…Peppa Pig! She’s back in the West End this Christmas, with “Peppa Pig’s Surprise” opening at the Duke of York’s Theatre from 18th Dec – 17th Jan. This production has all-new, life size puppets…have a wee look here:

Eva was thrilled by the show last year and was still talking about it months later so it’s well worth it. She was 2 and a half at the time and definitely old enough to appreciate it. Catchy songs too…

For the older kids, there are some fab options too. “The Railway Children“, which I watched and sobbed through in the summer, has extended its run to 10th April. With a real steam train and a script that sticks faithfully to the book, it’s a classic and entertaining tale. Bring tissues.

Also good for older kids is the stage production of “Elf“, the beloved Will Ferrell Christmas film that brought “cotton-headed ninnymoggins” into our everyday venacular. It’s opened at the Dominion Theatre already and runs till 2nd Jan. The age rating is 4+ but with a run time of 2.5 hours, I’d probably be wary of taking a young 4 year old. Of course, the Christmas magic may well keep them quiet and entertained!

Not strictly a Christmas show but intriguing nonetheless is “Snow White and the Seven Superheroes” which is on at the Millfield Theatre, Enfield from 7th-17th January. If there was ever a show that catered for my princess obsessed girl and my superhero obsessed boy, this’d be it, right? I know almost nothing about it so am hoping it’s not an “adult” show (Snow White does seem a bit skimpily dressed on the poster). I’ll report back.

While we’re on the subject of adult humour, let’s not forget that classic Christmas tradition – the panto. There are loads all over London, but I’m going to feature Hackney Empire’s “Jack and the Beanstalk“. Not just because it’s reputed to be one of London’s best pantos but also because it stars Clive Rowe, patron of the Walthamstow Acoustic Massive. I backing sang for him over the summer, so we’re practically bandmates dontcha know? True story – the evidence is here. There’s also evidence of my ridiculous singing face, so enjoy that.

Finally, there’s lovely whimsical-sounding fun at the Unicorn Theatre, who are putting on two kids’ shows this Christmas – “The Snow Child” and “Once Upon a Christmas”. Both are suitable for around the 3-year-old market so I may attempt to take Eva to one. I’ve never yet made it to the Unicorn but have heard great things about their interactive shows and “Once Upon a Christmas” promises to be another treat.

Is that enough Christmas theatre for you yet? If not, fear not…I’ll be updating this as I hear of more. But start booking now…these will sell out fast!

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged Central London, Christmas, theatre | Leave a comment

Family Travel Show – 31/10/15

Posted on October 31, 2015 by katese11

This afternoon I experienced a little bit of deja-vu. Sitting on a bus on Kensington High Street, wrangling some giant balloon creations….weren’t we doing this last week? Why, yes we were but the run up was very different. Last week, we were considering yoghurt makers. This week, it’s holidays. We were scoping out the Family Travel Show at the Olympia Conference Centre.

Travel is all about discovery and adventure. And the first thing we discovered were the Green Park station toilets. We didn’t actually use them but I was pleased to find out where they were, after many failed attempts. As you come through the ticket barriers there’s a corridor directly opposite you that leads there but it’s hard to spot with all the people exiting left and right in front of you. Press on through the crowd and you’ll find the sign. You’re welcome.

If your ambitions stretch slightly further than a Piccadilly pee, then you’ll find lots of inspiration at the Family Travel Show. The first stall we came to was hosted by Carnival Holidays, who run fab, child-friendly cruises in the Med, the Caribbean and around America. They had a whole heap of inflatables for the kids to play with, including some palm trees and they took some Polaroids of us to take away:

They have a bit of a Dr Seuss theme to their ships and so had a guy dressed as the Cat in the Hat to entertain the children. Pity Reuben shouted “You’re not the Cat in the Hat” at him, repeatedly. Once again, Cat, I apologise.

The next people we chatted to – after leaving our things in the free cloakroom – were from the whimsical world of Efteling, a fairy tale theme park in the Netherlands. It was described as “more Hans Christian Anderson than Disney” but I was assured it wasn’t the ultra-dark side of HCA. More the talking trees, flying pots and pans side. Two stalls, two holidays I wanted to go on. Oh dear, am I a chronically easy sell?

Probably yes, because I fell in love with the next holiday option too – Martinhal Resorts in the Algarve. We went to the presentation in the theatre later on and learnt about all the things you could do there – the beaches, the kids’ clubs, the watersports – and gosh darn, I wanted to go. The villas looked amazing and they even offer a babysitting service so you can go out child-free in the evening. Tempting, huh?

Talking of child-free time, there was a complementary creche at the show, courtesy of Esprit Ski so we dumped the kids there for 2 hours and went off to explore on our own. First up was that Martinhal and then we wandered around and talked to some more companies, including luxury family travel operator Tots Too and the intriguing sightseeing/volunteering facilitators Hands Ups Holidays. And also Dogs Trust, who sympathised with me about the death of my sponsordog Spike a decade ago. I was touched but to be honest, I got over it at the time. I didn’t sign up to sponsor another one though.

What I did sign up to was buying some fudge. Yum Yum Tree Fudge were giving out free samples and while I can’t tell you what tree fudge is, I can tell you it was indeed Yum Yum. We deliberated for a long time before choosing a bag of peaches and cream. It was amazing.

Just time for another talk before picking the kids up out of their club. This was all about the beautiful country of Sri Lanka. I learnt a lot and it certainly looks like an amazing destination but, given that we’ve yet to leave Britain with both kids, it seems a tad ambitious for us. It’s still devloping as a tourist destination so I’m not sure it would have the chicken nuggets and CBeebies that my children seem to require. One day, maybe…

We picked the kids up and told them we’d spotted a balloon modeller back at the Martinhall stand. They obviously hadn’t had enough of balloon modelling last week as they stood in quiet awe and watched a speedy Mexican fashioning cars, superheroes and flowers out of balloons.

So fast his hands are a blur! I’m not even exaggerating! When it came to Roo’s turn, he requested a magni-pack to go on his back. I had no idea what that was, but the guy seemed to interpret pretty well, and produced not only a backpack with magnets on but also a sword and a shield. Reuben was very happy. Here, he’s striking a hero pose:

Eva requested something she’d seen on someone else – a fishing backpack with dangling fish in front of her face. While she was getting that made, Roo and I went off to do the reactions test at the Super Skills Experience stand. He made it onto the Top Gear-style leaderboard, on the basis that everyone made it onto the leaderboard. I think he was joint bottom with a girl called Sophie…co-ordination really doesn’t run in our family. We also tried out the slackline at the Family Adventure Holiday stall and he did try it across with only the two adults supporting his entire body weight and keeping him balanced. See that lack of co-ordination thing again.

A favourite spot over the day had been the National Geographic Explorer’s Corner. They had a dressing up box there, where Eva had unearthed a full Ariel costume, and an underwater tent to play in:

She later added a few more flower garlands, a swim ring and an inflatable fish to that outfit, as well as her fishing rod balloon. Then ran off giggling. Roo, meanwhile, was enjoying the photo frame and his new balloon-arsenal:

Roo passed up the chance to get his face painted for free, but Eva was convinced by the promise of something flowery:

I *think* this was courtesy of Wanderlust Magazine but I might be wrong. Either way, check out how very adorable she was once it was finished:

It was time to take this whole circus home. I panicked a little as I couldn’t find our cloakroom tickets but when we got back to the cloakroom, the lady had them at the desk for us. Apparently I’d dropped them a few moments after she’d given them to us and a cleaner had handed them back in. Doh!

We had all our stuff back and, with all the brochures and freebies we’d got during the day (pens! bags! sweeties!), it was an awful lot of stuff. Both kids insisted on wearing their balloon creations all the way home:

Easier than it sounds when that involves a bus, two tubes and a train. And they were big creations. I’m happy to say we got back with them mostly intact though, just in time to finish this post the same way as yesterday’s post – with a sunset at Walthamstow Central. Awww…

Disclaimer: I received free tickets to the Family Travel Show for review purposes. All opinions remain honest and my own.

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged holidays, summer holidays, travel, West London | Leave a comment