London With a Teenager

Easter Holidays 2014

Posted on April 7, 2014 by katese11

It’s the Easter holidays! This probably means more to you than it does to me..after all, Reuben has been off school pretty much since the last holiday (new school place coming soon…). But for those of you with actually schooled children, you may want to know how you can fill the next two weeks.

First off, exciting news from the Dish and the Spoon. They’re running a holiday club! On April 17th Becky of Nimble Arts will be hosting a half-day of craft, music and fun where you can drop your 3.5-6-year-old off for 3.5 hours! The session is £25 per child and it’s from 9:30-1:00, and includes lunch. Have a look here for more details. Talking of LWAT faves. there is another Big Fish Little Fish party in Brixton on April 12th but this time at Jamm on Brixton Rd (where Nathan and I once saw Mark Morriss of The Bluetones). The theme is “Dream a Little Dream” so bring your PJs! As with all BFLF events, it runs from 2-4:30

More South-East London excitement in Greenwich, with the Greenwich Children’s Theatre Festival. It started last Tuesday and runs until Sat 19th April, with shows for children of all ages. Reuben and I will be popping down on Thursday to review one of the shows, so more details to come soon.

if you live around Islington, I happen to know there’s an Easter Egg Hunt at Cross St Baptist Church on Good Friday. I may well be there with the kids so be warned – we are competitive, and Eva can sniff out chocolate like a bloodhound.

Of course, there’s a lot going on at the big museums too with daily kids’ activities at the Horniman, as well as their Easter Fair on the 18th and 19th April, complete with bunnies and a craft market. The William Morris Gallery is hosting a craft day for families on 10th April, with tile-making for the under 5s and the British Museum have a week dedicated to Vikings, with drop-in family fun in the Great Court. The Science Museum and Natural History Museum are always favourites over the holidays, but be aware they get super-busy so get there early to avoid queues and bring your own food (there are picnic areas in both)

In the very unlikely scenario that we get some spring-like weather, there is also some exciting new park action, with more bits of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park just opening, as well as the new pirate ship in Jubilee Park Leyton that we still haven’t got to. We’re hoping to go next week, but may involve some co-operation from the Great British Spring…

But for rainy days at home, you might want to consider investing in a game or two. I’ve come across “Bunny Jump” from University Games, which sounds like fun – Reuben loves “Frogs Frenzy”, where he can hammer levers to his heart’s content, and Eva likes to say “rabbit” a lot so I suspect they’d both enjoy this fast-paced game, where you have to try and catch the bunny as he leaps from his burrow. Available on April 24th!

As with all the holiday posts, I’ll be updating this as I find out about more things going on, so if you’re running a child-friendly event in London this Easter, drop me a line and I’ll include it in the guide!

Posted in Facts! And facts are important! | Tagged easter, holidays, museums, parks | Leave a comment

Sensing Spaces – 02/04/14

Posted on April 3, 2014 by katese11

I’m a little late to the party on this one, and I hate being late to parties (unless it’s the kind of party that takes a while to get going….you don’t want to be making awkward conversation right at the start). I blame the move, but fact is this exhibition has been on since January and every toddler and his wife has been already. It closes on April 6th, so this post will almost certainly be irrelevant as soon as I’ve written it. But there are some pretty pictures and some tips on where not to buy a sandwich. That alone makes it worth a read, right?

The exhibition in question is “Sensing Spaces” at the Royal Academy, and it’s all about the feel of architectural spaces. I don’t understand art so I never quite know what does and doesn’t count as art. Apparently a load of plastic straws does. Either way, I’ve heard enthusiastic reports about the touchy-feely nature of it, which has scored quite a hit with toddlers and I felt the urge to take my own toddler and boy there to road test it.

Our day began somewhere fairly uninteresting, but let’s pick it up at the point where we’re leaving Green Park tube in the glorious spring sunshine:

For anyone planning on doing the same thing with a buggy, don’t follow the signs to the Royal Academy as that involves steps. Instead, you can get the ramp out into the park itself, and follow the path up to the road without a single step from train to street. Getting off the Victoria Line is far easier than the Jubilee, and you don’t feel like you’ve completed a 100km Challenge by the time you hit daylight. The only problem here is getting across Piccadilly itself – it’s a crazily busy road that has traffic lights for the vehicles but no pedestrian crossings. So you pretty much have to just wait for the cars to have a red and run. Then wait patiently to cross tiny Berkeley St, which does have a red man. Curses on you, Westminster traffic planners.

But it was worth it for a wander down one of London’s best window-shopping streets – ridiculously expensive jewellery, piles of macaroons, wealthy people brunching – you can see it all on Piccadilly. And the Royal Academy is quite picturesque too:

We were meeting Maria and Niamh there, and Maria remarked that it had a certain Kievian feel about it – all grand plazas and columns. But it’s OK – there were some authentically London-y pigeons about the place so you knew where you were. And so we went to buy our tickets. A word of warning – I hadn’t really registered that you had to pay for this, but that’s probably because I don’t go to art exhibitions very often. It’s £14 for an adult (or more if you Gift Aid), which is on the steep side if you’re not expecting it. But under-12s are free, so mentally divide that ticket price between the total number of people you’re taking in with you. Was it worth it? Possibly not that much, but it was definitely a fun exhibition and very unusual. Plus, we’d been to the Lego event for free, so I didn’t mind paying. As a side note, the lift was out of order so we took the stairs but the staff did offer to take us round to the other lift. There are quite a few steps to get up to the exhibit space, and a cheeky boy hidden behind a pillar:

I didn’t know quite how to explain to Reuben what we were going to, so I didn’t try. We just wandered through the dark room and the bright room, before he found the first prize of the day – the hidden stairs:

“What stairs?” I hear you ask. Well, take a look at the legs of that giant table above – each one is a spiral staircase, which brings you out on top of the structure. You’re close to the gold-leafed ceiling and there are special peep holes to look through to see features of the architecture. Our favourite was a gold angel who appeared to be holding a duck:

And here’s Reuben, staying still long enough for me to photograph him:

That didn’t happen very often. At the back of the viewing platform, there are ramps going back down to the floor and Roo discovered these pretty quickly. By the time I’d gone up the stairs with ToddlaGirl Roo was missing….but I could hear him. A faint sound of “wheeeeee!” as he ran back down the ramps. So we followed and got back down, only to hear him running around the top again. I think he was overexcited. I called for him to stop, and finally pinned him down at the top, where we had enough time to look at the duck-angel, just about. As you’ll see a few times, this exhibition really treads a fine line between art and playground and I felt sorry for anyone who was trying to enjoy the aesthetics in quiet contemplation. Reuben rarely does quiet and he does contemplation even more rarely. But running down ramps is one thing he’s good at.

The next room tipped right over into the playground side. It was a plastic tunnel with plastic straws sticking out of it. I don’t get how it’s art. But then, I don’t get art. What is was was lots of fun – the three kids grabbed straws and played for 30 minutes or so in and around the tunnel. They twisted the straws, stuck them into the holes in the tunnel, waved them around and relaxed on the straw-seats:

Eva pointed at them and said “bubble-wrap” (can you tell she’s moved house recently?) but they really were just made up of lots more straws, compressed into a honeycomb pattern like the tunnel itself. Surprisingly comfortable to sit on but bubble wrap would be more comfortable. I did some creating too, producing a quite lovely straw-necklace. I’m paranoid that Maris is going to steal my idea for her jewellery business, so do keep an eye on mariamadeit.com in case this appears:

Meanwhile, Maria herself was ace-ing the straw weaving, taking tips from the man who was seemingly employed to make lanterns out of drinking straws all day. It wasn’t a patch on my beautiful necklace, but I was grudgingly impressed:

And here’s the one that the man made for Reuben, purloined by Eva:

Meanwhile, someone else had done my work for me by weaving “Kate” into the tunnel:

The full sentence said “Andy 4 Kate” but seeing as Andy is either my brother-in-law or Eva’s godfather, let’s skim over those strange implications. I just enjoyed the fact that a fellow Kate had tagged the tunnel already.

The next room was almost as enticing to our small people. A maze of logs with a stony sensory area at the end, it was custom-designed for losing track of your child. For once I was glad that Reuben was so noisy, as it helped me keep a track on where he was. I was also glad that he was wearing a neon yellow t-shirt. His reason for racing ahead was apparently that he was being our tour guide but I seriously doubt his credentials. Still, he guided us to the place where you could jump on stones:

Eva and Niamh’s favourite bit was a little wooden feature where they could climb up some steps, disappear behind a panel and then re-emerge the other side. They loved doing that, running around in circles and giggling and would have done that all day if Reuben hadn’t ushered them on. He was taking his role of tour guide very seriously. Next stop was a film room, where a Japanese man was talking about void space. Niamh kept saying “dark” (it was quite dark), and Eva kept thinking her friend was talking about ducks, so said “duck! quack!” every time Niamh commented on the ambient lighting. The result was a lot of toddler giggling and a fairly swift exit from the film room, with the toddlers still saying “dark!” “duck!” “dark!” “duck!” between them. Ah, toddler humour…

We were all getting thirsty by this point, so went outside to visit the coffee stand in the courtyard. Things seemed a little confused there – we established they only took cash, but the person serving seemed to have to check before answering. Then they forgot Niamh’s cookie and there was general mayhem. Eventually we got what we ordered and perched on seats that were designed for artistic merit rather than comfort…even so, it was very pleasant out there, in the almost-sunshine.

Taking advantage of the near-warm conditions, we decided to go for a picnic in Green Park, stopping at M&S Simply Food on the way. This may have been a mistake. The “To Go” food was down a long and twisty staircase – not easy when you have a (now-sleeping) toddler in a buggy. Luckily Maria could watch her while me and Roo nipped down to get sandwiches, but my retail instincts tell me this is an unnatural layout. The tills also had a queuing barrier that made it almost impossible to navigate a buggy round, especially when another person with a buggy tried to get past. It was a bit embarrassing, especially as the cashier didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get my food through – we stalled for a long time on the “paying for a bag” bit of the process. It was a small space, packed with impatient Mayfair businessmen and a foolish place to attempt with children. So, I wouldn’t recommend it. A picnic in the park, followed by a play in St James’ however….just the ticket. And the exhibition was pretty ace too. You only have a few days left – go go go!

More details here (official site)

Posted in Token attempts at culture (museums) | Tagged art, Central London, parks | 2 Comments

Greenwich and Charlton – 29/03/14

Posted on March 30, 2014 by katese11

Yesterday, I decided it was Family Time. We’ve had weeks of house-moving stress, packing, unpacking, trying to get things done with the kids under our feet and of course 10 days of chickenpox isolation thrown into the mix. Added all together, the last time we went out as a family (not including church) was our trip to the Imagine Festival. It had been a long time, and with Nathan leaving earlier and coming home later during the week, Eva had basically forgotten who he was and has taking to screeching every time he picks her up. It was time to bond over some spicy chicken and balloons.

The second part was sorted – we had R’s birthday in Charlton later in the afternoon, so there’d be balloons there (many of which suffered a terrible fate at the feet of Reuben….but let’s not dwell on that). The first part was more complex. My rough plan was that we’d take the A12 down to the South-East and stop somewhere along the way for lunch and a play. Jubilee Park in Leyton was my first thought – a new pirate ship has opened there, which has as yet been uninvestigated by my tiny pirates. But then I considered lunch, and the essence of peri-peri floated across my mind. It causes a weird state of mind – peripsychosis, if you will. Once you’ve started picking your sides, it’s hard to consider any other lunch options.

So where’s the nearest Nandos to Jubilee Park? Westfield. Well, that sounded like an added complication and would involve parking at Westfield on a Saturday. As I considered other options on Google Street View, it kept throwing me back to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, near – you guessed it – Westfield. And I really mean kept doing it. Sometimes I wasn’t anywhere near Stratford and yet still, the map would resolve itself and ta-da, I’d be back in the Olympic Park. One time, I swear I was looking at Ruislip. OK, that was a lie. But it was a bit spooky, how the map sent me back there again and again, as if there was no viable play-and-Nandos option near the A12 that didn’t involve parking tolls and ambiguous SatNav codes. It was beginning to look like a sign from Googd. Maybe it was time to revisit Westfield.

I’d been trying to do that for a while, but it seems like I have something of a Westfield curse. We wanted to go there over half term but then chicken pox struck. Scuppered! The time before, we’d planned to go to a Gruffalo event there in December but Eva was spectacularly sick everywhere the night before. Scuppered! (Although it did neatly coincide with my sicks thousandeth post on a certain forum. That was the only thing that was neat about that night). Maybe this time, I’d be lucky. Maybe this time they’d stay healthy. It was worth a try. So, as we stepped out of the door I made a snap decision. Set the SatNav for Westfield! What, the SatNav’s too old to recognise that postcode? OK, use a completely different one that apparently will work too (E15 2EE if anyone needs it). We would eat Nandos, and forsake the pirate ship for the joys of the Tumbling Bay playground. All the odds were in my favour.

Of course the odds weren’t in my favour. This was trying to drive to Westfield on a Saturday, just like every other unimaginative person in East London was trying to do. As we sat in a queue to turn off, wasting the beautiful day on a slip road, I made another snap decision. Sod Stratford, we would head straight to Greenwich and find peri-joy there. I swung out, floored the accelerator and reset that SatNav for an SE3-postcode that I’d basically just made up. I knew there was a Nandos in the desolate Millenium Village, just off the A102 in the same complex where we’d once seen “The Darjeeling Limited”, one of Wes Anderson’s weaker films. I remembered the complex as being deserted and very easy to find. Turns out it was neither. But a few 3-point turns in front of angry Greenwichians later, and some circling to find a parking space and we were in the glorious surrounds of….B&Q!

Well, of course we went to B&Q. We’ve just moved into a new house and have painting to do. It was too good an opportunity to miss, even on a sunny day. And Reuben found the whole “bathroom in a shop” concept very funny indeed. But paint and polyfilla bought, we finally got our Nandos. In the sunshine. With a dual carriageway in the background, and mango frozen yoghurt. An odd kind of bliss:

The kids were happier than they look in the photo, honest. They are really getting into Nandos, especially the refillable frozen yoghurt. And I may have skimmed the top of theirs a little too. Don’t tell the big chicken. Once we we’d topped up our peri-o-meters, it was time to find somewhere to play so we drove up to where R’s party was going to be, and Google Maps (them again) told us to head for a park called Hornfair Park.

It’s not just a park, it’s a multi-sports hub. Why is everything some kind of hub nowadays? I remember the days when nothing was a hub. Anyway, this park was home to Charlton Lido, which looked exciting, a tennis hub and a playground. Reuben was keen to find the last part, so skipped off through the ornamental gardens:

Eva by this point was on Nathan’s shoulders, having asked to “doddle” and then having given up on doddling after a few minutes but refusing to go in the buggy. Hopefully this meant she was learning to trust Daddy again.

It also meant that she could see the brightly-coloured playground equipment sticking out form behind the trees, as could Nathan and I. Reuben couldn’t because he’s a little too small and so was convinced we were just making this up. Cue much pouting and sighing about how we’d never find a playground, which couldn’t be countered with logic, no matter how often we told him that we could see it right there. Eventually he spotted it too and tried to break through the trees to get there, but was thwarted by a fence. We later discovered that this fence surrounded a paddling pool hub:

It being March, the paddling pool hub wasn’t full yet but just beyond it was the playground hub. At this point my phone did something crazy and slipped into monochrome mode, making our playground trip into something out of a French film. Observe how the children are beautiful, yet full of ennui!

Observe also, how this intrepid toddler keeps climbing over things that are clearly too big for her:

But at least she was bonding with her Daddy again. Because Daddy is the best at rescuing small, stuck girls.

Do you feel slightly melancholy after seeing these photos? Like you’re pondering the futility of life?

You may climb, Reuben, but what is life without colour? Fear not, because the phone is about to inexplicably switch back into technicolour mode again. It may hurt your eyes:

There we go, just in time to see Eva kneeing Nathan in the stomach, with his accompanying look of ~~pain~~ bonding joy. That same swing was used by Reuben for his pterosaur impression, complete with cawing and a song about how “I am the biggest flying thing ev—-errrrr—-but I am not a bird, I am a din-o-saur”. We have a lot of these kind of songs at the moment. but even pterosaurs have parties to go to, so we had to go…there were balloons to pop and houmous to eat with spoons.I’d like to come back to the paddling pool some day. And maybe Westfield on the way. Or maybe not…

Posted in Cake and the finest wines known to humanity (eating out), Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged East London, eating out, paddling pools, parks, South London | Leave a comment

How to Decorate Kids’ Bedrooms

Posted on March 28, 2014 by katese11

(In collaboration with Slap-up Media)

As some of you might have noticed, the LWAT family has been moving house. We’re settling in nicely (although resisting the urge to laugh when people ask if we’re all unpacked – I don’t think we ever entirely unpacked the last time we moved. And this time we have kids) and soon we’re going to be thinking about how to customise Reuben’s room with that Octonauts-riding-a-dinosaur mural he’s requested. For those of you with less specifically-minded kids, Bedstar has a few ideas on how to make your kids’ rooms a bit special. This post is provided by Olivia Prat.

How time flies – your little ray of sunshine has now reached the age where he or she is old enough to sleep in his or her own full sized bed – this is great news for you as a parent and for their independence, but there’ll be plenty to sort out as well – including decorating your child’s bedroom.

If you’re on the lookout for a new bed for your child, it’s important to consider the practicalities, including the mattress itself. The comfort and support of a mattress isn’t just a factor for older audiences; you’ll want to make sure that your child sleeps through the night, so visit the bedstar page for guidance on what’s best for your toddler.

Next on the list is the look of your child’s bedroom, and you may want to start with the bed first to work as a centrepiece on which to base the rest of the room. Don’t forget, children can be fickle, so rather than plastering the room floor to ceiling in Manchester United paraphernalia, try a longer-lasting theme with a base set of colours in mind.

Outer space is a great place to start with this – limitless and open to imagination, the space theme can be appropriate for toddlers right through to teenagers, and will encourage them to be creative and learn more about the world around them. Alternatively, if your child is more ‘down to earth’, consider a nature theme, which will last through the ages and get them talking about plants and animals.

Think back to when you didn’t know the sex of your baby – everybody would tell you to buy yellow clothes, and there’s a reason why. Cheerful and neutral, yellow covers all bases in terms of ages and gender, so this is a reliable colour that won’t leave you reaching into your pocket to redecorate in another six months’ time.

Alternatively, you could try colour blocking – stripes are very on trend at the moment and are a good compromise for fussy children. Try not to go too garish; mix a bold colour with a more neutral tone like off-white to give a good balance of excitement and calm.

Ultimately, redecorating your child’s bedroom is all about balance – don’t overdo it on the bold colours, but don’t make it too dull either. A well-designed child’s bedroom will excite their imagination while maintaining a calm enough space to help them sleep at night. Happy decorating!

Posted in Facts! And facts are important! | Tagged home, toddlers | 1 Comment

Fun in the Forest – 18/03/14

Posted on March 20, 2014 by katese11

Warning: this post may contain more countryside than you’ve ever experienced on this blog before. Get used to it. This, my friends, is life in Zone 4.

But don’t worry – it’s the kind of countryside I can handle. It’s a few minutes’ walk from a station (Chingford in this case) and it has a cafe that sells red velvet cake. It’s not quite “The Wicker Man” yet. But you’d be forgiven for having that creeping sense of dread when you leave Chingford behind and see miles of nothingness ahead. Is that an effigy of me fashioned from some kind of basket weaving material? No, it’s just a tree. I get confused, as does my urban-raised boy. “What’s in the forest?” he asked, as we left civilization…possibly for the last time. I replied that there may be a swing. “And a slide?” he chirped up. Probably not, no. “Will there be dinosaurs?” Well yes, if you pretend there are. “I will find the dinosaurs and use a diplodocus as a slide!” Well, there probably won’t be any actual dinosaurs there. Or slides, and certainly not dinosaurs who function as slides. It’s just a forest. A pause and then….”I hope there’s a bench there.”

Remember my #1 parenting technique….keep their expectations low. I told him there may or may not be a bench…we’d have to see. That built up the suspense a little. But as we walked up the hill, using muscles we’d never encountered in Kennington, he muttered about how boring it was in the forest. Well, right now we’re not in the forest Reuben, we’re on a main road. But I get that you don’t have much experience with the wilderness, hence the confusion. My poor inner-city kids – proficient with an oyster card, but helpless in the face of an unmade path. And the buggy is even more helpless in the face of an unmade path, but we’ll get to that.

It really was a few short minutes to the place where we were meeting other folks…but whiney 4-year-old minutes go on forever. Eventually we got to the top of the hill, where there was a huge “Fayre and Square” pub (I do have a weakness for cheapo pub grub!), next to Elizabeth I’s hunting lodge, built in 1543. A strange juxtaposition, and one I struggled to explain to Roo as he didn’t really get how long ago the Tudor period was. Not as long as the Jurassic Era, no. It’s all about the dinosaurs at the moment, in case you can’t tell. I blame that Andy guy.

We passed the pub and the hunting lodge and found Butler’s Retreat – a charming little cafe with a lovely cake selection. But we were here to embrace the great outdoors, not to eat cake so Roo put on his waterproof trousers, we met the group of parents we were looking for, and headed down towards the lake and the hollow tree. The knackered buggy protested slightly at the rocky path, but as usual I’d packed far too much to just put Eva in the sling. I think maybe we’ll drive next time – there is a car park just opposite Butler’s.

I was worried that Reuben would get bored quickly but no, he loved it. There were lots of other children there and together they turned the hollow tree into all manner of shops and cafes. Eva was asleep, which seems to be a running theme this week, but that meant I could follow Roo round and rescue him when he got his wellies stuck in the mud. Or more accurately, I could ask other, more appropriately dressed, people to rescue him. I don’t even own wellies, despite just having lived through the wettest winter in the history of man or dinosaur. I did have some, but there were more hole than welly, and got chucked during the move. Luckily, others were more prepared, and they hauled him out. Several times over.

He enjoyed mud-paddling, and pond dipping….but mostly he loved the hollow tree. He ate his snack in there, and was disappointed that he’d had lunch at home so he couldn ‘t have lunch in there too:

Of course, once Eva woke up she wanted a piece of all of this action….tree climbing, mud-paddling…all of it. So, I stuck her in a tree and she seemed happy:

And then she went into the lake up to her knees, and got her wellies flooded with cold water. She was less happy. I think I need to get me some of those waders…to dry off, we went to find the tyre swing, which Reuben had a lot of fun with, both swinging on it himself and pushing the other boys. Whether the other boys had fun is up for debate.

At some point – I forget when – Reuben made one of his game-changing announcements, that saw us beat a hasty Butler’s Retreat back to the cafe. Luckily, it coincided with a huge rainstorm, which had passed by the time we were done with the business in hand (not a quick manoevure when a boy is in waterproof trousers). Stepping back out with our red velvet cake in hand, it was gloriously sunny again. Not warm. But sunny. And we had cake, which Roo insisted on eating in his tree…obviously.

We didn’t stay too much longer, with the wet-socked girl and the tired ~~Mummy~~ boy but we’ll go again. I can’t believe how quickly my little urbanites adapted to the wild and enjoyed themselves. Well, they have always been part-feral…

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged cafes, forest, nature (really?!) | Leave a comment

Coram’s Fields Needs Your Help!

Posted on March 19, 2014 by katese11

While I was at Coram’s the other day with C’sMum, I noticed that they were running an appeal for funds. In case you didn’t know, Coram’s Fields is a private charity, not a publicly funded park, yet it flings its gates open to any child that wants to play. It’s beloved by NCTers and BLWers alike, and it needs more funds to carry on being a lovely space in the heart of studenty Bloomsbury. So, consider this a free ad for the joys of Coram’s, especially the recently changed bits…Consider it payback for the hours of free fun we’ve had there. If you’ve had hours of fun there too, you can donate here.

So, there’s a brand new sensory area that’s just opened at the back:

It has musical panels, touchy-feely panels and puzzles:

There’s also a new, accessible roundabout towards the back, where the cafe is -I forget what those things are called, but it’s something like a whirl of joy. Or something. Talking of the cafe, it seems that they’re looking for new people to run it so presumably Kipferl have moved their star biscuits and sausages elsewhere. C’sMum was quite distressed that there was nowhere to stock up on caffeine at the moment. So, ever fancied running a park cafe? Apply here!

And of course, there’s the traditional Coram’s pursuit of animal-bothering – in this case a chicken that Reuben wanted to set free to roam about:

I think he seemed quite happy in his house, with layers of fencing between him and sticky toddlers. Reuben also tried to liberate the grumpy goat, until we persuaded him that it was a bad idea (luckily, he still believes that goats like to eat his trousers).

Add on the zipwire, the paddling pool, the sand and water play area, the other sandpit, the multitude of slides and swings….that’s Coram’s. So, how did Eva choose to spend her first hour or so there?

So ungrateful. But she made up for it later, don’t worry!

I almost forgot to mention that there’s a new sand area too, in the sensory bit. Mr Coram, you are really spoiling us…

So, go for a visit…play, enjoy, take multiple changes of clothing once they turn the water on (normally May-ish) and don’t forget to donate!

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

A Guide to Solving Your Breastfeeding in Public Dilemmas

Posted on March 17, 2014 by katese11

After the Rugeley protests and the massive amounts of publicity surrounding breastfeeding in public this last week or so, you’d think that the world would have got the message. Not so much. The internet trolls that branded a mother a tramp for feeding her child have brought out yet more opinionated trolls, such as this comment on the Daily Mail website (where else?!):

“ITS NOT NATURAL TO DO THIS IN PUBLIC,,it is offensive….”

You’re offended? Have you considered your own offences against punctuation?

And:

“Another little self important woman who thinks that she has done something earth shattering by giving birth to a child! And why do mothers seem to think that babies need to be fed 24 hours a day, and they never sleep!”

Eva laughed so hard at that question that she pooped her pants a little.

And, of course, that old expressing argument:

“What I don’t get with these supposedly intelligent women is why they are seemingly incapable of expressing milk beforehand and feeding their kid from a bottle. Are they that desperate to make some sort of statement : “look at me, look what an Earth-mother I am”? That’s the problem with attention seekers – the minute they get the sort of attention they DON’T want they go off shrieking to the papers, or to court. No one is disputing whether breast is best but there’s a time and a place and in public is neither…”

Ah, I’m too thick to use a breast pump? You’re probably right – you need a degree in engineering to work one of those damned things. Luckily, I’m at peace with my stupidity and can just about manage to point a baby in the general direction of a boob. If only my parents had sent me to private school*

But my personal favourite is this one. I really, really x10,000 hope that this person actually lives in Tunbridge Wells:

“Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells, 3 days ago

Not everyone wants to see women breast feeding in public!!”

Anyway, for all of you breastfeeding mothers who have had your confidence swayed by this, Tunbridge Wellsians or not, don’t worry! I have prepared some definitive charts to help you make important decisions about whether or not you should breastfeed in public, along with the question of whether breastfeeding in public makes you an exhibitionist, and whether you should use a cover. Read on – all the answers you need are right here:

You’re welcome.

*My parents are off on holiday, so I’m relatively confident I can get away with this one. It’s just a joke, honest Mum. It was me that insisted on going to state school, after all…

Posted in Rants | Tagged breastfeeding | 6 Comments

Labor Day Review

Posted on March 14, 2014 by katese11

If you read my last post, you’ll know that I was off to far-West London on the District Line, having deposited the children, tired and full of sugar, on Nathan at London Bridge. The freedom was exhilarating. For a while anyway, until the tedium of the District Line began to set in. It’s a long and confusing line, which makes the most hardened of tube geeks (me) sob a little. So, it was more by luck than journey planning that I arrived in Gunnersbury, at the headquarters of Paramount Pictures.

Why was I there? Am I finally signing that 12-picture contract that’s been coming my way ever since my groundbreaking performance as Mary in St Barnabas’ Nativity Play 1984? (My future husband was a lowly shepherd…and we think he was an ally of his future brother-in-law in the king/shepherd rumble) No, that sadly wasn’t it. I was there to review “Labor Day”, a new film starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. And eat some mini burgers and chocolate brownie squares while I was there. I also took in the scenic grounds of the Paramount offices, featuring a lake with swans. Surreal.

So, my verdict on the film. I’d like to say I enjoyed it, and I did but it was a strange kind of enjoyment that you get with the most tense kind of dramas (I had to get a neck rub after “Captain Philips”, I was so stressed). It never quite lets you relax – the masterly direction soothes you into a sense of homely calm, before jolting you out of it again. Kate Winslet is Adele, a nervy recluse, who inadvertently shelters a felon on the run (Josh Brolin)…and unexpected romance blossoms. It’s narrated by, and seen from the perspective of, her son Henry – you never get to see things from Adele’s point of view, though a handy piece of exposition helps explain why she the way she is. It’s a film about family, about love and – to an extent – about injustice, as the full story of Frank’s crime comes to light (although we never see him explain it to Adele, suggesting she just chooses to accept him as he is and ignore the reason he’s in prison – love is blind, after all). It’s from the director of “Juno” and there are similar touches in the lo-fi style of direction, but the writing is completely different and that makes it a very different film. If anything, it’s more like Kate Winslet’s previous work “Revolutionary Road” – and if a crucial scene in that film had you sobbing hormonal tears, then this may have a similar effect.

I’ve written a fuller review at tvandfilmreview.com, so have a look there…but it is definitely worth checking out. Just don’t expect a comfortable ride.

Posted in Reviewing the Situation | Tagged cinema, West London | 3 Comments

A Complex Day

Posted on March 14, 2014 by katese11

Remember that Google location map I mentioned, that while my children were poxed rather creepily followed me from room to room? Well, today will have made it go nuts. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting on a rush hour district line train towards Gunnersbury, which is almost as far from our new house as you can get while still technically being in London. Why am I off to Chiswick? Well, that’s a whole other post and that’s coming up. But first, the story of how I managed to drag two children round almost all of London and do some work at the same time.
I have many jobs right now. One of them involves going to various places and seeing various people and today I was doing that job. With both kids. Reuben left school when we moved house so he is currently out of education. If the thought of that panics you, imagine how I feel. So they both came with me, bumping the buggy down the steps at Hackney Downs, because I had entirely forgotten that it had them and eating their chorizo wraps in my office. Reuben deemed this all unfun, so it got to the point where I had done as much work as I possibly could, with copious amounts of bribes and other people playing peekaboo with Eva and finding Pixar trailers for them to watch. It was park time. But we were in Soho, which has long been established as a no-park zone, in many ways.So we jumped on a bus to Green Park, which was handily on the Jubilee Line…An essential part of phase 56765 of the day’s plan.

If you know anything about Roo, you might doubt that Green Park would be the kind of park that he would think of as fun. There are ancient trees and daffodils but not an awful lot else. He asked for a playground but the nearest one was the other side of St James Park, which was tediously far away. We’d hang out in Green Park instead. We did some romping through the daffodils (and left them all intact…phew!) and some roly-polys and had a snack and I was beginning to think we could comfortably waste as much time as we needed to, right there next to the tube. And then those fateful words. You can imagine what they were, but the short version is it involved some rapid googling to confirm that no, Green Park did not have toilets. Looks like we were heading to St James Park after all.

Now, I’m fond of St James Park. It’s very pretty in the springtime but there was no time to stop and take photos when we had urgent business to attend to. I remembered from a previous visit that there were toilets next to the playground, so we headed there, much to Roo’s satisfaction. But disaster! They are closed until March 31st! So, it was back over the lake towards Marlborough Gate and it was there that we finally found some. Job done.

It was definitely time for the first ice cream of the year. We have plenty still stuck to Eva that’ll last us till autumn:

And then a jaunt to the playground – it would have been a mean mummy that allowed them a glimpse of it but didn’t let them play. I am a mean mummy, but not that mean. They played happily, while I chatted to a Kennington mum who just happened to be there too.

We could have stayed for a while, but rush hour was looming and we needed to get to that Jubilee Line to get to London Bridge. So I peeled Eva off the slide, quite literally kicking and screaming and we walked back uphill towards Green Park tube, stopping only to pull some faces in front of Buckingham Palace:

Again, if you know anything about Roo you might guess that he’d be a little whiney by now. We’d been out since 9, it was almost 5, we’d got a train, three buses and a walk so far and he was flagging. Even the sight of the horse-top “knights” failed to chirp him up much. Luckily, we could just hop on the tube at step-free Green Park and be on our way.

Or could we? It certainly was step-free, but hopping on the tube seemed unlikely, given there was another mile’s worth of walking once you got inside. OK, so a mile might be an exaggeration but every few metres feels like miles when you’re a tired 4-year-old. It was a long, long walk. The Jubilee line is pretty far down, so we had to get two lifts, with a slog between the two. I wouldn’t recommend it for end-of-day tube-hopping. But we got to London Bridge, and a few false starts saw us bagging the only two seats and the only two sausage sandwiches in the world’s smallest Starbucks. Where they were playing “B-List Indie Hits of ’96” and that made me absurdly happy. When was the last time you heard the Longpigs in a coffee shop? Or Hurricane#1? Or Dodgy? Shed Seven?! We were quite happy then until Reuben made another game-changing announcement. Naturally, Tinybucks had no toilet so it was next door to pret where I promised to buy something in exchange for using the facilities. And we would have, except it was near the end of the day and the lovely man decided to give the kids gingerbread men for free. Score! Now, it was time to hand them over to Nathan (the kids, not the gingerbread men) and head to Gunnersbury for the next stage of the day….

To be continued!

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged accessibility, cafes, Cental london, parks | Leave a comment

Goodbye to Kennington

Posted on March 6, 2014 by katese11

You may have heard the rumours. You probably haven’t heard the rumours. There are no rumours. But if there were, they would probably be something along the lines of how us diehard South Londoners are moving to the far North-East….the land of Almost Essex. And those rumours would be true. On Monday, we turn our backs on 14-ish years of South Londondom and become those North of the River types who are always complaining about having too many tube stations and how Forest Hill is halfway to France. You may want to unsubscribe. I won’t blame you. But truth is, I have blogged Kennington and its surrounds pretty dry and am looking forward to discovering the delights of the Leyton Leisure Lagoon. But before we go, I’ve saved a few special pictures of our wonderful K-Town….a fabulous prize* for anyone who knows where they were all taken.

And there’s more. There’s a song. I’ll let it speak for itself. Goodbye Kennington…

*There are no prizes. The prizes are packed.

And just in case you think I’m overselling it, here’s Ducky Park…

Posted in Facts! And facts are important! | Tagged blogging, South London | Leave a comment