London With a Teenager

Pets in Pants – a book review

Posted on December 14, 2012 by katese11

This may be a little off-topic for my blog, but I was asked to review this book and I couldn’t say no. It features lots of pets. Wearing pants. What’s not to love?

Turns out it was a good day for this book to arrive. It was Roo’s first ever Parent Conference this morning and that meant nursery was cancelled for the day. We had plans with C and his family, but several trips to the bathroom during the night convinced me that I was a bit ill and therefore shouldn’t be play-dating. You may remember that Roo had something similar a few weeks back. So, we’re having a quarantine day. In the rain. Fun! Incidentally his Parent Conference went well (thanks for asking) – the only concern raised was that his walk was a bit “hoppity-skippity”. We agreed he was just a hoppity-skippity child.

Anyway, the book arrived at 12:30, just as we would usually be setting off to go to nursery and just as Eva and I were scooting upstairs to the bathroom again. Roo had been obsessing about his Christmas presents all day, so I shouted down to him that when we came down, he could have a present.

To paraphrase Portable North Pole Santa, he wasn’t disappointed.

“Pets in Pants?” he squawked, in that I’m-finding-what-you-said-so-hilarious-that-I-have-to-use-a-special-voice voice. So that was a winner straight off. So were the brightly-coloured pictures and the tongue-twisting rhymes. I stumbled over some of the words first time round, but he didn’t notice. And as soon as we got to the end, he wanted it again.

His favourite Pet in Pants was the parrot in the racing green pants, and the funniest was the rabbit in broad-bean pants. But I’ve just asked him again and now his favourite is the cat with the ice-cream pants. Fickle boy! He says he likes it anyway, and sat intently looking both times I read it to him.

I think I like it too. The font and the pictures are funky, the concept is simple but entertaining and it has just the right amount of absurdity. The only criticism I would have is that the first page rhymes “aunts” with “pants”, which just doesn’t work in my accent. It’s aimed at 4-7-year-olds but my 3-and-a-half-year-old enjoyed it. Predictably enough, Eva tried to eat it. Cause, yknow, anything papery is fair game at the moment.

Woh, I have just realised that today is Roo’s half birthday. He is actually EXACTLY 3-and-a-half today. how the heck did that happen?! Happy half birthday Roo! Have a poorly Mummy and an afternoon of mediocre Beebies.

And a new book. See, I said it was good timing.

VERDICT: An well-written and amusing book perfect for preschoolers.

More details: It’s available here, but just for fun google image search “Pets in Pants”. You’d be amazed what comes up!

Disclaimer: I was given a free copy of “Pets in Pants” to review by Indepenpress Independent Publishers. All views expressed remain honest and factual.

Posted in Reviewing the Situation | Tagged animals, books, pants, review | 2 Comments

Christmas Shopping on Oxford St – Mother and Baby edition

Posted on December 11, 2012 by katese11

Yes, yes once again this sounds like madness. I’d considered myself lucky to escape from Primark alive a few days back. But when you’re in a Nandos in Berners St and you need to go shopping, Oxford St doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea.

Besides, it was Reuben’s idea. That probably does make it a crazy idea.

Nathan and Reuben had already tried to go shopping before church. Now, there’s no reason that Nathan should know what time Oxford St shops open on a Sunday. It’s not like I worked there for 2 and a half years, opening my shop at midday every week and complaining about all the stupid tourists who stood around and waited for me to open at ten. Anyway, I’ve let him tell it here, in his version of events

So, the conclusion was that Eva and I would go shopping together and Nathan and Roo. The main advantage of that for me was that I didn’t have the buggy, so could weave around the crowds with (slightly more) ease. The disadvantage was that I didn’t have the buggy, so had to carry all my shopping as well as Eva. In uncomfortable shoes. Hmmm.

Our first stop was Urban Outfitters, in search of an ironic gift for a gay friend with a love of kitsch. First job done. Even if I was far too old and uncool to be in there. And definitely the only person carrying a baby. Someone else had a buggy, but no child in it. Probably sensible, in retrospect.

Next, we went on to Muji, in search of something for Eva (criteria: must be biteable). They had some super cute penguin-skittles but they were possibly too nice to be bitten, so we moved on. Onto M&S. And that’s where it all started to fall apart.

I had a vague shopping list in mind and thought M&S Gifts Department could help. But after a few circuits I fell into a kind of catatonia and just stood staring at giftsets of royal-jelly-with-back-scrubber and man-sized coffee mugs with “man” written on them (what is royal jelly anyway?!) and eventually picked up some things which may or may not be appropriate Christmas presents. I genuinely still have no idea. I do know I found a nice bitey-wooden stacky toy for Eva and a “Miaow miaow” book that matched her brother’s “Woof woof” book. Result.

By this time, Eva had fallen into a state of catatonia too (or maybe she was asleep) and at some point my sister called me to sing an old worship song at me and ask me to identify it. I couldn’t identify it. It may or may not have been Graham Kendrick. Anyway, with Eva still asleep, we went to the till. And waited. There were two tills open, which was fine, but one was tied up with a credit-card authorisation issue. Then the other one got tied up with an arsey-customer-wanting-a-discount issue. We were waiting a while. Long enough for Eva to complete her sleep. By this point, I was regretting not having the buggy cause at least I’d have been able to put the kilo box of biscuits down somewhere. I hoped Nathan was having better luck.

I called him. He wasn’t.

We paid, and staggered around looking for the exit. Where was the exit? No, that’s just an escalator going down (we were in the basement). Then a sign; “Exit to Oxford St”. It’s normally a place I try to avoid but this time we ran towards it eagerly.

Then we blitzed H&M with the fevour of newly-released prisoners. Supplementary gifts for niece and grandmother – BAM! Accessories for Roo’s friends – BAM#2! Cute outfit for Eva – BAM#3, and then just another long queue stood between me and being able to offload this stuff onto my dear husband. As we walked out of the store the security barriers sounded but by then I didn’t care. No security guards came running after me so I just stood around nonchalantly. I spotted some friends from church and chatted to them for a few minutes before reading a text from Nathan to the effect that he was waiting for me inside. I wasn’t planning to set off the barriers again, so I just yelled at him. He turned round, a broken man. But he was a broken man with a sleeping child and *apparently* some kind of present for me. I had bulging bags of presents for all and sundry and aching biceps.

Missions successful? Read Nathan’s post and judge for yourself….

Note: Much like the companion piece to this, I have no photos to speak of. So you have an arty shot of Nandos at the beginning, then one of Eva asleep somewhere that is clearly not M&S Oxford St (it is, in fact outside Liverpool St). Just to help break things up a little yknow…

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged Central London, Christmas, shopping | 5 Comments

Christmas Shopping on Oxford St – Father and Son edition

Posted on December 11, 2012 by katese11

This is a Guest Post from Mr katese11, aka Nathan. Londonwithatoddler accepts no responsibility for the contents of this post, and views expressed represent the author’s own. I was planning on merging this with my own version (which you can read here), but it made me laugh so much I decided it needed its own post. So, here goes:

I was surprised when LWAT invited me to guest-blog again after last time, insert “pingback” here, but I suspect it’s a ruse to find out what I bought her for Xmas. So this is “Christmas shopping on Oxford Street”. Kate & Eva have gone to church early in order to rehearse for a Carol Service (Kate’s in the choir, the baby isn’t) and the plan is that me & the boy will watch a few more Fireman Sams and then arrive in time to remove said baby from the choir before the service starts at 11. However, Fireman Sam is on one of those pesky channels that have ad-breaks and Reuben has discovered how fun it can be to request that we purchase every toy that appears on screen… ‘Let’s go shopping’ he suggests and, like a man who has yet to get his wife a Christmas present and is starting to panic about that fact, I hastily agree.

This new plan is perfect on so many levels: our church meets near Oxford Street and I’m otherwise unlikely to be near any shops of a higher quality than the Elephant & Castle shopping centre, the boy seems keen to get Mummy a present and we’ve got a spare hour – quick Roo; to the car! Once in town, with Roo in buggy, we discover our first problem; shops don’t seem to open very much on Sunday mornings. We stroll down Oxford Street hoping maybe one or two might be open? No. Not unless Kate wants a Union Jack mug or a Big Mac for Xmas. Dejected, we retire to a café for a coffee & a gingerbread snowman, and form a new plan to maybe try again after church when the shops are actually open.

One carol service & a Nandos lunch later and we’re off again. Reuben has decided we’ve got to get Eva ONE present and Mummy LOTS of presents. Lets MAKE some! He hasn’t suggested what they might actually be but my plan is to find some clothes shops. Women like clothes, right? We have a quick look round WH Smiths first though. I’m not quite ready to suffer the horror of clothes shopping just yet. Roo suggests we get a game for him & me. I remind him we’re looking for something for Mummy. He helpfully suggests a Peppa Pig boardbook or a game for him & me.

Okay, time to man up and go to Ladieswear. (There are a variety of different high street clothes shops on Oxford Street but, as they’re all essentially interchangeable from this shopper’s perspective, for the purpose of this prose I’m pretending they are all one.) There is mania in here. Roo suggests that we should play on the escalators. We battle our way round as best we can while assuming that the best stuff will be on ground level (we’ve still got the buggy with us, and while there is a lift or two, my instincts are telling me not to get in too deep or we might not get out again). Most of the items on display are horrifically overpriced and/or horrific to look at or touch. Some things look like possibilities, things that might’ve been bought if this were a previous year but fail the current need to be practical for a baby-feeding mumma.

Feeling hopeless, we head off to So Tiny on Great Titchfield Street: maybe if we can get something cute for Eva we will have Made A Start, and might regain some lost enthusiasm. They have some Stone Roses ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ baby-vests that I like but Reuben turns them down for being to boyish. It’s a small shop and someone else trys to come in so we leave in failure. Kate calls to check how we’re doing; she’s done loads of shopping, we’ve not effectively started yet so we get an extension.

Back in Ladieswear, Reuben rejects outright all my suggestions and recommends we get Mummy a toy horse. I think he’s tired of Ladieswear and would prefer to be in Toyshop. He finally agrees to getting her a ***SPOILER*** then promptly falls asleep. Turns out he was just tired. I decide to sack off my now unconscious shopping colleague and call in the professionals (that’s you: the internet). Specifically one friendly Facebooker who is helpfully online and helpfully inspirational.

Armed with ideas, a child who can no longer disagree with me, and the knowledge that even if I can’t find these on Oxford Street then I can merrily purchase these online, we trundle off to our final shop. Obviously they don’t appear to have what I’m looking for so we head back to meet Kate & Eva and drive home and finish my Christmas shopping on my smartphone.

Take that, Oxford Street!

Editor’s note: No, that’s not a picture from this shopping trip. We may be bad parents but we wouldn’t send him out in December in just a t-shirt. Turns out that Mr katese11 was too stressed to take many photos….

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged Central London, Christmas, shopping | 5 Comments

London with a Tiddler part 2

Posted on December 10, 2012 by katese11

Eva and I have been busy again. Evidence keeps suggesting that the best way to keep Eva asleep during the day is just to keep moving. How does that work for me? Ah, it doesn’t really…but it means we’ve had some fun excursions while Reuben’s been at nursery. And she’s slept through some of them, but not as many as you’d hope.

Last Friday’s adventure really pushed the boundaries of how far you can get in 2hrs 25mins that Reuben’s otherwise engaged. Eva’s friend H invited us to the Barbican for a cup of tea and a bit of shopping. It’s a bit of a trek – I may have mentioned in this post that our last trip there was somewhat of a farce. It took us hours to get there and even longer to get back. We missed the kids cinema event we were aiming for, and my American friend learnt the hard way that the Barbican was not on the South Bank. H’s Mama is Canadian, so I had to check that we weren’t falling for the same thing again. No, turns out H’s Mama has some idea of where the Barbican is.

So, I decided to go for it. As our trips have got more daring, I’ve worked out precisely how long it takes to power-walk from the tube to nursery, and the best route to take. We haven’t missed pick-up yet, but there is still time. But this was to be an efficient trip there and back. We Northern-Lined to Moorgate, with both babies wide awake and entertaining our fellow travellers. Then from Moorgate, we took this suspicious looking passage:

Which somehow brought us out at the back of the Barbican. Score! I will remember that route for next time we’re meeting the geographically-challenged one. Total time from shoving Roo through the door to stepping inside = 35 mins. Could I do that with a buggy or a runaway 3-year-old? Who knows?

The first thing we did was dismiss the idea of going to the Rain Room. The queue was huge. Some well-prepared people had brought folding chairs with them. A queue that requires folding chairs is of little interest to me. I’d love to take Roo there, but with a waiting time of 2 hours it seems unlikely in the near future. So instead, we had a nice sit-down and H’s Mama had a fairly average sandwich. Like the Royal Festival Hall, it seems to be the kind of place where there’s no obligation to spend any money – you can just hang out all day if you want to. So we put a muslin down for the babies to play on, and Eva greeted her friend with a poke in the eye.

They got on really nicely apart from that, honest. Eva just learns from her aggressive big brother. We also had a potter around the shop, which had some cool things, even if they are a bit overpriced. I loved the robot cushions but could never justify paying £30 for one. Then we had a look at the Christmas shop:

That just looks exciting, doesn’t it? I found some East London-themed presents for an East London-themed friend, and an apology present for another friend. Let’s not go into why I needed to apologise to anyone. Ho hum. Then I abandoned H and her Mama in order to rush back for pick-up. I assume they made it home OK.

So, where else have we been? Well the day before that we had a full day to ourselves (full by nursery standards, anyway) and got all the way to Angel for lunch, even after our exercise class. We were meeting another friend of Eva’s – a boy called T from church, who was born the same day as her. And his Mum, obviously. We picked a lunching place at random and ended up at BananaTree, just south of Angel tube. It was “indochinese cuisine” and I’m still not entirely sure what that means but it was yummy. I had the crispy chicken in sweet mango sauce, Eva had the money bags and both were good (not that I stole any of Eva’s, no no). And it was pretty cheap – the lunchtime mains were £6ish. The staff were friendly and welcomed two babies but our waiter seemed curiously reluctant to offer T a highchair. He kept saying he might be too small for it, despite the fact that he’d given Eva one without a problem. We explained that they were..yknow…exactly the same age, what with having been born the same day an’ all…and how T is bigger than Eva if anything. But no dice. Eventually he gave us one as long as we agreed that it was at our own risk. Bizarre. Oh, and the changing room was outside the back door, along an outside corridor and pretty chilly. And the benches were a bit too close to the wall and table to comfortably breastfeed in. But these were minor niggles, as Eva thoroughly enjoyed lobbing bits of crispy pastry around and grinning at the waitress. One to return to, as long as you’re prepared to sign a waiver before putting your child in a clip-on highchair.

Such exotic expeditions make today’s trip to the 99p store in Brixton look a bit pedestrian really. But I mention it just because I wanted to share the amazing range of Christmas gifts they have on offer:

Look, if you’re stuck for ideas for your loved ones, why not buy them some rubber gloves or some drain unblocker? Gosh, this photo is almost worthy of Danny Wallace! Seriously though, I do love the 99p store and me and E bought a whole pile of Christmas accessories, as well as a book about Katherine Howard. Then we went to Iceland and bought a selection of quality frozen party snacks. As psychotic as Iceland in Brixton was, it was better than the one we went to in Hackney on Saturday…

I know what you’re asking and the answer is yes, I DO know how to show my little girl a good time. Well, I might as well before she learns to answer back…

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged baby, Central London, Christmas, coffee, eating out, North London, shopping, South London | 8 Comments

Primark with a baby

Posted on December 4, 2012 by katese11

I know. This sounds like craziness. But I’m still giddy from a) being able to travel around London without Roo and all his stuff (bless nursery!) and b) being able to leave the house at all after Roo’s crazy stomach-antics. So I’m in a gutsy mood. Primark holds no fear for me. I took Reuben there at 5 weeks (albeit with a winggirl) and even tried things on, with him struggling in a baby bjorn. I could do this.

Anyway, Primark wasn’t really the aim of the expedition. The aim was to get to “Computer Exchange” and procure a copy of “Bad Santa” for a mere 80p. Computer Exchange is commonly known as “CeX” and sells DVDs as well as computer games but this was the original store, so still has the original name. It’s also retained that computer-shop vibe. I’m pretty sure I was the first unaccompanied woman to ever set foot in it. Obviously I was accompanied by Eva, but that doesn’t count. I think she was probably the first girl-baby to set strawberry-hatted head inside. But scariness aside, we succeeded in our mission and are now proud “Bad Santa” owners.

At this point, you may be wondering just how economical it is to spend £4.00 on getting the tube to Tottenham Court Road, in order to spend 80p on a DVD. It’s not. I could have bought it from Amazon for £4.19. So, I justified the trip out by going to Primark and looking for a new skirt. I have a Christmas party followed by a wedding reception on Saturday and was looking for a magical skirt that would work for both. Yknow, Christmassy but fancy at the same time. Obviously, dresses are out due to the whole breastfeeding situation. The new Primark at Tottenham Court Road promised |”Four floors of fashion”, so I should be able to find one magical skirt there, right?

Wrong! I’m obviously well out of touch with what’s fashionable because there was nothing I liked. Maybe I’m just 31. But this was just one example of the bizarre outfits out there at the moment:

Now, the sparkly jumper I can get on board with…it is Christmas after all (though doesn’t it look itchy?). But the see-through skirt made out of child’s dressing-up material? With fishnets? I don’t get it. I would have brought you more marvellous ensemble photos, but I was sharply rebuked by a security guard for taking this one. Primark, much like communist police states, has a strict no-photos policy.

Bizarre clothes aside, it wasn’t a bad shopping experience. Seeing as this trip combined three of the most stressful variables for a shopping trip (Oxford Street, Primark, small child) it went pretty well. The new store has a fairly spacious layout and wasn’t too crowded (maybe cause I didn’t add the “Saturday afternoon” variable in) and there were no huge queues for the tills or fitting rooms. Not that I needed the fitting rooms, as I didn’t find anything I wanted to buy for myself. I did, however, pick up cheap t-shirts for my niece and nephews and some other present-y bits. The kids department was decorated in a funky way, with a huge multicoloured London map on the wall, and there were two buggy lifts behind the different levels. So it was almost doable with a buggy. Don’t hold me to that though. I’m still glad I didn’t have one. I’m also glad Eva was asleep all the way through.

As a by-the-by, it still makes me feel incredibly sad every time I see what’s become of Tottenham Court Rd. The block that housed the Astoria and a couple of other clubs is now a giant building site (see top photo). There are bulldozers all over my happy memories of dancing at Bedrock and seeing such amazing bands as blur, Ash ooberman and Gay Dad. OK, so not all the gigs I went to there were amazing. It wasn’t even a great blur gig (2003. no Graham Coxon). But Ash were pretty special – it was at a clubnight called Frog which, being a clubnight didn’t have any of the barriers or security you would expect at a real gig. So we leant on the monitors at Tim Wheeler’s feet. At the end, Tim leaned over and slipped his plectrum into Nathan’s hand using a secret handshake. The plectrum is still on display in our “Rock n Roll Hall of Fame”, along with Mark Morriss’ setlist and Bernard Butler’s guitar string. Good times.

But now, it’s all just rubble. I wonder what Freddie makes of it all?

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged baby, Central London, shopping | 1 Comment

The Christmas Pudding Race and the “Rise of the Guardians” Funland – 01/12/12

Posted on December 2, 2012 by katese11

Longest blog title. EVER. What it should have said was “we wandered around Central London a bit in the cold”. But in doing so, we both watched “The Christmas Pudding Race” and visited a winter playground in Leicester Square. I may have mentioned that it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas and this was our first family Advent activity.

We were meeting C and his family at Waterloo, so we started off with a walk along the river in the early morning mist. It was very scenic. Just look at these seagulls:

That was a gratuitous photo if ever I saw one. Anyway, it was a nice wander down to Waterloo, and Nathan stopped for a coffee at Magic Coffee Man, which made him happy. When we met C’s family, C’s Dad hadn’t had a coffee, which made him unhappy. Through this, Reuben learnt the simple rule that”coffee makes men happy!” That’ll serve you well, small man.

Luckily there was a Starbucks on the walk to Covent Garden (who knew?!) so we could sort out that particular situation. There was also a “funny tree” outside the Southbank Centre that caused some hilarity for Roo and C. The funny tree has been for some time (I thought it was part of the Festival of the World but it seems to have outlived it) and Roo has both seen it and climbed on it before, but when he saw it with C it was as if for the first time….and it was hilarious. The whole walk across Waterloo Bridge was punctuated by shrieks of “that’s a FUNNY TREE!”.

We got to Covent Garden and the location of the Christmas Pudding Race wasn’t immediately obvious. They had a Christmas tree made out of Jack Daniels barrels and a giant reindeer, both of which I wanted to get a photo of, but we were in a bit of a rush to get to the race before it started and I thought we may have missed it in the ten minutes that we were late.

I’ve never been quite so wrong.

We did find the race course – at the Punch and Judy end of the Plaza and we seemed to be in time. We found places near the giant inflatable slide and we waited.

And we waited. Then we waited.

And some more. Bear in mind the situation we had here – temperature hovering around zero degrees, two overtired babies, two 3-year-olds, four grumpy parents. Half an hour seemed like a long time. Roo ran off and lost our space. He and C waited at the fence, getting colder and grumpier. They bought badges to wear on their hats:

C’s Dad was despatched to buy child-size hot chocolates to warm them up. We could hear something going on down the other end but didn’t know what. C and Roo both climbed into their buggies. C snuggled under his mother’s Oscha wrap and went quiet. Roo’s mother doesn’t own an Oscha, so he sobbed hysterically; “I’m cold! I don’t want to see a funny race!”. Eventually, I asked one of the race elfs when the race was starting and she said 12:00. That was another 20 minutes away. To kill time, I took Roo for a pee and paid 50p for the privilege. C’s Dad was still missing. Roo resumed sobbing. I think the novelty of watching the funny race had worn off and he wanted to either go home or have a go on the funny race-track himself. Nathan darted off to have a look at the giant Advent Calendar:

At around 12:10, the race started. Hooray! For a few minutes, Roo forgot his tears as he watched elves, cats, Santas and a Christmas tree struggle round the inflatable course. He giggled as the elves got stuck on the slide, and was most excited to see a man dressed as a dinosaur. That was only one of the heats though. There was more to come, apparently. But we’d all had enough of the cold by this point, and Eva was squealing for milk so we headed to Benito’s Hat for lunch and some warmth.

Did Roo and C behave over lunch? How would you expect 2 recently thawed-out small boys to behave when they get hugely overexcited by each other’s company? Let’s skim over that bit and move onto the “Rise of the Guardians” Funland in Leicester Square.

As you may have discerned, this was a marketing exercise to promote a new Dreamworks film, and yes, both boys are now clamouring to see it even though it looks a bit dark-side for them. But hey, it was free! There was a huge “Jack Frost” slide, with rubber rings to sit in as you went down, but the boys were too small for it (minimum height 110cm). We quickly moved them on to the “Easter Bunny” maze, with a giant egg in the middle.

We never did make it to the middle – Roo was too busy running round the maze and shrieking “Dead end! There’s another dead end!” (I later found out that he’d learnt what a dead end was from “Octonauts and the Great Christmas Rescue”). He found the way back out, which he thought was the aim of it all. C and his mum made it to the middle though.

What else was there? The “Tooth Fairy” bungee was closed – just as well, seeing as Roo would probably have been too small for that too. We all got our photos taken with the Sandman (see above) but we weren’t allowed to linger or play in the sand. So we went to write a letter to Santa and post it.

Oh, and play in the fake snow. Did I mention the fake snow? Scratchy stuff with an authentic London yellowness to it? Roo spent a loooong time playing with it, picking up handfuls and chucking at me (not really allowed) and hiding behind the fake rocks with C (definitely not allowed). After we left, he was still wailing to go back and play with the snow some more. He was momentarily distracted by the glockenspiel performance at what used to be the Swiss Centre (but is now a Swiss pole). He was interested in the noisy cows, but by the time we got home all he wanted was to go back to the snow. Sadly for Roo it’s only on till 9th Dec. Maybe if it gets any colder we’ll have real snow!

VERDICT: The Christmas Pudding Race was fun, but next year we’ll arrive an hour later and wrapped up a lot warmer. Funland was good for amusing them for an hour or so and not too crowded, but be aware of height restrictions.

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged Central London, Christmas, coffee, races, snow | 4 Comments

Advent in London

Posted on November 30, 2012 by katese11

Is it time for some wintery London tips? It’s December tomorrow, apparently. And this week it’s felt properly cold, almost Christmassy. And just look at the difference two weeks can make in Spring Gardens..

Two weeks ago:

And today:

Not a leaf in sight! We were on our way home from the Tea House Theatre, which has become one of our regular haunts. I may have mentioned it a couple of posts back. Roo likes it because one of the guys there knows all the words to the “Spiderman” theme tune. Which brings me onto my first Advent tip – Christmas kids movies! The Tea House is showing a kids’ Christmas film every Monday afternoon for the next three weeks. They start at 4PM, so fit nicely after nursery for us and the first one is “When the Grinch stole Christmas” next Monday (3rd Dec). Reuben loves a bit of Dr Seuss and I like a bit of cake.

Talking of Seuss, here’s the next thing I’m looking forward to: “Seussical the Musical!” I impulse bought tickets cause it was on Groupon the other day, and it’ll be Roo’s first theatre trip. It’ll be Eva’s as well, but she’s unlikely to know what’s going on. It’ not strictly Christmassy, nor are we seeing it in Advent (going for a New Year’s treat) but I wanted to share my excitement about it. It’s been a long time since I impulse bought theatre tickets. I think the last time was for “Dracula:the Musical” at the White Bear Theatre Pub in Kennington. That was when I was just pregnant with Roo and feeling the early stirrings of morning sickness, so being sung at by vampires in a small space was an obvious remedy.

You may notice a musicals theme here. I do love musicals. One advent tradition of ours is to watch “White Christmas” with our friend Ems and Baileys (except when I’ve been pregnant). Sadly, I’m not putting the details of that out there on the interweb for any festive-munchkin to find it. Our lounge isn’t big enough and we don’t have enough Baileys.

So, for something completely different: tomorrow, we’re going to watch the Christmas Pudding Race in Covent Garden. I know very little about it, except that it involves people carrying Christmas puddings over an obstacle course. That sounds fun, right? There is also reindeer petting in Covent Garden, but that sounds kinda cruel to the reindeer (the Plaza not being quite the tundra they’re used to) so we may give that a miss. There is also something kinda special on in Leicester Square at the moment, but I’ll report back tomorrow…

So, what else is cool to do? People often ask me about Winter Wonderland, but it is realllly overcrowded…or was last year, anyway. The Southbank Christmas market is a mellower alternative, if you really feel the need to buy mulled wine and ginger-y biscuits. If you’re free tomorrow and have the kind of children that can be babysat (ie not a 7-month-old velcro baby), I would heartily recommend the Buttoned Down Disco Christmas party. It’s ridiculous amounts of fun and we used to go all the time pre-kids. Look, here we are at the first BDD Christmas party back in 2003! Third photo in or just here:

*Sob* I was so young and skinny then….if , like me, you are too old for clubbing but still want to dress up in Christmas-themed costumes you can always come to the City Gates nativity service on 16th Dec at the University of Westminster. Everyone dresses up, it gets very silly and is fairly light on that religion stuff. Reuben traditionally wears a star costume to it, but refused to last year so it may be passed onto Eva this year. He can be a Christmas dinosaur.

Talking of carol services, we went to the most bizarre one in Covent Garden around 2007. I was keen to sing some carols, so we picked one out of the paper and went. It featured a poem about a rotten banana and a man singing a song of thanks to a charity called “the Food Chain” to the tune of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”. We tried so hard not to laugh but sadly failed…Then we went to Los Locos and sampled their special Christmas menu, where everything that normally contained chicken was replaced with turkey and two quid added to the price. Good times.

So, that’s a few things to do at Christmas that you may not have considered. Oh yeah, and go skating. But everyone tells you that, right?!

Posted in What I suppose you'd call "tips"....? | Tagged Central London, Christmas, cinema, dressing up, theatre | 3 Comments

National Portrait Gallery – 27/11/12

Posted on November 29, 2012 by katese11

This was meant to be in the last post, but that one went on a little bit, didn’t it? Turns out there are a lot of hours to fill while Roo’s at nursery and E and I enjoy being Girls About Town. This week I decided it was time for Eva to take in a bit of culture and we had to go to Paperchase at Charing Cross, so we popped into the National Portrait Gallery for a quick look round.

I’ve said a few times that I don’t understand art. But portraits I can do. It’s pictures of people. People are interesting. What’s not to understand? When I was new to London and had neither job nor friends, I used to pop into the National Portrait Gallery quite a bit, to have a nosey around and kill time. Nowadays, I have less time to kill but it was rainy (as you can probably tell from the photo) and I was feeling cabin-fevery so it seemed like a good choice.

First impressions are that it’s somewhere that’s good to take a sleeping baby but wouldn’t be so good with a lively 3-year-old. It’s a “looking” kind of place, and Reuben is very much a “touching” kind of child. Preferably by sticking his head into things. Instinct tells me that sticking your head into a rare renaissance cartoon is the way to get yourself chucked out. He would, however, enjoy the massive escalator, which this photo does no justice to:

It was huge. I went straight up it as soon as we went in, for no reason other than it was there. I was keen to get to a loo because my tights were falling down in a spectacular fashion and, for the same reason, needed to keep moving in case I lost momentum and whatever force was keeping them from above ankle-level was lost with it. I hate tights. I would wear skirts a lot more often if only tights weren’t so dang annoying.

So, with that precarious arrangement and weighed down on both sides by Eva and Eva’s changing bag, I went up the 2-and-a-half storey escalator, praying that I didn’t fall down it backwards. I didn’t. And I did find a toilet in which to sort out my hosiery malfunction. And I did manage to keep Eva asleep while doing so. So there. On my toilet quest, I even caught a glimpse of the London skyline from the Portrait Restaurant, though we didn’t have the time to stop for a cuppa there. I do like a good London skyline.

Onto The Tudors then. In the earlier stages of Mat Leave, teeny Eva and I watched hours of The Tudors (the soap-drama) while Reuben was napping. One time, it was while he was napping on the sofa. He woke up, so I paused it, only to accidentally skip back ten minutes to a scene where someone was having a red-hot poker inserted into his jacksie. I think I bundled Roo out of the room with my hand over his eyes.The point is, Eva and I are quite interested in that period and wanted to see the real-life portraits of some of the people wot we saw on the telly. I particularly was interested in the portrait of Anne Boleyn, as I had done a sketch of it in Art Class in around Year 7 and had gained the highest grade I would ever achieve in my whole Art Class career (it was something like a B+….but I was proud of it). So it was weird, but cool to see the original. Eva pointed out that Anne Boleyn’s necklace was the same one as Betty wore on “Ugly Betty” (another program we enjoy together). Yes, I said, I knew that already. Dumbass baby.

That last bit may have happened in my head. I think she was still asleep. Anyway, we mooched around Tudors for a while, swooped through Regency, ignored Victorians and then went to look at pictures of popstars on Level 1. I was considering going to the “Lost Prince” exhibition, but you had to pay for that and I wasn’t that bothered. So, we saw some interesting things but it was very much look and don’t touch. I’m glad I had time to drift at my own pace rather than chasing Reuben. Having said that, if I found myself in the rain in Trafalgar Square again I wouldn’t be averse to taking him there to shelter for a bit.

On the way out, we had more excitement. I spotted this car in traffic:

Now, we’ve seen this car a lot. Its owner lives on our route to Winchester, so we’ve driven past hundreds of times. In case you can’t read the number plate it’s “Not 2B” and often sits next to another car which reads “2 BE”. Get it? The theatrical reference made us think that it must be some kind of actor-type and we’ve often sat in traffic jams and speculated on who it might be. So I was excited to spot it out and about, with its (presumably) celebrity owner stashed in the back. I chased it down Charing Cross Rd and tried to see, but the windows were blacked out. I have since done some research (i.e. googling) and found out who it was, but you’re just going to have to do that yourself. It’s not as exciting as I thought it might be. But I was excited at the time….

VERDICT: A nice place to kill a rainy afternoon with a baby asleep in a sling. Not the ideal toddler runaround.

More details here (official website)

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

London with a Tiddler

Posted on November 27, 2012 by katese11

Yes, I’ve been hanging onto that post title for a long time. It was the brainchild of my friend Rufus’ Mum, who also invented the “Zoom zoom zoom” game. She’s a professional writer. You can tell, right?

Reuben is now in nursery four afternoons and one full day a week. The blog has suffered a bit as a result, but it does mean that Eva and I have time to ourselves every day to do mummy-daughter bonding things. That mainly involves watching Come Dine With Me, but we occasionally get out and do something more interesting, without having to do whatever Roo wants.

One such jaunt was to Pimlico in the rain (see above). We were with Eva’s friend R and his Mum (aka C’s Mum) and were in search of bargains at the Fara Kids shop. Well, R’s Mum was. I had already rinsed an NCT sale and a local jumble sale, so was on a bit of a tight rein, bargain-wise. But I did pick up a new handbag for myself, after my last one suffered total collapse (usual overfilling reasons…). It looks like a changing bag, which is why it was in the kids shop, but I just use it as a general purpose bag. My handbag-standards have slipped a bit since having a baby…

Well, Eva likes it anyway! It has a strap that’s nice to chew on and it’s all shiny. That’s all she asks for. Anyway, R’s Mum filled bags with her bargains including some breastfeeding tops and a marble run for C. There are two floors of goodies and lots of nice stuff, but also some things I recognised from the 99p shop (babyproofing kit and a Mater book) being sold for £2+. So not everything was a bargain…

Another place I’ve enjoyed without Reuben lately was the Tea House Theatre, which is where the photo above was taken. After a crazy dash to Orpington and back last Friday morning, I dropped Roo at nursery (only ten minutes late) and headed there for a baby-date with Eva’s friend H. Eva spent most of her time on the carpet, playing with the shiny bag and H joined her down there. Handily, that meant that I could get away with eating something without Eva’s tiny hands trying to grab at it.

Oh yeah, cause Eva’s weaning now. The tiny,sleepy baby who snuggled in her wrap and never made a fuss has turned into a food-flinging, teething troublemaker. It’s was Nathan’s Dad’s birthday last week, so we took him to the lunch buffet at Zeitgeist after we dropped Roo off. I had a momentary lapse and thought that, without the 3-year-old, we could eat like civilised human beings while Eva slept. Not her plan. She was wide awake when we got there and didn’t enjoy being jiggled on my knee while I ate some currywurst. No, she wanted to get stuck in and wouldn’t be fobbed off with some cucumber. So I slung her up, walked around the pub a few times and eventually she went to sleep:

Incidentally, Zeitgeist is quite a find. It’s a German pub just off the Albert Embankment with a huge range of German beers and eccentric decor. When it first opened, the menu had descriptions like “this dish is untranslatable but trust us, it’s heaven on a plate”. So tempting to order based on that alone. Nathan had his 29th birthday there (yes, this was a while back) and invited literally all his facebook friends. Around 290 of them. The event wall was filled with posts that said things like “Sorry Nathan, I thought you knew we’d moved to Canada” and “Sorry, but you know we have five children and live in Wales, right?”. He knew. He was just taking my mantra of “polite to invite, rude to exclude” to the extreme. As it turned out, it was lucky that the full 290 people didn’t turn up, seeing as the party was on the same night as a Germany-Finland game and the pub was rammed with Germany fans. And just the one or two Finnish supporters, including our very loud friend Michael. We were lucky to escape alive. You only have to watch “Snatch” (where Zeitgeist features under its traditional name “The Jolly Gardeners”) to see how badly it could have gone. Incidentally, one person did turn up from Wales but that was mainly co-incidental.

Sorry, I digressed a little there again. What else do Eva and I get up to? We run around Kennington Park every Thursday morning as part of a Mums-and-buggies exercise class. Or if we’re being chased by a big dog. Or both. I’m no fitness freak – in fact I’m mainly an eating-chocolate-and-watching-Friends freak. So an hour’s gentle workout helps me justify all that TV chocolate. Probably. Anyhoo, it gets us out in the fresh air and Eva can talk to the other babies. It’s where we met her friend H. We train with Alice, who is super-fit but isn’t a scary robot.
I would recommend it if you’re feeling a bit stir-crazy. Eva often screams through it, but she’s not really a buggy baby and it co-incides with her normal nap time. If she’s napped on the nursery run, she’s all happy and perky and coos to the other babies.

The other thing I’d like to do more with Eva is baby cinema. I used to go to the Big Scream at the Ritzy with Reuben all the time when he was little. The picture about is from a screening of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” when he was just over a month. In the early-parenting haze, going out and watching grown-up films helped maintain my sanity a bit. I remember shielding his tiny eyes from a particularly painful scene in “Bruno”. There are LOTS of other babies screaming, so you don’t feel bad about yours making a noise and some screenings even give you a free cuppa. It’s nice. Sadly, the screening times make it pretty tricky with Eva as they tend to be in the mornings when I have Roo (and they don’t let 3-year-olds watch Sacha Baron Cohen films for some reason). So the Poor Neglected Second Child has missed out again.

We did make it to one mums ‘n’ babies film – Skyfall at Peckhamplex on a Thursday, when Roo does a full day at nursery (again with R’s Mum). I had come straight from exercise class with good intentions of washing in the toilets and putting on some fresh clothes. Sadly, my fresh clothes were in Kennington Park still, in my rucksack. All my careful planning – bus picnic, things to keep Eva amused during the film – had fallen apart. So poor R’s Mum had to put up with the smell of SweatyKate while she should have been idly fantasizing about Daniel Craig. But the babies behaved relatively well, I got my rucksack back from Alice on the way back to nursery pickup and I made it to nursery on time. And Daniel Craig gave those baddies the beating they deserved. So it all ended well.

There you go – a whistlestop tour around the possibilities of London when you only have a tiny parcel and a few nappies to carry about. There’s more, but it’ll have to wait…

Posted in What I suppose you'd call "tips"....? | Tagged baby, cinema, exercise, film, London, pubs, shopping | 6 Comments

Experimental Sound Art with a Toddler

Posted on November 21, 2012 by katese11

So, we’ve been in quarantine again this week. As you may have discerned from my last post, we’re struggling with things to do. Lucky then that we were invited to view a friend’s MA end -of-course Sound Art exhibition at London College of Communication. I wasn’t entirely sure what it entailed, but it was a good chance for an outing, so off we went.

Happily for Reuben, this involved going to Elephant & Castle. Unhappily for Reuben, there was still no real Elephant there. You’d think he would have learnt by now. I showed him the red elephant on top of the shopping centre, but once again this was not right. Ah well, he can learn to be choosy when he learns to control his bottom.

Back to the exhibition…It took a bit of finding, as the entrance to the Nursery Gallery was in the car park at the side and the only likely-looking door was labelled “danger of electric shock, do not touch”. I guess this was a student thing, but I’m quite literal, so I looked at all the other possible doors before gingerly trying that one. It’s OK. I didn’t get shocked.

And I didn’t get too shocked by the exhibits either. I may have mentioned on our trip to the Tate Modern that I don’t really “get” art, but this was more accessible than I’d expected. Reuben was pleased that so many exhibits had headphones on, and happily stood and listened for a while to the “Arm-wrestling” film, which was recorded on the streets form various parts of London. When I put the other set, all I could hear was “f@~#ing c@?#”, so maybe it was time to move Roo on… He thought so too and said “I don’t want to watch this anymore” and switched it off. When I switched it back on, it was just static…oops…Luckily one of the students came and sorted it out, while we wandered off nonchalantly.

One exhibit was actually filmed at the Tate Modern, sadly a week before we were there. A crowd of people walked in, each holding an MP3 player or phone that was playing an animal or bird so it produced a symphony of nature noises in the Turbine Hall. It was pretty cool, and Roo was excited to see somewhere he’d been with his friend C. Another film was of the Barbican, which we’ve also been to fairly recently. I never blogged about that, did I? It was on my due date, it all went wrong, we got stuck in a lot of traffic. Painful memories. Turns out it was all based on an American’s assumption that the Barbican was on the South Bank. She blogged about it here.

Roo’s favourite thing were the vintage toys he found scattered in various corners of the room. I wasn’t sure they were really for playing with, but he had a sneaky play with them before we moved on. I liked the vintage maps and the red cassette tapes, even though I had to explain to an incredulous Roo what they were. I feel so old.

We weren’t there long, but it was more of a hit than I’d expected. I didn’t get many photos as I was a bit busy trying to control him. And i didn’t get much time to look at my friend Greta’s exhibit – several simultaneous films on the meaning of sound – but it was pretty cool. It’s only on till 24/11, so if you want to go, go quickly!