Festival of the Girl – 21/10/23

Posted on October 21, 2023 by katese11

It’s been a big old day so forgive me if I start falling asleep midway through this post. We started with brunch at My Favourite Cafe in Essex Road, which has indeed become something of a favourite of ours. We were with some church people for a meeting but a meeting with bacon is better than most of the meetings I have to go, so it’s all good. Then we jumped on a 38 to Islington Green, bumped into another church-related friend and swung by Pret for free coffee and crisps and cheap mango. Everything you need for an afternoon out.

We were early in to Festival of the Girl and headed straight to the Blue Zone to book onto the RADA workshop Eva wanted. There was already a queue and I was told just before I got to the front that the RADA workshop was booked up. So I added Eva as first on the waiting list and -spoiler – she managed to get it. Phew! We were off to a good start.

There was an author talk going on as I queued – I think it was M.G. Leonard – and that was interesting to listen to. Eva wanted to make something out of clay at the Girls Rising stall so I stood behind her and learnt about beetles. They’re cuddly, apparently.

There is so much to do at the festival and it’s impossible to fit everything in, especially as Eva likes to take her time over tasks. After the clay, the next stop was game designing and she came up with a concept around an evil puppet called Margo. Margo is genuinely quite terrifying:

It was time for the RADA workshop, which we did get into – phew! – and the girls were learning a song from Moana called “How Far I’ll Go”, Now, anyone who knows me in one of my other guises will know that I’m more than familiar with this song and even taught it to Eva’s Year 6 class over the summer. So even though parents were encouraged to sing along, I didn’t exactly have to work hard in this workshop. I could pretty much sing that song in my sleep, tricky alto notes and all. The RADA guy leading it was very encouraging to the kids and straight after the workshop, they went out onto the main stage and sang it for the rest of the festival. It was lovely to see Eva really engaging and emoting as she sang. It’s a good song, even if I’ve spent a touch too much time with it this year.

After that, she did start to flag. Festival of the Girl is great but it’s a lot of sensory processing and a lot of the activities require some thinking, which Eva finds exhausting. Having the workshops in separate spaces this year worked so much better than having them on the mezzanine last year and it did create a calmer zone, which was great.  But by 4PM, we were ready for fries and refillable drinks. You can guess where.

There is so much more we could have done but we had a nice afternoon and part of having a nice afternoon is knowing when to call it quits. She has the activity book and goody bag to look through so that festival feeling doesn’t have to end here. I just hope neither of us end up dreaming about Margo…!

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LWAT is 777! 7 Special Things

Posted on October 18, 2023 by katese11

Back in May 2021, I marked the 700th post on the blog by listing 7 incredible things. It being in ThoseaDays, the incredible things were all about actually leaving the house for once and eating Disappointing Wasabi at Liverpool Street. I had Disappointing Wasabi at Liverpool Street again yesterday but it was nothing to blog home about.

Still, the idea of 7 things is a good one to self-plagiarise for the 777th post. And we may even have done things that are more exciting than getting a vaccine…..

1. Van Gogh Immersive

This one is probably the most exciting but also the only one I wasn’t there for because Nathan took Eva while I was working. But apparently it was awesome – giant canvasses and rooms that were like stepping straight into a Van Gogh painting. It’s closing soon so book while you can.

 

 2. Granary Square Fountains

On this stormy October night, it’s hard to believe that London was sweltering just a few weeks ago. It was so hot that we headed down to Kings Cross one afternoon to cool off in the fountains and have a beer. It was also the day I discovered the “magic eraser” tool on my Google Photos, which accounts for the lack of other people’s kids in the photo above…but also the lack of some of Nathan’s limbs. Anyway, I’m constantly surprised by how pleasant Kings Cross is nowadays and it’s pretty much perfect for a sunny day Central London hangout.

3. Coffee and Bubble Tea in Chingford

For reasons best known to us, we’ve been hanging out a lot in Chingford lately and that requires a lot of hydration. I’ve had coffees from Greggs and Costa, neither of which were spectacular, but I very much enjoyed our trip to Helen’s Coffee on the Green and Eva rates the dragonfruit bubble tea from Double Bubble

4. Rainbows over Slough

Slough is definitely special but not normally in a good way. But as we were driving home from Wokingham last week, we had a rainbow in front of us all the way from Junction 10 to Junction 7 of the M4. It turns out the pot of gold is somewhere in Slough….who knew?

5. Dinner at the end of the Met Line

I think I had a summer mission to explore the Met Line one year and while we went to Pinner, the joys of Amersham remained a mystery to us. Well, no longer! One sunny evening in the summer holidays, we went for dinner at the Metro Lounge while handing children over and it was a lovely meal. Plenty of veggie options for Eva, wheelchair-accessible and even dog friendly. We drove there but when we go for the return visit next week, we might just Met Line it. Why not?

6. Befriending dogs in Islington

I mean, this is standard stuff for Eva but it’s a lovely shot of her now-lost Van Gogh hat and a goodo doggo, in the midst of the chaos of a church Fun Day. Plus, we spotted Routemasters on the way home!

7. Hanging out in Leicester Square

Again, Leicester Square can be the wrong kind of special and we did have my old colleague’s walking tour serenading us with “I Will Survive” as we ate our overpriced scoops of Ben and Jerrys. But the Lego Store never fails to impress the kids, especially when it’s largely Harry Potter themed. Roo was in search of the new collectible minifigs and had moderate amounts of success. So it was worth the two mile walk from the Brunswick Centre..

There you go, 7 Special Things from the last few months. It’s Festival of the Girl this weekend so I’m sure I’ll have lots more to tell you soon. For now though, just enjoy this view of E4’s most scenic field:

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Ash vs The Subways at Kentish Town Forum – 11/10/23

Posted on October 13, 2023 by katese11

Yes, we’ve been out doing childfree things again. On a school night as well! I know, it’s crazy talk and I am definitely Feeling It two days later but it was fun at the time and don’t worry, I have plenty of things to tell you about that are unchildfree as well….I just haven’t got round to blogging them yet. Look out for a special roundup post soon.

But on Wednesday, we went Out to see Ash again. We saw them a year ago, also at Kentish Town Forum, and it was ace so when we saw that they were gigging with The Subways it seemed like we’d be crazy not to go. I haven’t forgiven myself for not going to see Pulp at Finsbury Park yet and I am definitely eyeing up MSP/Suede tickets for next year. It’s good that we’re getting ourselves back onto the gigging scene in time for the 30th anniversary tours of all our favourite albums but that thought does make my head implode so let’s not dwell on it.

Even Ash and the Subways requires some mind-bending maths. The Subways are like the 2000s Ash and the two bands represent very different eras in my life – Ash were the soundtrack to secondary school and sixth form, all teenage love stories and driving around with “Jesus Says” turned up to the max. The Subways were the soundtrack to our pre-kids London life, squeezing into the Buffalo Bar for sweaty gigs and seeing them getting bigger and start to fill venues like Shepherd’s Bush Empire. But that was almost 20 years ago. If The Subways were Ash’s kids, where are Ash’s grandkids who should have debuted around 2015? And give it two years and a punky new trio should emerge to claim the title of Ash’s great-grandkids.

See, told you it was mind-bending.

Anyway, Bob was always there for those sweaty Subways gigs so naturally she and Not-Bob joined us this time. I’m probably not going to review both sets, song by song as I did with Ash last year because my memory’s not that good but it was advertised as a battle and hopefully by the end of this post you’ll know who I consider to be the winner….this time.

So, starting with the youngish upstarts – the Subways. It took a little while for the crowd to get going. Billy had instruct us with a shout of “London – go crazy!” and this was just after a woman had looked at Nathan funny for dancing into her beer as she was walking through the crowd. It didn’t feel like we were quite ready for craziness yet. Gradually, though, the crowd warmed up and by the time Billy was stage diving in from a great height, everyone was well into it. Before the gig, we were reminiscing about how he used to throw himself off balconies and somehow I didn’t think he’d still be doing it in his 30s. So no one was quite ready to catch him as he jumped but he didn’t quite get dropped. It was a close call tho…I imagine I’m not the only person Feeling It two days later.

In so many ways it’s hard to believe that the Subways have grown up. Not just the crowd surfing but the energy they put into every song. Considering this was the final night of a hardworking tour, I’m amazed that they still threw themselves into it. Quite literally, in Billy’s case. And Charlotte hasn’t aged a day since we last saw them. They truly did figure out the secret of staying Young for Eternity. And no, we have never seen them in the daylight.

All of this probably explains why they have a fanbase that were far too young to have been there in 2005. Which was fun at first, cause they got the moshpit going. But then the moshpit turned into a circle pit, which would prove to be a bit much. If you’re not sure about the difference between the two, then I would say a moshpit is where everyone is moving together, to the music as a way of enjoying it. A circle pit is about boys (and it generally is boys) slamming into each other with no real regard to what the rest of the crown might wanna do…like, yknow enjoy the music. But I get that some people have pent up tension so a circle pit is better than some of the alternatives.

I can’t remember exactly what songs the Subs played – I think they finished with “Rock n Roll Queen”, which everyone sang along to and I think they played “With You” just before that. There were some newer songs I didn’t know, like “Influencer Killed the Rock Star” which was about an unnamed ex-friend of the band and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”, which was hugely popular with the crowd. But there was plenty of stuff from the first album too – as I’m writing this and googling at the same time, I’ve found someone who *did* pay attention and I think they played about 6 songs, including the title track.  No “Mary”, which was a shame cause I could have sung the version I wrote about Bob and shared on MySpace. I don’t think that recording still exists anywhere, sadly.

It was a shortish set but packed with energy and they left us beaming and ready for another quick pint before Ash. Would the older guard be able to measure up?

Ash certainly made a strong entrance, with the monologue from the A-Team seguing into a version of Flash Gordon that replaced “Flash” with….you guessed it, “Ash”. And Mark’s orange t-shirt looked amazing under the UV light.

Oh, but then they went straight into playing two songs from the new album without so much as a hello. I know you boys have an album to sell but this is meant to be a battle and the eternal manchild has just thrown down a beer-soaked and sweaty gauntlet. They followed up with “Goldfinger” which got the crowd moving a bit again but although I love anything from 1977, it’s not the most energetic of their songs. “Angel Interceptor” picked things up a bit and then they played “Life Less Ordinary”, which I love for very sloppy reasons. And it was released on this day, 26 years ago! Which I guess means Nathan and I have been together for 26 years? This maths really doesn’t work.

I was feeling weary by this point, after a full on work day and an even fuller-on Subways set but those three songs perked me up. Then there were more new album songs, which were good songs but I wasn’t particularly excited by them. Then “Orpheus”, which Billy had explained had a very special resonance for them…so it would have been rude not to dance to that. Tho since that night, the chorus has been bouncing around my head with “sunshine in the morning/heading for the open road” replaced by “gigging in your 40s/feeling it in every bone” every time I felt a twinge of pain.

Around that time, they played “Shining Light”, which I would have really enjoyed except that the young people from earlier decided to form another circle pit which is pretty incongruous for such a sweet song. Save it for “Kung Fu”, boys. I think they were bored and restless but Nathan and I both had the same thought, which involved people attempting to mosh to “Demons” by the Super Furries at Southampton Guildhall in 1998. Some songs just don’t lend themselves well to the more violent kinds of dances.

It was time for a change of pace, and bringing special guest Démira Jansen out to duet on “Oslo” did just that. I realised how much Ash missed those Charlotte-vocals as Tim and Démira harmonised. It’s that softer side that provides a nice contrast to all the noiserock. The Subways certainly know the value of Charlotte-vocals too.

I hadn’t heard of Démira before but she just made me think of Daisy Jones, both in look and voice. That’s not a bad thing as long as she’s not causing the backstage chaos of Daisy Jones. It was a nice break before a couple more new songs then a cracking double of “Kung Fu” and “Girl From Mars”. It was almost like Ash were finding their mojo, just before taking a pre-encore break. Démira popped back a bit of “Crashed Out Wasted” before we all got to play what I’ve seen described as “an adult game of Peekaboo”.

Unsurprisingly, Ash came back. Slightly more surprisingly, The Subways came back with them. We’d seen some extra mics being set up so we had got our hopes up but didn’t want to get too excited….after all, last year’s encore guest was a bit underwhelming. But no, Billy and Tim were together on stage to declare their bromance to the world. And more importantly, to play “Oh Yeah” with two drummers, two bassists and a whole lotta vocals. It’s not the “Oh Yeah” you’re thinking of though. Or is it? Anyway, Ash and The Subways played “Oh Yeah” and then Ash and The Subways played “Oh Yeah”. Both song were epic. Billy looked like he was living his best life, Tim looked more energised than he had all night and us fans lapped it all up.

Ash finished with “Burn Baby Burn”, sadly without the Subways and we danced out to the sound of “Jump in the Line” from Beetlejuice. Oh yes, they know their demographic.

So, who is the victor in this fight? Sorry Ash, I’ve gotta give this to the Subs. They just brought all the energy and the set was end-to-end joyousness. I feel like Ash were better last year, when they were playing more of the old material and had Charlotte there. But, as I said earlier, I do get it – they’re doing this to promote the new album and it clearly worked because Nathan bought both the album and the t-shirt. If the bands had gone the other way round and I’d had a bit more energy for Ash’s set I might have felt differently but 8 out of the 16 songs in the main set I didn’t know, compared to only 6 out of the 14 songs in the Subways set that I didn’t know. Plus, the bored young people making circle pit trouble made it a less enjoyable experience watching Ash causing every now and then you’d get shoved backwards and just have to kinda wait while the testosteroney ones prowled round the big empty space and decided whether to slam into each other or not.

I mean, I’m moaning but Nathan loved it. I almost lost him to those circle pits a couple of times. In case you’re wondering, he is also feeling the after effects. In case I haven’t mentioned it a million times already in this post, we are a million years old. And sometimes it shows.

But still, it was a grand evening out and I feel very privileged to watch the two bands come together for “Oh Yeah squared”. Epic moments, and yeah, bring on the next gig….

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“The Tempest” at Unicorn Theatre – 23/09/23

Posted on September 23, 2023 by katese11

copyright Unicorn Theatre

 

This is the second child-friendly production of The Tempest that Eva and I have seen this year so do forgive me if I in any way repeat myself . There are similarities but today’s show certainly had a few surprises in store. I’ll explain that shortly.

First though, a fuelling up lunch at My Favourite Cafe in Essex Road after teaching English class:

And then a wander past London Bridge station where I spotted these giant mirrored umbrellas:

We got to the theatre with almost an hour to spare so we doubled back to More London for a free coffee from you-know-where and a look around these random statues. They’ve replaced the primates that were along this stretch of the Southbank last year but I’m not sure what theme they’re following. A lot of them seemed to featured a anthropomorphised rabbit woman and this one also had a polar bear:

I can’t believe it’s the first time we’ve been to the Unicorn Theatre. It was clearly well overdue a visit and the building is bigger than I expected, although the auditorium itself is fairly intimate. There is a lift to all floors, hanging-out space on the ground floor and family toilets on several levels.

So, onto the show itself. This was an abridged and modernised version of The Tempest, aimed at 6-11 year-olds and performed by a very hard-working cast of 6. With such multi-tasking going on, there had to be some severe cuts to the cast list and, as with some previous productions that we’ve seen, the assorted extra nobles and court folk were stripped out to focus on Alonsa (a female version of Alonso), Ferdinand, Stephano and Trinculo. That didn’t seem to affect many of the main plot points though, and the audience-favourite scenes of foot-kissing and Trinculo hiding under Caliban remained intact. There were also some bits retained in this production that I’ve seen cut out of others – like the bit about Ariel being trapped in a tree and the three spirits that come to bless the union of Miranda and Ferndinand, channelling Destiny’s Child as they did so.

Copyright Unicorn Theatre

Destiny’s Child, you say? Why yes, I did mention this was a modernised version, didn’t I? Along with the three feisty goddesses, there were references to Amazon, Apple, Prime, Deliveroo and that Shakespeare staple – Rick Astley. It was one of the ways in which the production was appealing to the Gen Alpha audience but without throwing out the original text entirely. There were also moments of audience participation – particularly at the beginning when Caliban and Ariel addressed us directly and got us to sing the “call of the island” along with them. There were songs scattered throughout the show, which were additions to the text in modern language rather than being taken from the text itself. I think this was to break up the dialogue a bit and help the younger ones in the audience to follow what’s going on. It actually flowed well and the modern references and words didn’t seem at odds with the purer Shakespearean bits. Eva is bit of a Shakespeare buff but not a purist because she laughed harder than anyone at the Rickrolling.

Copyright Unicorn Theatre

There were some really nice touches in the production design and characterisation. Miranda (Daisy Prosper) wears mismatched shoes because of course she is clothed with whatever washes up on the island. She and Ferdinand (Finlay MacGuigan) both played their characters very young and naive, which works really well as Miranda is meant to be a teenager I think – and a very sheltered one at that. Daisy Prosper’s wide-eyed amazement at the new faces around her and her sweet, pure singing voice suited this version of the character perfectly. Finlay MacGuigan also plays Trinculo and there is some superb physical comedy between him and Caliban (Ashley D Gayle). Both are impressively athletic and Caliban also pulls off some great dance moves in his signature song.

Copyright Unicorn Theatre

Caliban and Ariel (Juliet Agnes) act almost as narrators for the whole thing and Ariel especially ties the show together by appearing at opportune moments and reminding the audience that she is pulling all the strings. One of the things I like most was the light tubes around both servants, showing how Prospero (Mark Theodore) kept them enchained. It was a very strong visual metaphor for their imprisonment and turned red when Prospero chose to inflict pain on them. It showed the cruelty of Prospero’s character but it was balanced with an emphasis on his backstory and how much he suffered at the hands of Antonio (Ashley D Gayle again) and Alonsa (Alice Keedwell). It is a difficult balance to pull off and make Prospero even mildly sympathetic but it was well done here. Alonsa was also well played, leaning into the madness of losing a child but not losing him while being taunted by those Deliveroo spirits and their phoney burgers.

Copyright Unicorn Theatre

Another element I liked was the way the tempest itself was created at the start of the show, with a giant billowing white curtain being made to dance by Ariel and Prospero. It’s hard to recreate a storm on stage but this was very atmospheric and when the curtain came down, it revealed a whole new part of the stage.

Copyright Unicorn Theatre

So, there was a lot packed into the 75 minutes – bite-size chunks of Shakespearean farce, audience interaction, songs, dances and moments of sheer madness. It obviously isn’t Eva’s first Shakespeare experience but I think it would have been a great introduction for the younger ones in the audience. The songs were beautifully sung – especially when Ariel was involved – and moved the narrative along from one bit to the other. It felt like the set up of the story took longer than the mid section or the resolution but that’s to be expected in an abridged version.

We left the theatre and tried to get the 47 bus back to Liverpool Street but it was perpetually 3 minutes away so we eventually gave up and started walking, cutting through Potter’s Field park on the way.

Eva wanted a snack but that idea mutated to fries when she saw a hipster burger van by the Scoop. And mutated yet further when I pointed out that there was a Five Guys just up the steps from there. There were a lot of people looking at Tower Bridge but I didn’t see it open, just a lot of people held either side of the gap and then released again. The backlog of traffic might explain why the 47 never arrived though. If I did miss some major event at Tower Bridge despite being there, then do let me know.

And if you know why a rabbit is holding up a rhino, feeding spaghetti to a giraffe or sitting on a tortoise then do let me know about that too….

“The Tempest” is on until 15th Oct at the Unicorn Theatre. For tickets and more info, click here.

Disclaimer: I received free tickets in exchange for a review. All opinions remain honest and my own. All production photos were nicked from the Unicorn Theatre website so they retain copyright and hopefully won’t make me give them back….

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Great Yarmouth – 28/08/23

Posted on September 2, 2023 by katese11

If you read my last post about Great Yarmouth., you’ll realise that I still had another day’s worth of seaside fun to tell you about. So strap in…there are model villages still to come.

First though, breakfast. We’d managed to book into the Beefeater for breakfast at 9:45 but we were ready and hungry at 8:30ish so Eva and I went for a wander to find some pre-breakfast breakfast. The convenience store on the seafront was closed so we walked up past the Hippodrome, which I would have liked to visit if we’d been in Great Yarmouth for a bit longer.

We found a Londis which supplied us with Biscoff cream cookies and also some German crisps for the drive home that were Subway Teriyaki flavour (FYI – they schmeckt gut). Eva and Nathan wanted to drive down to the Beefeater rather than do that walk again so even with all the wandering about, we still arrived 20 minutes early. Time for another paddle:

And then a good fuel up at the Beefeater breakfast buffet which is essentially a Premier Inn breakfast under a slightly different brand. At £20 for all three of us and unlimited everything, it was pretty good value.

Then we drove back up to the seafront, spent ages trying to find a parking spot again and had to squeeze into one between two quite badly parked cars. Lucky that ours is so teeny really.

Talking of teeny, time for the model village. And yes, we did quote Hot Fuzz on the way.

At the entrance, other people seemed to be asking for fish food so we also asked for this. I wasn’t quite sure why we needed it but at a pound a bag, it seemed worth doing. The model village is quite densely packed, with the path taking you round all the different models in quite a prescriptive way. This worked well for getting lots of people flowing around the site at the same time but there were a few bottlenecks where different groups were going at different paces. Eva wanted to look at everything as we went, so we would have taken a slow lane option if there had been one.

Talking of different, what era was this village set in? That was our pretty constant question as we wandered around. And what kind of village includes not just an airport but a rocket launchpad?

So initially, I was thinking kinda trad 50s:

But some of the hairstyles had a definite 70s feel:

And then there were modern minis, which are post 2000…and a take on the London Eye which is also millennial (although could be based on the Great Yarmouth Eye behind it, which is even newer)

All very confusing!

Oh, and there was a very suspect block of flats which seemed to be exclusively let to the swingers’ market. I did take a photo but decided there were too many tiny naked bottoms to include on my PG-rated blog.

Anachronisms aside, this was a fascinating place to visit. There was so much detail in all the models and lots of them had soundtracks  – available via a button – as well as things to look at. These nuns might look like they’re from the Exorcist but they were singing the “Morning Hymn/Alleluia” bit from the start of the Sound of Music. You gotta love a random SoM reference.

Eva had a go on the remote control cars and boats (£1 each) and there was also mini golf.

And the fish food? Well, there were plenty of hungry mouths to feed:

Yeah, this is where I remembered how fishphobic I am. I think they would try and eat me if I fell in.

And talking about scary, check out this giant pigeon:

The winding path took us through the gift shop and popped us right out onto the beach, so Eva went for a bit of a sand-paddle:

And then we both went for an actual paddle:

We were getting through the list of things that Eva wanted to do before we headed off so next on the agenda was the Upside-Down house in the Pleasure Beach Gardens. The house was at capacity when we arrived so I went back to the loos next to the giant wheel while Nathan and Eva waited. The walk took longer than I expected so by the time I was back, they’d been through the house and taken photos to prove it:

Also on the list was “cookie as big as her head”:

And more battered halloumi and chips. Nathan and I were still full from breakfast but Eva wanted her third portion of seaside chips in a 24-hour period. We wanted to try yet another eatery so I think we ended up getting takeaway from Fish & Grill, next to Golden Nugget (which is not an eatery, despite the name). There was a bit of a wait but that would have been the same anywhere at lunchtime on a bank holiday I think. It gave us time to plan our next step, which was to take yesterday’s pun to a new level, in the classic “one of my children” way of flogging a joke. Yes, Eva needed to fill her empty Fanta can with seawater so she could take the “fantasy” home with her.

I don’t really need to set out the logistical issues involved in this pun but you’ll understand why the eventual solution of taking her chips back to the car, having to squeeze myself in through the passenger door due to the very close parking and retrieving an old Coke bottle from under my seat seemed thoroughly logical. It wasn’t empty but I think it was “compilation Coke” from previous journeys so I wasn’t sad to see it poured down a drain. There was a totally empty bottle by Reuben’s seat but that was completely unpassable thanks to the blue jeep that was well over the line. So we filled a Coke bottle with seawater, promised her that we would find a Fanta bottle to put it into when we got home and jumped in the car before the torrential rain started. She hasn’t asked for the seawater since we got home but you’ll be pleased to know that the battered halloumi and chips all got eaten on the nearly 3-hour journey home,

Because turns out, Great Yarmouth is a trek from London even when you live at the exact right corner of London for all things East Anglia. I amazed myself by playing with Google Maps and finding that Great Yarmouth is the same distance from home as Bristol, Poole and Loughborough. That blew my mind cause Bristol is practically Wales and all the way over there. Poole is all the way down there and Loughborough is north of Birmingham, which sounds very far indeed. Norfolk is crazy big, turns out. But still worth a visit if you have to be there anyway and this whole crazy trip was a very pleasant 24 hours by the sea indeed. I’ll just pack a few more cardigans next time…

 

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Great Yarmouth – 27/08/23

Posted on August 31, 2023 by katese11

This was all a bit spontaneous and – for once – Nathan’s idea. I know, a night in a random seaside town is totally the kind of thing I would come up with but this time it was him. Maybe he’s missing the glory days of 2007, when we used to go to the seaside every month. These things were easier before we had children.

Anyway, we have children now and one of those children had to be dropped somewhere in the Norfolk Broads at unearthly o’clock on a Bank Holiday Sunday. This gave the rest of us a good stretch of time before we had to be online on Tuesday and why not go to the seaside?

And why not go to Great Yarmouth?

Well, the reaction of some of my colleagues when I mentioned where we were going might have been reason enough but I’m not sure what they were getting at. So, it’s seen better days. Haven’t most British seaside towns? As long as there’s sand and sea and the occasional glimpse of sun, it’ll do us just fine.

We got to Great Yarmouth just before lunchtime, after successfully abandoning Roo in the middle of nowhere with a brand new minor head injury. We managed to park near our hotel and opposite the pier, which seemed to be free parking and close by to everything. Having driven past some nice-looking pubs on the Broads, Nathan and I were both angling for a pub lunch but the seafront didn’t seem to yield many nice country pubs, weirdly enough. There was one pub called the Barking Smack but that looked packed out and so we wandered into town.

Yeah, there wasn’t much in town. Though we found an abandoned chapel that looked like a plucky young theatre company might come and claim it at any moment. It even had a blue door!

I’m not sure we even found the town centre because Eva was dropping hints that turned into strong suggestions about going back to the seafront and getting some chips. I wanted to eat in somewhere because it was still a couple of hours before we could check into the hotel and the weather was Bank Holiday-unpredictable. Eva insisted she’d seen a chip shop with tables inside so we walked back that way and found The Corner, which did indeed have tables inside.

As it happened, it was good choice of hers. The chips were cooked by a very jovial man in a nautical hat and we were served by an equally lady on the till. They were good chips too and definitely a decent price. They take card as well, which is a bonus as we only had a tenner and some Euros on us.

Fully chip-fed, we went for another little wander. We’d already had one paddle but it wasn’t long before Eva were back in the sea again. It wasn’t quite as warm as Turkey but it wasn’t what I’d call freezing either. Nathan may beg to differ.

But Nathan was sitting up on the stubby pier with a pint so he was alright. When I say pier, I think we were expecting it to be a little longer….like maybe something that went out further than the beach did. But no, the end of pier amusements were still very much on land. You can see where the pier used to be though:

The bit of beach on the north side of the pier had been dogfree but I think the rules were different on the south side of the pier. You can guess which beach Eva preferred. In fact, she declared it a “doggyfnarea” because of the sheer number of good bois and girls running about.

It was almost time to check into the hotel, but first I had some urgent punning to do which involved the drink Eva had bought at the chip shop. Is this the real life or is this just…?

We were staying at the St George hotel, which seemed like it was going to be delightfully eccentric, much like the BnB I’d stayed at in Devon. It did have some eclectic decor  – a broken piano alongside a fish tank alongside some Toby jugs – but the staff we met were disappointing pleasant and didn’t even scold us about our breakfast choices. Probably because there was no breakfast “due to the pandemic”. Do you see why I thought it was going to be quirky?

Having checked in, we headed down to Whippy World where Eva and I shared a Biscoff Whippy Tray. It was three piles of whip, so most definitely a sharer although the lady serving us said she’d people tackle it solo before. Nathan had a strawberry Whippy shake I think.

While we ate our ice cream, I prebooked tickets for the Sea Life Centre behind us which I think was a requirement. Apparently, they’re still in pandemic times as well. But there were still 3PM tickets available and it didn’t close till 5PM, despite what Google Maps said so it all worked fine. I actually booked for 3:10 because, weirdly, it was £8 cheaper than booking on the hour or half hour. Paid for the Whippy Tray anyway.

The Sea Life Centre was lots of fun. I’m a bit scared of fish, as I’d remember the following day, but this place had penguins! Who doesn’t love penguins? Well, apart from possibly Benedict Cumberbatch. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure about Eva given that she was rooting for a seal to eat a penguin at the Earth Experience.

But she did love these funny fellas

She also liked the jellyfish room, with its cool UV lighting:

But her favourite thing was in the room with the shark tank. For some reason, she’d been singing the “That’s a Moray” song all day, so she was thrilled to see a real live moray. I didn’t get a good picture of it but it’s in there somewhere:

I also thought the giant turtle was cool. And as you walk through the tunnel you can get realll close to those sharks.

In the next room, there was the chance to stroke a millipede, which felt oddly like computer cabling, and a slightly camera-shy axolotl:

Oh and a photo opportunity with the clown fish:

Isn’t that like a perfect 90s screensaver?

There was also this giant eel thing, which invited you to reach into its mouth to retrieve a magic pearl. This picture of Eva doing that looks like she’s been papped stumbling out of a nightclub with a mystery beau:

Oh, and did I mention that they got the perfect celebrity to open this aquarium? Yup, renowned pop culture icon and weatherman Michael Fish:

By the time we’d managed to leave the giftshop, the weather had definitely turned for the stormier which would seem to be un-ideal for sea-swimming:

But you should know me by now  – I’d swim in the rain. More surprising was that Eva also agreed to paddle in the rain and so did Nathan, although he was pretty much forced to because Eva was. I wanted to go a bit further out so he was on paddle-watch:

As it was, I was still scraping my knees on the bottom but at least I got a full immersion swim. Nathan again mentioned that the water may have been a bit chillier than the Med, despite my salespitch to the contrary.

After that, we headed back to the hotel for a bath and a cup of tea before heading out to dinner at HMS Hinchinbrook, which was pretty much next door to where we’d had lunch. Despite building up an appetite from my swim, I was still kinda full from lunch chips but I did my best on another pile of chips and a very tasty lasagne.

Eva had read that there was battered halloumi on the menu so of course that’s what she had…along with a vegan burger, garlic bread and yet more chips. Nathan had a burger and yup, chips again.

It was only natural that, after all this feeding, our thoughts would turn to breakfast. As our hotel didn’t provide it, I was planning to go to the Beefeater restaurant at the Premier Inn, which was just a bit further down the seafront. I tried to book online but couldn’t quite understand the timeslots so suggested that we head down there to book in person. In Turkey, we always had a sea-side walk after dinner to help our food go down so this seemed like a fine tradition to uphold.

Like the sea, this walk was Chillier Than Turkey. Eva, who claims not to feel the cold, was shivering in her dress and we ended up sharing a cardigan as we walked past the Pleasure Beach fairground.

The restaurant was also a bit further away than I’d thought but we managed to book for the next morning and then just had a chilly stroll back to our hotel, awkwardly bumping into each other under the cardigan canopy. But the main thing was that we let our food go down before bed…and that we still had another day to look forward to the next day.

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“Portraits of Dogs” at Wallace Collection – 19/08/23

Posted on August 19, 2023 by katese11

We’re back in London after our trip to Turkey and what better to do than something really Central London-y? Someone on a local group had shared an invite for a “quiet hour” session at the Wallace Collection and I’d booked straight away. Eva loves dogs and dislikes noisy crowds so this seemed perfect.

Of course, Eva deciding to go for a sleepover the night before was not so perfect but I extracted her at 7am and somehow we got to Oxford Street before 9am. It was so early that I felt like I should be doing a 9-6 shift at Clarks. Eva wasn’t keen on this idea and I don’t blame her – it is Back to School after all and that was always crazy.

I haven’t been to the Wallace Collection before but had heard of it thanks to many confused people who turned up at the Wellcome Collection when I worked there. If you’re similarly unfamiliar, then just walk down Oxford Street, hang a right at the Disney Store and follow Marylebone Lane all the way up to Manchester Square.

There are some interesting things to look at on the way, like this floral building:

We arrived just in time for the first musical storytelling session of the day and were ushered through the building to the newish gallery downstairs. As it was a SEN session, there was a quiet space on offer for anyone who needed it but, as it was, we were fine  – it was all very calm anyway so no time out required.

The actual exhibition is quite small but there’s lots to see. We wandered around a bit before the storytelling started and I was very pleased with myself for dressing to match one of the paintings:

The storytelling was very interactive and I think Eva was a bit too sleepover-tired to interact much. She enjoyed pretending to be a dachshund in this room though:

I mean, give that girl any excuse to bark rather than talk and she’ll take it. After the storytelling, we worked our way backwards through the rooms as we’d skimmed over the “Royal Dogs” section. Luckily Summer wasn’t with us as she’d have something to say re lack of corgis but there were many regal spaniels, some of which were sketched by Queen Victoria herself. Apparently Queen Vic also thought this painting was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. I can’t argue:

Much as I love the doggos, it’s the parrot that really makes this painting for me.

After we’d seen every dog in the place – and read every sign – we went to the model making workshop where Eva made a cute little Schnauzer out of plasticine:

I tried to make a dog as well but Eva tells me it looked like “a scaly duck from Hell”. The green eyes only made it more demonic-looking, not less apparently.

Eva then made a wire and plaster model of a dog with some help from the staff who were running the workshop. Everyone we met was so nice and they really took time to make sure the model was working – right up to sending us home with a few extra sheets of plaster in case we needed to patch the dog up.

I think it worked OK and even survived the trip home, wrapped in some paper towels and a Pret bag.

We also bumped into some friends at this point, which was lovely. And not overly surprising, given they’re on the same LBWF SEN networks as we are.

Before we left, we made a whistlestop tour through the rest of the collection. There were a few rooms of armour on the ground floor, which I think Roo would enjoy:

And the upstairs rooms were beautifully decorated and full of paintings which toned with the very ornate wallpaper.

I might take the English Class students there at some point because it’s a very English place to look around and I think they’d appreciate it. If only my favourite Americans were still around…

So a fun morning out, especially for my little canid-enthusiast. It’s well worth going to see and spending some time in the rest of the house as well.

“Portraits of Dogs” is on until 15th October. Click here for tickets and more info. 

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Touristy Turkey

Posted on August 18, 2023 by katese11

The LWAT Chaos machine has been on the road again and this time, it all went reasonably well. Our trip to Mallorca last year involved power cuts, thunderstorms, all-night delays and literally hundreds of mosquito bites. Our quick jaunt to Copenhagen darn near ended in a riot after three hours of delays and two flights trying to use the same gate…there was no actual riot but we did end up with Covid.  So when the worst that Turkey could throw at us was a small delay and a change of room, I call that a success.

We were flying from Gatwick again, which isn’t the most convenient London airport for us…in fact, it’s probably the least convenient. I think the drive home last year took an incredible four hours. But this time the drive went smoothly, parking was swift and we arrived at the terminal with a full four hours before the flight. Having said that, we did dodge an almighty bullet after I initially booked some very ropey-looking airport parking through a website called Best Parking Deals. The website itself was legitimate enough but it was just a price comparison site and what was billed as “Gatwick Park and Ride” turned out to be “Park and Ride for you” – the proud owner of 48 1*reviews on Google Maps. I only found out the actual name after I’d paid and booked and the confirmation e-mail, which told me I needed to pay an extra £5 “car park entry fee” and that set alarm bells ringing. I found the reviews, cancelled the booking and then went after the price comparison site for their £20 “admin fee”. You’ll be glad to hear that I got the money and spent it on the official parking, which was a little pricier but at least the car would still be there when we got back.

So, given we weren’t stranded in rusty minibus in rural Sussex, we had plenty of time to kill before our flight. We were travelling with an airline I hadn’t heard of before – Corendon Airlines – and their hand luggage allowance is pretty generous, compared to Airs Ryan and Wizz. We worked out that for 5 nights we could pretty much cram it into 4 cabin-size suitcases and take no hold luggage at all. That meant we skipped out the hour-long check in queue we had last time. It took a bit of measuring and masking tape on the floor to reassure ourselves that the suitcases were the right size but yes, sure enough we boarded a plane with one of these each plus a smaller “personal bag” at no extra cost. Go Corendon!

The extra time meant we could get some Turkish Lira, which I hadn’t had time to organise in the frantic packing-and-working week prior to departure. Eva spotted a Pret, which meant I could get us some free coffee and dried mango, and then we had a meal at WonderTree, which is where we ate last time as well. I’m not sure what meal it was, given that it was 3PM and we’d had brunch before leaving. I like to call it “linner” but I’m not convinced that’s a word.  Anyway, WonderTree has some good vegetarian options for Eva and some good meat/waffles/syrup options for Roo and even some healthyish options for people like me who don’t like to eat too heavily before flying (I had the Hawaiian beef bowl and it was yummmm…..last year, I had the hummus plate and also yum).

Although we liked the relaxed attitude that Corendon had around baggage allowances, we weren’t so keen on the relaxed attitudes toward departure times. Early on, a note had appeared on the screens saying we’d get gate info at 16:40….for a 17:00 flight. If that seems like a bad sign to you, let me assure you that it was. We were still sitting around at the gate at takeoff time and then once we were all seated and had had the safety demo, we were told that we’d missed out takeoff slot and had to wait another 30 mins. This wasn’t great for Eva, who gets very anxious before a flight and the sitting around with nothing to distract her wasn’t helping. Eventually I decided to just get my phone back out – having put it into flight mode and packed it away under the seat in front – and that gave her something to do. By that point, people were back out of their seats chatting to friends and queuing for the loo so a phone is not as contraband as you might think.

Anyway, she’s always fine once we’re in the air and we finally got into the air around 19:20. And were rewarded with some lovely sunset views:

All of this landed us in Turkey very late at night though. With the time difference, it was 2AM by the time we were hanging around a smoky part of Antalya airport waiting for our taxi. Roo fell asleep as soon as we got into the taxi and I was dozing, only to be woken when we made a “rest stop” halfway to the hotel at a neon-lit shopping centre. Our driver told us to go and get food but also told us – via Google Translate –  that the shopkeepers were likely to try and overcharge us. I was far too tired to even process any of this and my stomach was far too tired and confused to process any snacks. So I used the free loos and came back to the taxi only to find a small white cat had taken up residence around the handbrake.

At this point, I really did think I was hallucinating but apparently everyone else saw it too….and this would become something of a theme throughout the week.

Our hotel was a full two hours’ drive from the airport, including the rest stop. Along the way, we did see some interesting things but were moving too fast to get any decent photos. Eva – who did not sleep at all during the drive – was fascinated by the Turkish moon, which hung super low in the sky at 3AM and was crescenty, just like the Turkish flag. It was pretty special but I definitely did not manage to capture its majesty.

It was 4AM Turkish time when we stumbled into the hotel to be met with some plumber-like intakes of breath from the man on Reception. This did not seem like good news. As it happens, it could have been worse but we’d been assigned one room for the four of us instead of the two we’d paid for.  It would be a tomorrow problem though, as sleep was becoming an urgent priority.

Of course, a few hours later Reuben’s urgent priority was breakfast. We hadn’t had much to eat since linner the day before so he had something of a point. Nathan was not on board with the whole waking up thing but the rest of us managed to drag ourselves downstairs for around 8:30 and that was it, we had started our day and our holiday.

So let me tell you a bit about our holiday setup – a little late into the post, granted, but I’m sure all that stuff about dodgy airport parking will come in useful to someone. I should point out that, even though this blog is still called London With a Toddler, we no longer own any actual children of the toddling variety. I’m working on stealing one but he isn’t responding as well to the trail of breadsticks as I’d hoped. No, ours are that much older now and so the kind of holiday we can attempt is a bit different. Do not in any way read this post and think it’s OK to leave your toddler unsupervised on a waterslide or drinking unlimited amounts of Coca-cola. Or if you do, just don’t sue me.

We were staying at Club Wasa Holiday Village, an all-inclusive resort which was right on the beach. It was far from luxury but, as I may have mentioned before, we’re not exactly high-class people so that’s OK. What I do look for in a holiday is the chance to swim all day and eat whenever we’re not swimming. And this provided both. Plus the aforementioned unlimited Coca-cola, which both kids took full advantage of and beer, which Nathan took full advantage of. I did try the wine once but just the once…enough said.

I’ve called this post “Touristy Turkey” cause I can’t pretend that we even scraped the surface of the culture Turkey has to offer. When Nathan and I visited in 2008, we took a boat trip and had a mud bath and saw rock tombs and all kinds of things but that was all before kids. Nowadays, holidays tend to be slower paced and involve a lot of relaxing and playing card games. Plus, August in Turkey is genuinely too hot to do much. Our previous trip had been in April and temperatures were around the mid 20s – this trip was 30C plus every day. I’m justifying myself a little too much here but I did have a conversation with a slightly pushy sales rep on that first morning – when I’d been up all night and slept for a few hours in a room that wasn’t what we booked. I’m not sure I was my *best self*. But no one really is when trying to explain that his excursions looked lovely but we were only there for 4 days and spending £200 on a 9-hour day out might be somewhat of a disaster if the kids aren’t in the mood for it. And chances are they wouldn’t be, not in that heat and with sensitivities to noise and crowds.

We did venture out to Alanya for one morning though. Normally on holiday we just potter around on foot but there was nothing in the vicinity of the hotel except for more hotels and a dual carriageway. So we ordered a taxi and for €15 he took us to Kızıl Kule – the Red Tower. Now, I’m not saying this wasn’t still a touristy thing to do but it was the only time when we all got dressed in actual clothes instead of swimwear so it counts as culture.

And what a lovely spot it was! Right by the harbour with a tiny beach and a great view of these pirate-type ships we’d been spotting on the horizon all week. It only cost 30 Lira each to go up the tower, which is around £1.20 so a very economical trip out. The observant among you will notice that I quoted the taxi fare in Euros and the entry fee in Lira and if you’re confused, you’re in good company. Although the official currency is Lira, it seems like Euros were accepted everywhere and even desired. When we asked prices in shops, we were always quoted in Euros which led to some confusion (10 Lira for a pair of sunglasses would be very cheap indeed) We were barely organised enough to get one set of currency, let alone two, but I had a look in my wallet and found €25 in notes and change that had been hanging around since last year. We ended up getting more Euros from an ATM in a situation that got a bit confusing but I’ll explain that later.

First off, the Red Tower! It’s a bit of a slog up to the top and the steps are massive, especially the first flight up. I’m still feeling that stretch in my thigh muscle two days on. But along the way, there are shady enclaves to sit and feel the breeze through the arrow slits.

We’d had a little paddle in the sea before the climb and I definitely wouldn’t recommend stone steps in wet flip-flops..but we made it almost to the top with no accidents. Nathan and Reuben went to the very top but Eva and I wussed out and hung around this level, which felt firmer underfoot. It meant that I missed out on the view from the very top but Nathan got a good shot:

There were also exhibits to look at along the way, including this catapult:

And, of course a sleeping cat:

After the climb we went for another paddle but that’s when I noticed just how much broken glass there was on the beach. It wasn’t smoothed-off seaglass but the proper jaggedy type which, again, I wouldn’t recommend with flip-flops. It’s a pity cause it’s a lovely sheltered enclave with a good view of the castle walls which run right along the cliff.

On Google Maps it had looked like the castle and the Red Tower were close together but seeing it in real life made me realise why it had suggested a 36-minute walk. It’s all built on quite the gradient.

So we didn’t make it to the castle but we did get cans of ice tea from the shop by the harbour and used the loos by a pretty waterfall (that’s not a euphemism) which charged us €1 each. Again, with the confusing currency. We then walked up the hill to the shops as Eva wanted a new swimsuit and along the way, I got some more Euros out of an ATM to pay for a taxi home. It only let me take a €50 note out tho, which meant we needed to make some change. Eva’s swimsuit was charged in Lira so we needed to buy something else to make change. I considered a new swim top for myself as my shoulders were quite badly burnt by this point but the cheapest was 700 Lira. So instead, I bought a €4 fake Nike t shirt to wear in the pool and felt only slightly guilty that the old man running the shop had to go to a different shop next door to get the change. The swim t-shirt worked a treat tho – no more sunburn after that.

This is where it all gets confusing though and I probably should have thought things through a bit more. We found a taxi driver to take us back to the hotel and he nodded when I said “Club Wasa” and quoted us 150 Lira. It sounded cheap but I didn’t think too much of it. A few minutes later, we pulled up to Kleopatra Beach which is meant to be a lovely beach but not where we’d asked to go. After some confusion and handing over my phone with Google Maps directions on it, he said he’d have to set the meter to get us back. Which was fine but we’d deliberately run down our Lira while shopping because everyone seemed to prefer Euros. And the meter was in Lira. As I watched it tick up past what we had left in our hand  – 280 Lira – I devised a plan. The outbound taxi had been €15 so it seemed fair to expect to pay the same on the way back. I used Google to convert €15 to Lira – 441 Lira – and when we pulled up offered this in Euros to cover the fare, which had been 360 Lira in the end. I felt cheeky offering a currency that was not his own but he seemed happy enough, especially as it was more than we should have paid. I was just relieved to have got back home.

Today’s post appears to be sponsored by Google but it is not. And it is definitely not sponsored by my mobile network, who were charging me a fortune to do all this googling. It’s also worth saying that I let myself down by not studying a bit of Turkish before we left as I do usually like to swot up. I’ve had a lot of my mind though, and this holiday kinda crept up on me (hence the currency exchanging at the airport). I never want to assume that everyone will speak English everywhere we go but I’m still out of practice at foreign travel post-Covid. We have been on a few trips in the last few years but everyone in Copenhagen spoke better English than we did (including to each other, not just to the tourists) and while I didn’t master Catalan for our Mallorca trip, my very basic Spanish did the job. Next time I will do better.

And yes, I would have been right to assume that English wasn’t widely spoken in Turkey. It was tricky when trying to negotiate a change of rooms to the two we’d booked as we had to wait for the English-speaking manager to be on shift, which didn’t happen till our second day. We did eventually get sorted though, so don’t fret too much about us. If I’d thought about it, I would have tried my luck with German as there were a few German visitors at the hotel and that might have been a bit more widely spoken. Most of the guests were Russian though and my Russian vocab really only extends to “yes”, “no”, “please”, “thank you”, “milk”, “happy”, “sad”, “woman” and “mouse”. None of which would have really helped in the whole room-swapping situation.

Generally, we coped well though with a bit of sign language, my two words of Turkish – “hello” and “thank you” can get you a long way if you combine them with an insane amount of smiling. At the hotel there was a woman on the beach making fresh gözleme and she seemed very charmed by my stumbling attempts to thank her in Turkish. Every day she piled more and more gözleme onto my plate and it was probably the best thing I ate while we were out there. It was so good. The rest of the food was kinda bland but there was fresh melon every dinner time, which was also lovely, and a kind of Turkish chilli sauce which pepped up the meat-in-sauce that was served every meal.

One night I had three different types of cabbage, two of them pickled. You have to feel sorry for Nathan sharing a bed with me that night. The bright pink one was goood though. On the food front, you’ll have to forgive me while I become That Blogger for a moment and say that the vegetarian options were a bit limited. Eva was more than happy to live off chips for the week – with more chips from the snack bar in between meals – but there certainly weren’t the kinds of vegan burgers and sausages she has at home. Not that I would expect there to be! She had some plain pasta a few times and would have had the rice but one day there was bits of chicken in it and I think that made her mistrustful. The desserts nearly all had a wobbly kinda texture so we assumed they all had gelatine in and so were also not for her. She found a chocolate brownie type cake that she was very happy with though, so between that and the fresh melon she was absolutely fine.

After all our taxi shenanigans on the third day, we decided to have one last lazy day on the fourth and did nothing but eat and swim. Except that Eva decided she needed to become a wildlife photographer and disappeared off with my phone for a bit to try and film all the tiny feral cats that hung around the holiday village. It was the hottest part of the day so the cats were nowhere to be found but usually they were everywhere. I’m not a cat person but these bebbehs were kinda cute, with their tiny faces and their tiny mews. They kept Eva amused any way.

I mentioned waterslides briefly earlier and that was another source of amusement for both kids. It was just one slide – we chose to ignore the fact that the neighbouring hotel had much bigger and better slides –  but Reuben especially was zipping up and down it all day. He occasionally got frustrated with the lack of queueing etiquette from the other kids but I told him it wasn’t his job to police them and, sure enough, on the last afternoon of the last day, a lifeguard appeared and blew a whistle every so often which I think was meant to deter these kids from pushing in or climbing back up the slide when it was closed and things like that. I feel like it really needed a person at the top of the slide all the time though. It would have made things much easier.

There were a few niggles like that, as there often are on package holidays. Ice cream was free but only served once a day which caused more frustration and more violations of queueing etiquette. Tables for lunch and dinner were hard to come by and we had to eat on a bench one day until we learnt to get there before the doors opened.

There was at least one stand up fight over the lack of tables and I saw a British woman saying to a German “You’re not in Deutschland now”, to which the German shrugged and remarked to her dining companions that the British woman shouldn’t have been “zu spät”. It was a bit ugly on both sides and it was stuff like that which made some meal times feel edgy when they should have been relaxing. And also could have been solved by having enough tables for the number of people staying. Still, lovely dinnertime views though:

Sun loungers were also hard to come by – weirdly less so on the beach than by the pool – and we often just left our stuff in a slightly soggy pile while we swam but this is again pretty standard for this kind of holiday.

There are a few things worth mentioning about the return trip, in case anyone else is planning to do similar. Yes, we did have another 15-minute “rest stop” which was a bit nail-biting when it was two hours before the flight and we were still 40 miles away. It was a good opportunity to get snacks though, as an early start meant we hadn’t had breakfast – apart from some cake that Eva had stashed away the previous day and then presented to us in cups like a tiny Mrs Doyle:

It’s always good to try something new in a different country but it was quite amusing that the biscuit selection at the rest stop was the exact same ones that we have in the Turkish supermarket on our road. So we bought some of our favourites plus some pretzel sticks and more ice tea for not-quite-breakfast snacks. We later had some hugely overpriced chips at the airport food court but let’s not dwell on that.

On the airport side though, it’s worth noting that effectively you have to go through Security twice. As soon as you enter Antalya airport, there are scanners for your bags but this is before check in and you don’t need to dispose of any liquids at this point. There are also no bins nearby, so we ended up sending an empty ice tea can through the scanner in a tray. The stern looking lady insisted. After that, there’s check-in which we skipped because we had already checked in online and had no hold luggage. That might have been a mistake because at the gate, our passenger numbers were written on a short handwritten list that made me think we’d done something wrong. Also, everyone else at the gate had cardboard tickets. Whoops!

After check in, we had our boarding passes (on Nathan’s phone) checked, along with our passports before going through passport control and another round of security, this time with no liquids allowed other then 100ml containers. After that, we were free to eat the overpriced fries before going to the gate for two more rounds of passport and boarding pass checking. Thorough, confusing and slightly rushed but at least we took off on time. And we celebrated with a lunch at Greggs as soon as we cleared Customs the other side. We got the car back with no drama, ever thankful that we’d rebooked the parking, and let’s not talk about Dartford. We got home, that’s all you need to know.

A few blips aside, it was a pretty relaxing holiday and just what we needed after the rain-soaked July we’ve had in the UK. For a bargain-ish price it was a pretty good break and being able to travel with just hand luggage made life easier. Now to just get through another two weeks of rain before school starts….!

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BBC Earth Experience – 08/08/23

Posted on August 9, 2023 by katese11

Ever wondered what it would be like to visit the Planet Earth? Well, now you can find out but be warned – you have to go to West Brompton first and that’s as tricky to get to as Mercury. Which is why we ended up getting off at Earls Court and walking the last bit – it was easier than waiting for a District line train on the Wimbledon branch.

Anyway, it worked out well because there was a Pret and a TARDIS:

Although the not-so-ideal part was that it was tipping it down, which made the short walk a very soggy one:

But it was easy enough to find and yes, would have been just a few short minutes from West Brompton. But I might not have been caffeinated.

We’d booked online for a specific timeslot so, once the Hollys arrived, we were straight through apart from a bag check. It was very smooth and, on a sunnier day, Empress Place might have been a nice place to hang out as there was street food and giant chess. This month has not been a street food kinda month though.

(Except last week, when Nathan and I ate street food far away from the street in Walthamstow Mall)

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this experience but it is essentially one large room with multiple screens showing videos in extremely high definition. It’s immersive in that the screens are everywhere but it’s not VR or anything that requires a headset, which is good because some of the assembled kids were not keen on the idea of putting anything over their eyes (Reuben tells me he gets “enough injuries on a day-to-day basis without VR”)

So we settled down in the middle of the room and started to watch. There were some seats and some large cushions but on a busy day it’s probably best to bring your own.

It really is best to settle in and relax because the film is quite lengthy. David Attenborough takes us through each of the seven continents, describing the wildlife and plant life on each one in his trademark soothing tones. I would be remiss if, at this point, I didn’t mention that I once met David Attenborough when I worked for Clarks….and he bought a pair of shoes called “Nature”. That truly was the best day ever.

How much your kids will engage depends on their age and stage really. Eva is interested in all things adorable and floofy so there was plenty to entertain her. Reuben put his hood up throughout the Australian section in case there were any spiders but other than that, he seemed to enjoy it. It’s hard to describe the scale of it all but it is massive and really draws you in. There were some very pretty bits, like this swarm of fireflies, which looks like Nature’s Goldschläger:

But then also some quite gruesome bits where the adorable floofy animals ate each other. But that is the natural world for you. We were all relieved when a tiny penguin managed to escape an elephant seal, except Eva who just loves seals and was rooting for it.

As well as the main room, there are two side rooms which are a bit more interactive. One is the Micro Life area, which comes with this warning:

You can guess which of my kids decided to stay away from this one.

Inside the room, it’s dark with a big red button which activates the screens. I wasn’t entirely sure whether we were doing it right but we certainly managed to make some creepy-crawlies appear:

The other room was called Water Life and had those motion-sensitive screens that you can just spend hours in front of, making pretty patterns:

After that, we went up onto the balcony where I think you could watch the full seven continents again but with different videos and different narration. I’m not sure how the narration worked, as there wasn’t anywhere where it sounded like there were clashing soundtracks going on…but I think it was different as it matched the video. The kids were a bit too hungry and tired to do the full reel again so we started to head out.

First though, we spent some time watching this giant screen in between the balcony and the ground which was almost like a flight simulator because it genuinely felt like you were moving while watching it. Reuben felt travel sick so couldn’t look at it for long but the rest of us enjoyed it.

There were two more things to look at on the way out – firstly, this 3D model of the Earth (spherical at the front, conical at the back…in mo way flat)

And secondly, a greenscreen booth in the gift shop where you could take photos for free with an animal of your choice. It gets e-mailed directly to you so ours went to Eva’s e-mail address and I haven’t yet seen it. I’m sure it was something special though.

ETA: She sent it! I’m glad I’m paying for those drama lessons

It was a fun morning out but we probably maxed out the experience at around the 90 minute mark. There could have been a few more interactive things and a cafe definitely would have kept us there longer. It was the hunger rather than nature-fatigue which pushed out back out into the rainy West London day.

There didn’t seem to be huge numbers of lunch options around West Brompton and we had plans to go to the Tate Modern via the wobbly bridge. So we headed back to Cannon Street because a) it was on the District Line, b) it’s near the wobbly bridge and c) it has a Leon very nearby. Admittedly,. we did have to change at Earls Court again because there was no Upminster train showing but it all worked out alright.

Fuelled up on waffle fries, halloumi, grain salads and houmous we headed back into the rain for a walk to the Tate Modern. Along the way, we found some Morphs without ever really trying:

 

The Tate Modern was pretty packed, as it often is on a rainy day in August. Quite a lot of the exhibits were things I’d seen before – I think I last took Eva around 2019 – but we did see some interesting new things. There was a film installation where someone had remade a scene from “Imitation of Life” and played it side-by-side with the original. With the women all recast as Asian men, obviously. That’s art for you.

I also liked this giant installation of venetian blinds:

And this stack of radios, which were all tuned to different stations:

This is one of the exhibits that was a bit of an assault on the ears, with the out of sync “Imitation of Life”being the other. I mention this because I’m still slightly irritated that a presumptuous young woman told Reuben off for whistling quietly to himself as he looked at some of the art. Instead of maybe moving to another room of just accepting it as part of a very noisy museum on a busy holiday day, she chose to try and shame him for something that’s a bit of subconscious tic. I don’t know if it’s a ND or an RM thing but he’s been doing it a bit lately and it doesn’t hurt anyone, especially in contrast to a giant stack of detuned radios. I mention this, not to embarrass him further as he mainly shrugged it off but it was me that is still brooding over it. No, I mention it to make this stark point to my readers – if you see a teenage boy engaging with any kind of culture during his summer holidays, without being under duress and seeming to enjoy then for the love of all that is good and holy, do not do anything to mess with that,

Step away from the teenage boys madam. You go enjoy art in the way that you want to (may I suggest a sunny day in termtime?) and let him enjoy it in the way that he wants to. And here ends the lesson.

That small drama apart, we had a fine time. There was lots to look at, even if we didn’t understand it all. But some was just quite pretty:

And some of it was very educational, such as the display about inequality in art which Eva wanted to read every word of:

At one point, the Hollys and Reuben headed across the bridge at the 4th Floor to the other side of the building. Eva is a bit wobbly about heights and had already braved the wobbly bridge so she chose to stay where she was and read these panels:

Eventually we realised that we could just go down in the lift and back up the other side so we were reunited on the 3rd Floor of the Blavatnik Building, where there were computers for making your own art and projecting it on the wall. Did Reuben choose well here or did he choose violence? I guess it depends on whether you can tell what he drew:

I scanned the QR code so, happily, I can view that delightful picture any time I want to. Interestingly, when I took a picture of this window, my phone also tried to scan it as a QR code:

We were all definitely flagging by this point and the Tate Modern isn’t especially close to any tube stations…so we wended our way back slowly towards Waterloo to meet Nathan after work. Along the way, we stopped at a doughnuts and churros van to fuel up a bit, although Eva’s churros looked a lot like fries:

And, of course, the obligatory loo stop at the Royal Festival Hall and a quick climb on the red benches.

That seems like a good place to stop, before we all get too overtired and grouchy. Google Maps tells me we walked almost 4 miles and I think my feet would agree. Still, a lovely day catching up with friends and a tick in the summer holiday culture box. Success!

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Barbie at the Barbican – 06/08/23

Posted on August 8, 2023 by katese11

Yes, I succumbed to the hype and took Nathan and Eva – along with Eva’s BFF and her parents – to see the Barbie movie. We’ve yet to see “Oppenheimer” but we did see “Asteroid City” last week, which has some atomic tests in it (and Margot Robbie, as it happens) so we’ve pretty much done both. I chose a Sunday afternoon showing at the Barbican and I’ll be honest, there was pros and Kens so I’m gonna list them out for you:

Pro: The pun! This is 100% the reason I chose the Barbican to see this movie. It just had to be done, in my opinion

Ken: You will get lost on the way. I have never yet visited the Barbican without getting at least a little bit lost

Pro: When you get lost, you spy awesome stuff like this restored medieval church in the midst of all the brutalist architecture and the neon green lily pad water.

Ken: That opaque, unfenced water was a worry for me when I had a free range toddler and it’s not much better with an unpredictable 11-year-old

Pro: Comfy seats and a lovely red curtain to make it feel like a real Event showing

Ken: If you go to Cinema 2 instead of Cinema 1, you’re in completely the wrong building and it’s a long way to retrace your steps

Pro: They sell a special Barbie-Ken cocktail!

Ken: Other snack options seem limited

Pro: Not overly crowded, especially at the start of the ads and trailers

Ken: You may well be the only one who’d brought a child with you to this toy-based movie. People may stare

Pro: Gender-neutral toilets, some with cubicles and some with urinals

Ken: The ones without urinals only have three cubicles. Three!

Overall, a fun cinema experience and we all enjoyed the movie even if large parts of it seemed derivative of other films starring Will Ferrell (“Elf” and “The Lego Movie” spring to mind) It’s worth wearing pink, even if you’re the only ones because yknow….it’s a legit phenomenon. You might as well lean into it.

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