Festival of the World (Southbank Centre) – 22/06/12

Posted on June 22, 2012 by katese11

It’s been a rather blustery day. Walking along the river, I thought Roo’s buggy might just be whipped away over the edge. Luckily, I had Roo to use as a counterweight, so once I put him in it the problem was solved. Or maybe I was setting him up to get whipped over the edge. Who knows?

We were at the Southbank Centre to a) meet our good friends Tammy and Jake and b) check out the “Festival of the World”. My friend over at Adventures with Gravel highly recommended it and I was waiting for a nice sunny day to have a look around the outside bits. Then I gave up on the sunny day and we just took cover in the Royal Festival Hall whenever it tipped it down. Which led us to our first discovery – the Festival Museum, located on the ground floor (i.e. under the ballroom). I went through it a bit quickly to really gauge what it was all about, but visually, it was great for toddlers. Every section had a different theme – starting with a fake outdoors (grass, sky, caves) and culminating in a passport office where you could use a computer to print your own “citizen of the world” passport. I didn’t quite have time to figure out how to do that, thanks to Roo charging off again so seems I’m not a citizen of the world. Bah.The photobooth was also out of order, which didn’t help.  On, the upside the “passport office” was decorated with brightly coloured toys, which Roo loved, and some pots and pans on strings, which made a tremendous noise when you banged them. Which Roo did, obviously.  As ever, I would have liked to have looked round the exhibits and read all the displays but that is not the way of the (now) 3-year-old. So, instead here are some grainy photos. I hate my blackberry. Oh, and happy birthday Reuben.

Wow, whatta lotta photos. And yes, that is a tiny Batman in the last one.

By now, the sun was peeking tentatively through the clouds, so we went outside equally tentatively, to have a play at “Rainbow Park”, the multi-coloured sand installation next to Waterloo Bridge. It was ace. The idea is very simple – dye some sand and arrange it in roughly rainbow colour – but it mesmerised Reuben for ages. And me too. There was a mix of textures, so it felt good underfoot and there were lots of things for Roo to climb on and jump off. Again, pictures will explain this better….

And as an added bonus, here’s a rare photo of Eva enjoying the sandpit. She loves it!

Be warned, you and your toddler will both come home with multi-coloured sand in your shoes. Be warned #2, there’s a Wahaca van serving burritos next to the sandpit and you will be unable to resist its mexican-y charm. Cash only, burritos are £6.00. Mmmmmm….!

But wait…there’s more. After a quick stop for a change (Roo), a feed (Eva) and some hula-hoops (Roo again), we went to have a look at “London Earth Creature” outside the Hayward Gallery. This was a play area designed by school children (among others), out of “earth forms”. There was a giant earth hut, which Roo and Jake enjoyed running in and out of, and some little earth caves to sit in. A couple looked like they were napping in there. As you do. More fake grass and, by now, a gale force wind blowing the boys and buggies around. As you can guess, they loved it. They was another street food van there too (Beirut this time)

It was almost time to go home, but there was one more treat for the boys on the way, in the form of giant letters dangling from the sky on Festival Terrace. I persuaded Roo to pose under an “R” but you can’t really tell it’s him. Jake was initially disappointed, until the last cube turned out to have a huge “J” on it. Eva refused to pose at all. Apparently, they spell out messages if you look at them from certain angles but I couldn’t really see it. Ah well, Roo can’t read yet so we could tell him it said anything.

If only I had a shot of Roo and Eva dangling off either side of that R/E cube, life would be perfect. Oh yes. But it’s not, so instead I got conned into buying Roo a ridiculously expensive croissant from Le Pain Quotidien. Everything on the South Bank may be free, but with all the yummy food available it could end up bankrupting you.

VERDICT: Go go go. Even if you’re only passing through, stop for a play

More details here (official website)

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Diana Memorial Fountain – 26/05/12

Posted on June 5, 2012 by katese11

So let me start by saying, I have no particular affiliation with Princess Diana. I think she had a hard life but I was no sadder when she died than when any other celebrity dies (except Freddie Mercury). I was mainly sad that my Uncle Phil couldn’t take me up in a glider like we’d planned because the airfield was closed. I was 16. And maybe self-centred.

What I do have a strong affiliation with are nice play areas (as you may have already gathered). I haven’t yet visited the memorial playground but I will do in the near future. And I also have an affiliation with being able to paddle on a hot day. This last one clearly isn’t shared by Lambeth Council, who ignored the heatwave last week and stuck to their plans to switch water play areas on this bank holiday weekend. Which, in case you didn’t notice, was a bit of a washout. Sigh.

So, no paddling pools in Lambeth or Causton Street. What’s a girl to do? Go for some long-overdue princess mourning, naturally…

This was not my first visit to the Diana Memorial Fountain. Oh no. The first time I hung out there was on my friend’s hen do. As Best Woman, I had organised the whole thing to suit me and my then-not-quite-a-toddler (he took some of his first steps during the scouting visit). All-night clubbing was out, picnics in Hyde Park were in. It’s OK – if you knew her, you’d understand this was what she wanted… I choose the fountain as a handy place to picnic as it was close to the boating (part 1 of the hen do) and also the Serpentine Lido (an essential part of part 3, when she completed a “henathalon”. Honestly, if you knew her, this would all make sense….). Only two problems, Firstly, you can’t drink within the bounds of the fountain, and we had a bucketful of Pimms. This was brought to our attention by the fairly zealous FountainGuardPeople. Secondly, it was tipping it down. In August. So, the hen’s resourceful male friends erected a gazebo. Again, the FountainGuardPeople took exception to this. I maintain, there is no mention of gazebos on the “Rules of the Fountain” board. And the “no alcohol” symbol was a wine glass. Any sane person would take that as “no glass”, right?! A sensible suggestion around a fountain! Hence the plastic beakers and the bucket…..anyhoo, the net result was that we moved just outside the fence surrounding the fountain, to the part where the FountainGuardPeople had no jurisdiction. All involved were happy with the result, Incidentally, inviting male hens (aka “mens”) is a great idea. They bring gazebos and stuff!

Needless to say, this latest visit was less rowdy. In a way. The website implied that walking around the fountain was not allowed, so I was terrified of falling foul of the FountainGuardPeople again, and having to tell the toddler that he could look but not paddle. All through the veeeery long walk through the park, I was steeling myself for it, but my fears were unfounded. Every other family in London had the same idea (maybe cause all the paddling pools were empty?) and when we got there, there were hundreds of children splashing about happily.

Of course, experienced readers will guess what happened next. Roo had been napping in his buggy during the epic journey there and woke up next to the fountain. When asked if he wanted to play, what did he say? “No fanks”.

After a walk, a bus and another half hour’s walk? Ah, sod ya then! Luckily it was a Saturday and Nathan was with us, so I left sleepy boy with him and I took Eva in the sling, to dip our feet. Well, just my feet really. She was asleep too.

But there’s a happy ending. Somehow, Nathan persuaded Roo to first take his shoes off and paddle, and then change into his  wetsuit for full-on water play. By then, Eva had woken up yowling for a feed, so I fed her in the shade of the tree and watched them play. Oh, how the tables have turned Mr Bond….

Eventually, baby was fed and asleep again and toddler was not yet bored. So I got an hour or so of splashing about with Roo and Nathan (Eva way out of the action in the sling) and it was grand. Really lovely. The fountain is huge and is a loop of granite, with two currents running down from the top. Along the way, the depth changes to provide shallower and deeper parts, textured and smooth bits, faster and slower flowing bits. The whole loop took around ten minutes to walk, so we could have wasted hours there. You can climb in and out at any point, and there were three bridges to cross onto the grassy island in the middle. The only time the FountainGuardPeople tried to stop us doing anything was on one circuit, where one guy stopped anyone climbed up a little, ridged waterfall. Every other time round, Nathan and Roo clambered up it freely. I climbed out at that point cause I didn’t fancy doing it with a baby. Just in case…

The whole thing was very safe for paddling, on the whole. The ridged granite made it hard to slip and the current was never too fast or too deep for a toddler. Hence me being very happy paddling round with Roo AND a 3-week old. The ridges do make your feet hurt for a bit though.

So, overall a big hit. Roo was distraught to have to leave, but his Godmother was cooking us a BBQ, so we had to go. Naturally, we resorted to bribing him with an ice-cream from the stand outside the Lido. Naturally, on the hottest day of the year, in London’s most famous park there was only one person serving. Sigh. Eva and I queued for half an hour, while Roo and Nathan studied the duckies of the Serpentine, but the raspberry yoghurt ice-cream was worth it.

VERDICT:A great place to go on a hot day (and even on a rainy day), as long as they don’t try and enforce the “no paddling” rule

More details here (official website)

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Still here……

Posted on May 31, 2012 by katese11

And brand new shiny anecdotes to come, honest guvnor. This newborn baby thing seems to take up a lot of my time and occupies my hands. But watch this space, loyal viewers. In the meantime, here’s Reuben’s take on the Jubilee. Roobilee, anyone?!

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St James’ Park playground – 22/05/12

Posted on May 22, 2012 by katese11

Sorry for the radio silence lately. It’s almost like we haven’t been anywhere of note since the end of April. Oh that’s right, we haven’t. Meet the reason why:

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It’s Eva! She isn’t a toddler but she does live in London and she’ll be accompanying me and Roo on some of our travels. I doubt she’ll do much of note for a while but she’ll be there, wrapped in her Moby on my front…just like she was today.

Ah yes, today! Today was take two of St James’ Park, after the playgroundless fiasco of last time. Fiasco is a strong term. Let’s call it a mini-fiasco. A fiascoette, if you will…Anyhoo, they’ve finished cleaning up the playground and it was a lovely sunny day, so it was time to try again.

Luckily, it was open. And contained, which is always a bonus. We had a relatively successful picnic with Tammy and Jake, where Roo only wandered off a handful of times (it’s harder to chase him with a newborn hanging on to your boob. But not impossible). He has two new tricks that he was practising today. One is called “Help, Mummy! Stuck!”, which I believe is self-explanatory. He is never actually stuck. Almost never. But it’s a good excuse to get aforementioned Mummy to heave you out of places with her boob out. Joy. The other game is based on all those “Are you my Mummy?” books (see “hug” etc)…he walks just far enough that casual passers-by can’t see me waving. Then plaintively wails “Mummmy! Mummy! Where Mummy gone?” until someone takes pity on him. That someone is never me. Almost never.

So, after a few of these high-jinks we decided to take the boys somewhere more distracting. Playground! And it was open. Huzzah!

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Was it worth the return visit? Yes, I think so. It wasn’t huge (unlike these photos…I don’t understand what wordpress is doing today) but it had a slide, swings (3 sets), a seesaw and a sandpit. All the “s”s. All made of natural materials (which made for an extremely heavy log seesaw) and kinda sculpted to look like part of the park. I particularly liked the slide cut into some steps, also reachable by a little wooden bridge.

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There were also a few quirky touches – wooden things that looked like snails or possibly trains (with chains. Why chains?!), and a tiny wooden rocking-horse. There were also toilets, which I once again used my non-toilet-trained toddler as a passport to get into. Beware – the boys’ toilet is mainly urinals, which might blow your cover somewhat.


And now the baby’s crying (actually she started crying near the start of this post), so that’s it for now.Short by my standards, hey?!

VERDICT: A nice play area, not overly crowded and a calm kind of vibe.

More details here (official website)

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Magners Pasture – 30/04/11

Posted on May 1, 2012 by katese11

Good day Sunshine! I may have mentioned that it’s been a bit rainy in London lately so it was amazing to wake up yesterday morning and see a bit of yellow sunshine (as Roo calls it) poking through the clouds.

We were meeting Tammy and Jake at the Royal Festival Hall, assuming that it would be yet another rainy day. But it wasn’t! So we had lunch and left in search of somewhere sunny to hang out. The park opposite the London Eye is currently a giant building site (thanks to the Jubilympics), but Tammy spotted the Magners Pasture (part of the Udderbelly festival but not ticketed) and we thought that’d be worth a go.

And indeed it was! It was basically just a big beer garden (there was a bar and a food stall too), so I felt obliged to spend an outrageous £1.80 on a can of lemonade. But as “hanging out” tax goes, it was acceptable. We managed an hour’s hanging out before Jake wanted to go and explore other places, and Roo’s constant screaming at the pigeons was starting to annoy the grown-ups.

Ah yes, grown-ups. I think they see a beer garden on the South Bank as their “zone” and I’m not sure how all of them felt about the invasion of the preschoolers. But that’s their problem. It was a Monday afternoon – why weren’t they all at work? For the most part, the boys were pretty well-behaved and just spent ages playing with the giant Connect 4 set. Not sure they really understood the rules but never mind. Roo also liked the purple cows and the deckchair. Mummy also liked the deckchair but kept getting kicked out of it by Roo…

VERDICT: A nice place to spend a sunny hour or so. Just be prepared to leave when the grown-ups start giving you evils…

More details here (official website)

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged , | 4 Comments

A Rainy Day Special

Posted on April 29, 2012 by katese11

I can’t believe it was only a month ago that I wrote A Sandpit Special. Back then, I was freshly Mat-leaved, the sun was shining and I was optimistic that this baby was going to be with us really soon. Now, it’s been torrentially raining for weeks, I can’t remember the last time we visited a park….and still no baby. Spring sprang and then it sprang away again, it seems. But no-one can sit around watching Tree Fu Tom on iPlayer all day long so Roo and I have ventured out every day in our wellies and waterproofs (Roo only). We have got very wet and occasionally miserable but it’s better than climbing the walls at home. In the same spirit,  I’m going to stop moping about the weather, check out my google search terms (e.g. “what to do with a toddler in the rain in London”) and compile a roundup for you of the Best Rainy Day Places in London. Fact.*

5) Imperial War Museum

This might be very specific to us because it’s nearby and is often an emergency back-up when the neighbouring one o’clock club is shut. But they serve coffee and have big aeroplanes to look at, so I’ve found you can kill many a rainy afternoon there.

4) Museum of Childhood

Not at all local to us but easy to get to by public transport (important to avoid long walks in the rain) and full of things to divert a small child. Beware – everyone else in East London may have the same idea as you, including several school trips. The indoor sandpit can get vicious at times.

3) London Transport Museum

In my opinion, rainy day places should be free. It’s in the nature of them that you wanna just dash in when the clouds turn a bit threatening. But if you have already paid your £13.50 and therefore have unlimited access for year, it’s as if it is free. Many a dull day has been redeemed by a drive on the buses here.

2) Royal Festival Hall

I have been to the Royal Festival Hall in the rain more times than I can count. In fact, whenever I hear the words “Royal Festival Hall” I’m instantly  reminded of the sound and feel of wet denim on shiny floor. I went there just yesterday with wet shoes and a wetter toddler. I attempted to go there on Friday but was denied access due to Barclays’ AGM (there were protesters outside, who were presumably fellow mothers) and had to go to its child-unfriendly sister the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Not the same at all! But every other day of the year, it’s a warm, inviting, comfortable place to dry off and wait for all this rain to blow over.

1) Science Museum

Where better to go on a rainy day than London’s most exciting museum? There is so much to do there that you won’t even be able to fit it all into one rainy day. It’s easy to get to and there are rarely long queues. I like to keep it as a treat for Roo so we don’t go too often, but it would definitely be my rainy day venue of choice.

Honourable mentions to The National Army Museum, Museum of London and The Horniman Museum. All worthy rainy-day places but each in their way a little random for us to get to, and what’s the point of a rainy day place if you get soaked on the way? Let’s ignore for now the 20 minute walk home from Royal Festival Hall, where my dried-out shoes get resaturated. I never said this was objective, OK? Or in any way rational….

*By this, you can read “opinion”

Posted in What I suppose you'd call "tips"....? | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Eating out in Central London with a toddler part 2

Posted on April 28, 2012 by katese11

OK, I admit that last post was a little rambling. This time I’m going be more succinct and bada-bing-bada-boom. Honestly.

More places to eat in Central London – go! Firstly, the yummy-mummy eaterie of choice, Giraffe. Another place we used to go to pre-children and never noticed it was packed with toddlers. I have no idea how. Anyway, my way of saying that the food is good enough for adults to eat as well as having a good kids’ menu and free balloons. On my 25th birthday, 7 of us spent around £450.00 there because the waiter was so good. and just kept offering us more nummy cocktails. Nowadays, our visits there are more sedate (in a way) but still enjoyable. Our local-est branch, which is also one of the biggest, is the South Bank branch. To be honest, I find it a little soulless and over-crowded (and you can’t book at weekends) but it’s close and you never need to feel bad taking a toddler there because everyone else has too. High St Kensington has a more intimate feel – not sure how it’d cope with a buggy – and Islington is smaller as well, but we fitted in there OK. The only Central London branch we’ve been to is the Brunswick Centre (and that was on his first birthday – look how little he is in the photo!) but there’s at least one in Soho I intend to try sometime. We went to the sister-restaurant Guerilla Burgers in St Christopher’s Place (behind Oxford St), which is now a Giraffe and it was nice but a bit of a tight squeeze.

Next (see, I said we were moving quickly) is Pizza Express. The photo at the top is Roo at his friend Jacob’s pizza-making birthday party. He put his hand through his dough, covered it with olives which he doesn’t like and refused to wear his apron. But he ate his pizza and -more importantly – enjoyed himself. We’ve been to the Kennington branch loads of times for just regular eating-purposes and they’re always friendly and bring him crayons etc. The kids’ menu is £6.95ish for 4 courses but you can just order the main course (pizza or pasta) for around £3.50. We’ve been to the Strand branch with him before as well and it’s another place that’s bigger on the inside (i.e. extra seating downstairs). As far as I can remember, no lift but you can leave buggies at the top of the stairs.

Where else? One of our more successful post-church eating places (see my last post) is Vapiano on Great Portland St (Oxford St end). It’s huge for a Central London place, and has more seating upstairs (again no lift). The tables are quite high but there are lots of sturdy wooden highchairs. Each person is given a card on arrival, which you use when you order your food (from different food stations downstairs) and then you settle up individually on exit. Again, handy for hasty exits! It’s Italian, so pizza, pasta and salads essentially but no kids menu as far as I can see. They also have a small basil garden upstairs, which Roo likes to play in. Space, easy payment and quick food. Basically everything we need. Pity not all our friends like it, otherwise we’d have a winner.

Talking of places not all our friends like, Wagamama has also been a hit with us in the past. Sadly our friend Slinky refuses to eat there. But it has a kids’ menu (which seems like wayyy too much food for Roo), the usual activity packs and quick service. I took him to the Victoria branch just before Christmas and he didn’t touch his kids meal but happily ate all my gyozas in cherry sauce. Then he ran off and refused to sit anywhere but a very small windowsill, but that’s another matter. They have those cool, clip-on highchairs for babies but Roo prefers to sit on the bench. Or a very small windowsill.We’ve also been to the Covent Garden and South Bank branches a few times and both are accessible for buggies (Covent Garden via lift) and the staff are friendly. Like Giraffe, South Bank gets very busy at weekends and there are always toddlers in there.

Hold onto your chopsticks, we’re almost there! Next up is Wahaca, also in Covent Garden. It’s another place that seems small from the outside but has a lot of room downstairs (via another clanky lift) and the service is quick and friendly. No kids menu as such, but the portions are all tapas-size, so you can order one of them for a toddler portion. Roo likes the enchiladas. Or he did last time we went. He’s probably changed his mind by now….

Talking of tapas, that brings us to La Tasca. Out of this whole post, this is probably the only one I wouldn’t whole-heartedly recommend, just because the service was a little….Spanish in flavour. In other words, we had our menus for ten minutes before we were asked for our drinks orders (which is when I requested the kids menu). Another ten minutes before we could then order our food, which took an age to arrive. You can imagine how restless the boy was by then and yes, we did lose him behind the bar once or twice. On the other hand, the food is always good, they often have bargainous deals on and Roo ate something, at least. There are a number of choices for the kids tapas and a fiverish will get you three tapas and some crunchy vegetables, plus crayons and an activity sheet. On the day we went, they had no chips and Roo refused to accept patatas bravas as a substitute but he did clear his albondigas (meatballs) and fish fingers (fish fingers). If you ask for apple juice, you get appletizer which I don’t believe to be the same thing..and thinking back, I’m sure the kids meal was supposed to come with its own drink, which never materialised. So, slightly hit and miss service but very nice food. We visited the Regent St branch, which had most of the tables downstairs and no lift, so again some buggy-carrying. Worth a try but only when the boy’s in a good mood.

Phew! I think that’s it. In the words of David Bowie in Flight of the Conchords, I’ve given you all my good advice. I haven’t included anywhere that’s been a total disaster (and there have been a few of those) cause that feels a bit like slagging people off and hey, this blog’s all about the love.

So, to summarise – this is what you want. Good food for you, quick service, fuss-free payment, kids menu or small portions. And in Central London, natch. Hope you’ve found what you’re looking for.

Posted in Cake and the finest wines known to humanity (eating out) | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Eating out in Central London with a toddler part 1

Posted on April 28, 2012 by katese11

I know what you’re thinking – this is SHEER MADNESS. Toddlers+Central London don’t exactly make for a calming dinner experience. But it is possible. Let me take your trembling hand and explain how.

Firstly, it’s about timing. Places that seem tolerant of small people at lunchtime may not be so friendly after 7PM, when they’re full of loved up couples who have yet to experience the hell joy of parenthood. Especially when those small people are overtired and should be in bed.

Secondly, it’s about restaurant choice. And as you may have guessed, that’s what I’m going to talk about today.

I don’t need to explain the *ahem* challenges of eating out with a toddler. If you want to know, Crappy Pictures explains it a whole lot better than I could. With pictures too, albeit crappy ones! And if you’ve googled “Eating out in Central London with a toddler”, then you probably have a toddler of your own. If you don’t have a toddler of your own, you don’t want to know.

Suffice to say, this is not eating out with a baby. This is not rocking up with a sleeping bundle in a sling or buggy and discreetly breastfeeding during dessert. This is not taking out your “Oh, look he’s eating broccoli!” Baby-Led Weaning baby, who’s so amazed by the prospect of eating something other than gin-flavoured milk that they’ll sit in a highchair for hours, pulling a gyoza to pieces and smearing hoi sin sauce over their face. No, this is your easily-bored, tastes-ever-changing, unpredictable toddler. This requires quick service, tolerant serving people and ideally paying upfront (for the purposes of a quick exit). Where do you find somewhere like this in the heart of one of the world’s busiest cities TM?

Lately, I’ve been wussing out. As I may have mentioned before, our church meets just north of Oxford Circus and finishes at 1pm. We’ve tried a mixture of packed lunch (for Roo) and trying to get home before eating (for us) but since I got pregnant, it just doesn’t work for me to wait till 2 or 3 to eat. So, eating in Central London is pretty much unavoidable. But -as per my opening statement – I’ve been wussing out a lot recently and going to places like Pret and Leon for a hasty sandwich before Roo loses it completely. Pret is fine on the day that Roo decides to tolerate sandwiches/ham and cheese croissants but sandwiches have been out of favour for a while now. I bought him a snack box at The Royal Festival Hall today and the sandwich element was rejected entirely (the cheesey biscuits, apple juice and grapes were well received though). So Pret is probably a no-no for now.

Leon is better but they are all so very small. The one on Regent St (North side) is barely big enough to manoeuvre a buggy round. I went to the Strand branch with Roo on Friday, in a fit of spontaneity and hunger, and that was bigger but still massively busy at lunchtime and we had to squeeze a bit to get onto a table with the buggy nearby. Still, the menu is child-friendly and they have a special meal box (£3.95ish?) with home-made fishfingers, fries, peas etc in and a free activity sheet. The fries are really good. REALLY. On Friday, Roo had already lunched on pasta salad by the time I ate, so it was fine that he just sat and ate fries. Quite frankly, anything’s fine right now. For the sake of vitamin C, I made sure he had some ketchup with them. So, Leon would be grand for a quick and tasty meal if you could be guaranteed a seat.

So, let’s step it up a notch, from the essentially grab-a-lunch places to somewhere adult folk might consider a destination. First off, Nandos. You might consider this neither an adult place nor a destination but Nathan and I used to go there every Saturday before we had kids. So there. The photo above is from Nandos, Wilton St (Victoria) and was from a day when Nathan was trying out some effects on his phone camera. The photo at the top of the page is from Nandos, Cardinal Place (Victoria) and was from a day when Reuben was refusing to look at the camera. You came to this blog for quality photography, right?!

Nandos is very child friendly and they have branches everywhere. Everywhere! When we first went to the Reading branch, the branch list fitted on to the back of the menu. Things have changed a bit since then – Victoria alone has two branches (as you can tell from the last paragraph) and we’ve also been to a couple in Soho, one in Covent Garden and one in Great Portland St. Not to mention Bethnal Green, Camberwell, Elephant&Castle, Brixton, Clapham, Islington etc. Obsessive, us?

But back to Central London! I would recommend the Covent Garden branch – friendly staff, loads of space downstairs and just the right amount of peri-peri spice. The lift has been known to get stuck with Nathan in it, but hey that’s just funny, right? I had my birthday party in the one in Glasshouse St (Soho) and again, lots of space downstairs and a mostly-functioning lift. The other Soho branch hasn’t been my favourite since I had some slightly pink chicken there, years ago. These things linger in the memory. Great Portland St is new but furnished in the manner of my school science lab and had an alarm going off most of the time we were there. The toilets were pretty cool, though – they were in individual beach huts. Both Victoria branches were fine but nothing to blog about. All restaurants have a kids menu, with the option of chips or something healthier (Roo always wants chips) and they give you crayons and an activity sheet. The service is fast and you pay upfront, both of which make it easier for toddler-dining. There is a reason we’ve been there so often…

And then there are all those other places, like….well, you may have to wait, This post is way too long already, thanks to my witterings about Nandos. But I hope you learnt something. Part 2 will be along soon!

Posted in Cake and the finest wines known to humanity (eating out) | Tagged , | 7 Comments

A dream come true….

Posted on April 10, 2012 by katese11

My Google map now has its own tab from the homepage and all the icons come up with links to the relevant blog posts. It’s so beautiful I could cry. Check it out!

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

St James’ Park – 30/03/12

Posted on April 2, 2012 by katese11

It’s springtime! Kinda! For now, anyway. And springtime means hanging out in parks even more than we do in winter. Last Friday’s park of choice was St James’, with our good friends Tammy and Jake. I’ve been there a fair few times with Reuben but I was keen to try out the playground this time. But more on that later…

St James’ Park is a pretty park. That’s a good start. Some of the Royal Parks (e.g. Hyde) tend to be a bit flat and featureless for large sections, with the kind of grass that’s been abused by festival goers and protesters for years. But St James’ has a kind of landscaped feel to it, and (apart from the end of the Marathon) is largely free from the kind of crowds that ruin the grass. See, pretty! Springtime is probably the best time to visit, as the blossom’s out and it’s not yet overrun with tourists. It’s also green and not the yellow that Central London parks go by the middle of July. There’s a lake, which is always a nice feature, a cafe and a lot of green space. It’s long and thin, but for a park minutes away from Piccadilly Circus it feels remarkably spacious.

So, what is there to actually do? The first thing Roo was keen to do was play on the deckchairs but we were trying to get to the toilets at the time (I mentioned last week that you always need to know where your nearest toilet is at 35 weeks. Well, 36 weeks is no better) and I’m a little paranoid about him playing on the deckchairs in case someone tries to charge us. It’s £7.00 a day, which seems excessive to me – we paid 8 Euros for a pair of sunloungers last time we went to Spain, so it doesn’t seem great value in comparison. Basically Roo, I don’t care if they’re green and white and stripy – these things may be exciting to you, but they’re not worth seven quid to me. Sorry poppet.

Happily, he seemed quite content to sit on Tammy’s blanket and play with Batman toys for a while, eating a picnic at the same time. If this seems out of character, I should probably point out that it was his second park of the day and he’d walked much of the way there from home. Turns out that even hyperactive toddlers fancy a sit-down every now and then. Obviously, it didn’t last and he was soon off hitting trees with sticks (mostly harmless) and trying to breach the fence (also mostly harmless but try explaining that to all the “Ooh, is that your child? You should keep an eye on him” people). Jake had an ice-cream, so naturally Roo forgot that he had never previously shown any interest in ice-cream and wanted one too. Specifically an “ice-cream badge”, whatever that may mean. Anyway, he got one and we shared it so that it didn’t melt everywhere. And then he wanted another one, hence trying to breach the fence to get back to the “ice cream shop”. But he’s way too short to get over it. Bad luck once more, Roo!

In an attempt to distract him from more ice-cream, we went to find the playground. On the way, we saw all manner of duckies (I think the ones pictured above are herons. Or maybe pelicans. I’m not too sure), and there was a specified area on the north side of the bridge where you could feed aforementioned duckies. What you don’t want to do is what we spotted one toddler doing – feeding the pigeons. Once you attract those things, you never get rid of them. Eventually, we got past all the duckies (and there was a LOT for a little boy to stop and look at) and got to the south-westermost corner to find the playground – under construction. How disappointing! Why does this happen to me so often? No signs to say when it’d be open again but it looked like they were just giving it a clean-down and spruce up pre-summer, so it should be open again soon. From what we could see, it was fairly small, with a “natural” sandpit and wooden play equipment. I imagine it’d get overrun in the high season but beyond that I can’t really comment. We left the park and walked a couple of kilometres to Causton Street Playground instead

VERDICT: A lovely park but would have been nice to try out the playground while we were there.

More details here (official website)

 


3ChildrenandIt

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments