Archbishops Park

Posted on August 17, 2011 by katese11

Check it out! It’s another sarf-of-the-river, lambef walk type tip! (And yes, we actually go up Lambeth Walk to get to this one). To be fair, it’s also incredibly close to St Thomas’ Hospital and not far from Waterloo. So, it could be handy if you get stuck in one of those places (and I hope for your sake it’s the latter).

The first thing I love about this park is that it’s pirate-themed. The second thing I love about this park is that they let local schoolchildren choose the theme. There’s even a note somewhere saying that the children chose a pirate theme, even though there is “no record of piracy on this part of the Thames”. I can just imagine the scene – “OK children, what do you think really sums up this part of London. The park’s in the back garden of Lambeth Palace and was bequeathed to the people by the Archbishop – that would be a good start, no?” “We want pirates!” “OK, it’s near St Thomas’ Hospital – one of the most famous in the world. How about a hospital theme?” “We want pirates!” “How about some of the very famous landmarks located close to the park – the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the London Eye….?” “Pirates! Pirates! PIRATES!”

So, Pirates it was. One piece of artwork depicts the pirates being hanged. It’s done in felt-tip, glazed and put on top of a barrel to make a seat. You can’t make these things up.

The playground has been redeveloped quite recently and -pirate themed or not – it is very nicely done and well thought out. The sandpit is remarkably clean for South London and there are picnic benches right next to it for tired parents to sit on, as well as a grassy bank. There is a “natural” play area, with a tunnel cut through another bank. It’s all divided roughly into different age ranges although (shocker coming up), Reuben likes to disregard the natural order of things and go straight for the biggest of the big boys’ slides and attempt to walk up it. Of course. The slide count is at least 4, including the toddler size one (scorned by Roo), the aforementioned big boy slide, one in the sandpit and a medium sized one that he will occasionally deign to go on.

Oh, and don’t forget that the park is very close to Magic Coffee Man

VERDICT: Well designed, never too crowded and a pleasant atmosphere. Inevitable tantrums whenever you try to leave.

More details here (official website)

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

Greenwich Park – 14/08/11

Posted on August 15, 2011 by katese11

For all my fear of the countryside, it is nice to go outside London for some fresh air once in a while. Somewhere green, quaint and civilised. Like Greenwich.

Ok, so we got the Jubilee line there and then a bus but still it felt like a different world (not surprising, given we got onto the tube at Bond St). So green and lovely. Walking back from the park it felt like we were in a seaside town in Dorset (ye olde pubs, a little ice cream shop, the British fish n chips shop) and it was quite strange to look up and see Canary Wharf. Nathan’s boss lives in Greenwich and he’s decided to start teasing her about being a country girl. I gave him a great joke, which I’ll share with you as long as you promise not to tell her. They work in a finance office so I told Nathan to say…”Hey X, there seems to be a discrepancy in our figures here. You see, I got 20 acres and you got 43…”

Comedy gold, hey? Need me to explain it? No, I won’t.

So, the park itself? Well, it’s massive. You could lose yourself in there quite happily. We were at a birthday picnic near the bandstand (as pictured), which seemed to be some kind of toddler magnet. They were all walking around it, climbing onto it and occasionally falling off it (or attempting to.) Not sure what the fascination was but Roo enjoyed playing with it. There was also a group of people playing drums. A lot. I doubt they’re a permanant feature so don’t let that put you off

Wandering through the rest of the park, there was a nice looking teahouse and a flower garden. Near the Observatory there was what appeared to be a huge white canvas structure but it turned out to be the sky. Unusual in London (although we weren’t in London) but there was a massive expanse of sky…and yes, a giant white canvas-looking structure over there a bit. They call it the 02 arena i believe, but it’ll always be the Millenium Dome to me. What I think I’m trying to say (look, I’m struggling here…it’s a Monday morning and I’ve had no caffeine yet) is that Greenwich Park has the most amazing views over London, possibly even better than Hampstead Heath (see here). You come to the end of a road and it looks like the world has just dropped away (and the land pretty much does drop away) and you can see right across the City (as in the Square Mile, not the whole city!) as far as the Shard at the London Bridge (Nathan and Reuben’s half-finished skyscraper of choice, given its proximity to his childminder).  It was awesome and this photo really does nothing to sum it up.

The best part was that we’d got the bus up to the park so hadn’t even had to exert ourselves to get this kind of view. Incidentally, it wasn’t that dark. I just haven’t mastered the camera on my new Blackberry yet.

Roo and Nathan ran down the hill (I followed with buggy), which seemed a lot of fun. Then we wandered back towards the edge of the park, completely missing the playground as we did it. I was convinced – on the basis of a half remembered map – that it was in the north-west corner of the park. While we found the north-west corner, we failed to find the playground, being situated as it was in the north-east. Never mind. It’s a good excuse to return at some point and finish this review.

Home then, via the Thames clipper which Roo enjoyed at first and then got a bit frustrated with as he realised he wasn’t allowed out on the front deck or to steer the boat. Still, he enjoyed looking out of the windows at all the other boats. Definitely the civilised way to get back to London from the countryside!

More details here (official website)

Posted in Token attempts at fresh air (parks) | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

London with a toddler, a 6-year-old, an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old

Posted on August 12, 2011 by katese11

And my Mum! She traditionally dislikes London but has been persuaded capital-wards ever more often as her grandson gets cuter. Today she had in tow one of my nieces and two of my nephews – the aforementioned 6,8 and 9-year-olds, (I know! My sister is a baby machine!). We took them to the Science Museum, in a curiously similar trip to the one last week with Nathan’s nephews (6 and 3), and it was a fairly successful day. First to melt down was Roo at around 2:30 but that was swiftly followed by a nap. And the next meltdown was minutes before they all got back on the train. And it was fairly minor. I call this success.

So, a few things I have discovered this last week (cause everyone loves a list):

1) The Science Museum works for everyone. Today we went to Launchpad, spent a good hour and a half there, then down to Pattern Pod. My niece (9) loved the little dance booth where your shadow makes funky video shapes and Roo did some pretty groovy moves in there as well. Last week, with the 3-er and the 6-er, we spent all afternoon in The Garden and the 6 year-old was enjoying it as much as Roo was.

2) For the reasons above, the Science Museum is pretty hellish in the summer holidays. Don’t go unless you have random nephron to entertain (or heaven forbid, your own school age children)

3) London is harder to navigate with four kids than one. But doable if you have another adult with you

4) A 9-year old girl can actually be pretty helpful in getting a toddler on and off the tube and round a busy museum. She has the energy of the young and can fit into small spaces to haul him back…Roo was out of his buggy for the first tube journey as it’s so much lighter to haul it down the steps without him in it. So, she held his hand, I took the buggy, my mother took the two other boys…and it all works smoothly.

5) Westminster tube had lift access everywhere. Which negates the need for complex plans, as above.

6) South Kensington tube definitely does not have lift access everywhere. Which requires complex plans, as above.

7) Even in a relatively safe area (the lawn outside the Natural History Museum) Roo will find his way back to the road. The busier the better!

8.) You can buy a 1-year-old’s birthday present in the Science Museum gift shop. Score!

9) The lifts in the Science Museum are the most hellishly busy part of a hellishly busy museum in the summer holidays. They go up when you expect them to go down, tempers get frayed and if the doors don’t open and everyone looks at you like it’s your fault then heaven help you. If you don’t have a buggy, take the stairs.

10) When you and the children have very delicately built an archway in Launchpad, do not let the toddler near it. At least not till after you’ve taken the photo….

And it’s all worth it for those precious childhood memories (see top)…y’know, for the ones that will actually remember 2011. Which Roo won’t. Luckily, we have this blog to remind him…!

Posted in Creating precious childhood memories or something (days out) | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Wandering along the South Bank

Posted on August 12, 2011 by katese11

As you may have discerned from this blog (if you are indeed the discerning type. I do hope you are), I like things that are either a) free b) cheap or c) something I can get my money’s worth out of (see the London Transport Museum post. I am going back to that place if I have to crawl every step of the way, dragging Reuben with me. But we’d probably get the no 59). I have Jewish blood on one side and Scottish on the other – two races not famed for their generousity. So, it’s not my fault!

What then could be cheaper than a stroll ? The walk along the South Bank is one I’ve done many times since he was born (and once, entertainingly, while he was in the process of being born). In the olden days, he would sleep happily in his buggy while I walked up to the Royal Festival Hall and the delights therein (see here. oh, I’m all about the pingbacks today). Now, with the buggy resistance movement, leisurely walks are a thing of the past. It’s all distraction, diversion and …I can’t think of another d-word. But, point made.

So today, I took the bold step of having a leisurely walk with the toddler running free as I did it. “Hold on!” I hear you say “Isn’t this the self same toddler that has no road sense whatsoever?” Why yes, it is. You may not actually ask that question as I don’t know that I’ve ever mentioned it on here (damnit! No pingback!). But yes, you’d be right if you did ask that question (don’t feel like you have to). He has no sense of danger yet and a compulsion to touch different types of wheeled vehicles….not ideal for an independant man about town. But the beauty of the South Bank is that very long strips of it are away from the road. From Lambeth Bridge to Waterloo and beyond (at least Blackfriars off the top of my head, but the top of my head gets a bit confused sometimes), you can walk on gloriously big paved areas with just the occasional cyclist, the more occasional Banksy and the not-at-all occasional living statue to bother you (oh, and all the tourists. And today a giant penguin). In the other direction, towards Vauxhall and Battersea, it all gets a bit further away from the river and a bit more road-sy but that’s mainly to do with that big Power Station and M..I…6…being in the way. Interestingly, I am listening to the James Bond theme on the proms coverage as I write this.

OK, 430 words in and I have said very little of sense or interest so far. So, here goes. If you fancy taking this walk with your own bundle of scrumptiousness, leave lots of time. We gave it an hour before having to meet people at Waterloo (that’s a whole other post…but I haven’t written it yet so again damn! No pingback!) and were still running late, even though the walk should take less than 30 minutes. I guess Roo was enjoying it too much, which is kinda the point. He liked climbing on every one of the benches (there are a lot of benches) and he liked looking over the wall at the boats (being on the bench facilitated this). He liked shouting in the tunnels along the way and hearing his voice echo.

And….this is a top tip if ever I heard one…he enjoyed a fantastic new treat called “watching Mummy get a coffee”. To be fair, the man making it was an artist. And Reuben watched in suitably awed wonder. It’s a little coffee portakabin type thing that has sprung up on the Albert Embankment (just past Lambeth Bridge, against the wall that marks the edge of St Thomas’ Hospital) and although this isn’t sounding promising, trust me. It was gooooood! Not too expensive (given that double shot is standard) and made with such love that even Roo appreciated it (being held up by me, toddler weight thankfully taken by the shelf on the edge).Of course, I had the awful moment when – having taken my beautifully presented, gravity defying cappuccino – I had to put a lid on it and both spoil it all, and splurge hot milk over my hand (which was better than the alternative – not using a lid and spilling it all over Roo). Luckily the man’s back was turned, making Reuben’s apple juice, otherwise I believe he would have wept. Real tears. I probably could have got away without buying Roo a juice, entranced as he was by magic coffee man, but I was feeling nice. And it was a kick-ass juice too.

Artistry takes time and by this time we were in serious danger of running late. Roo had abandoned the idea of climbing on the bench to watch the boats and was attempting to climb over the actual wall. Buggy time. On another day, we shall walk further and commune with those living statues and the giant penguin outside the Aquarium (did I just imagine that?!) but today was not that day. If you have the time and inclination for a little walk away from the traffic and with lots to see, I would recommend it to you. And go visit magic coffee man. But really, bear in mind the time thing….

 

Posted in Just wandering.... | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

An addendum to my last post….

Posted on August 11, 2011 by katese11


Guess who got their letter published? (see this post) So, it was a little edited but still…I feel like I’ve made some kind of point.  Wonder why they left out the line about ill-conceived journalism?!

Normal service resumed soon…tomorrow is the Science Museum again (with a different set of nephron). It’s not that I have no imagination, it’s just the best place to take school age kids in London….new blog posts soon, promise!

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

I take it all back! No more swimming or soft play!

Posted on August 10, 2011 by katese11

Amid all the riot coverage yesterday, the ever-reliable Metro published a small article on p11 about the state of today’s toddlers (aka tomorrow’s looters). As far as I can see, it hasn’t been reproduced online anywhere but I’ll do my best to share its wisdom with you. According to a new survey, toddlers are “pampered but ill-fed”. In this shocking survey, it was revealed that 80% of toddlers have…wait for it….tried pizza and chips. A number of those have also tried chicken nuggets. And there’s more – parents spend £1000.00 a year on activites such as swimming and “soft play”. Hence the pamperedness of our little ones.

I was shocked and dismayed.

By the quality of the journalism, naturally. There were so many ridiculous things packed into this short article that I barely knew where to start. Right this second, i’m questioning how anyone manages to spend £1000.00 a year (£20.00 a week) on swimming and soft play. That must mean you go to one or both every day of your life. Possible but it seems that the figure is taken from a very small sample of people who do that. As for the rest of the article, well here’s my response to the Metro (almost guaranteed to not get published)

“Hi

I felt I had to respond to an article on p11 of the Metro yesterday morning. Sorry the response is a bit late but, like most Londoners, I was a little preoccupied last night. So, the “shocking” claim that “80% of toddlers have tried pizza and chips”. Really?! The shocking thing is that 20% haven’t. Toddlers will try anything they see adults eat and a lot more besides. Let me share with you some other things that 80% of toddlers have tried – dirt, bubble mixture, their own bathwater (which probably contains their own pee)…I could go on. Trying pizza and chips does not make them ill-fed. If you’d said that 80% of toddlers were fed nothing but pizza and chips, that would have been an interesting point. Incidentally, pizza made well is not a bad foodstuff for toddlers (as long as you limit the salt) as it can combine all their major foodgroups.
Lets move on to the real shocker – the idea that toddlers are pampered because they’re taken swimming and to soft play. Soft play during the winter is a basic need. Toddlers need a good run-around every day and most people in London don’t have huge houses where they can do that. There’s a limit to how long you can stay in a park in the winter and the free provision (one o clock clubs etc) is being cut all the time. So, soft play is the only viable alternative. As for swimming?! That thing that exercises them and teaches them a basic survival skill? If that’s pampering then I hand in my parenting license right now. I have clearly misunderstood the whole point.
It takes nothing to make a parent feel guilty about the way they bring up their child. Please think before you publish such ill-conceived, sensationalist articles.

Kate, se11″

Today, we’ll be leaving the house and hanging around wherever’s open post-rioting. Then I might post some interesting new material and stop brooding on stupid journos. In the meantime, feel free to form your own opinions….

3ChildrenandIt

Posted in Rants | 7 Comments

London in a crisis

Posted on August 9, 2011 by katese11

So, you’ve probably been wondering where I’ve been the last few days. The answer is right here, carrying on with life in the wake of the chaos our city seems to have found itself in. I last updated on Sunday, just before our local shopping street descended into anarchy. Two days later and the city is a different place – bits of it gone forever, bits of it changed forever. Our area is as yet untouched but we wait nervously for the darkness to see what will happen tonight. Will it be us next?

I doubt it somehow. The looters have been concentrating on places they can steal stuff from – so mainly shopping areas. Our estate is probably home to some of those very same looters and as our lodger so eloquently put it “you don’t poop where you eat”. (He’s american so can get away with saying poop). Still, we’ve made an escape plan should anything happen and I doubt we’ll be sleeping soundly.

I made my feelings on London very clear in my first ever post and they haven’t changed. We’re staying, at least till someone throws something through our window. Tomorrow’s activities with Roo will be local and low-key but we’re not hiding yet. Life goes on. Ask me again tomorrow morning…..

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Some housekeeping…..

Posted on August 7, 2011 by katese11

No, not in the actually tidying my house sense. Well, I wiped a few surfaces in the bathroom earlier. Does that count? Anyway, it was blog-verse housekeeping I was referring to. You may now notice that I have tagged and categorized all my posts – in my usual inconsistent way, swinging freely between singular and plural forms (like those baby books that alternate between “he” and “she”….I find it a little unnerving). You can now search for posts under such enticing categories as “Creating precious childhood memories or something” and “Token attempts at culture”. Enjoy!

Oh, and I also updated my Google Map. I really do spoil you people.


View Larger Map

(Or maybe I was bored cause I’m rewatching a film that I partly watched last night but mostly slept through. So I feel like I’m watching it twice in two days without the benefit of actually knowing what happened)

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

London Transport Museum – 07/08/11

Posted on August 7, 2011 by katese11

Yeh! We did it! (As Roo would say). After a looong time of talking about it, we finally got round to going to the London Transport Museum. I was put off by the price for ages (£13.50 per adult) but when someone told me that gave you unlimited access for a year, I figured we’d get our money’s worth.

Reuben is very into transport at the moment, in case you hadn’t picked that up already. So a place full of trains and buses that he could climb on seemed perfect. And we’d finished church early, had had lunch and he was having a nap so we had time to wander over there. We went in, through the world transport walk and into the lift (in a stroke of genius, the display in the lift didn’t show the floor number but instead counted back from 2011 to 1800) and he woke up as soon as we got out. Perfect timing (well, technically he woke up 209 years before he was born but never mind). He seemed only momentarily confused before running off and climbing onto the carriage and stroking the model horses.

The next level down got even more exciting, as carriages made way for choo-chooooos! There’s a slightly frightening toddler-sized gap beneath the trains that Roo didn’t manage to fall into but something to be aware of. Now, if I was the museum-train building type…sorry, not gonna start all that again. Just this word of warning – keep close behind on level one. We ran around that level for a while until we found the first prize of the day – a bus where you could sit in the driver’s seat. Now, I may have mentioned this before but Reuben tried exactly this trick in Coram’s Field, only it was a real minibus, it was full of disabled children and the man who was meant to be in the driver’s seat seemed to be in an “unimpressed by toddler antics mood”. Whoops. Which is why museums like this are a good idea. I think. Or maybe they just encourage him.

Hee hee…the look on his face here looks like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have (did he learn that expression at Coram’s?). The shady figures on the right could be undercover policemen, no?

Downstairs there were lots more buses to climb on (and some to not climb on but for once this didn’t cause massive issues) and tube trains to run in and out of. There was a mock-up of a tube driver’s cab (with a simulator type thing on a screen in front so you really felt like you were driving!) but that was being rather annoyingly hogged by a random Daddy. To be expected, I guess. One of my favourite things was a corner exhibit of digitally animated London Stuff e.g. a graphic showing the Oyster touch-in and outs over the course of a day. It really was very pretty as well as being interesting. Not sure Roo really appreciated it but me and Nathan did. Roo’s favourite bit was a model trolley bus inside a glass case on the floor that skimmed up and down its track and (at one point) into a tunnel. Not the most exciting sounding thing but it kept him and some older children fascinated for ages. They were all on their knees, crawling along to keep up with it. I didn’t quite see the appeal but don’t knock it if it keeps him quiet. I say quiet, I mean shrieking excitedly but he was being good anyway.

On top of all this (you need MORE?), there’s also an under 6s play area with a fake toddler sized bus, boat and taxi (with comedy punchbag-shaped passengers. What message is that sending out?!). The bus was particularly well thought out, as every seat in it had a steering wheel in front of it. That significantly cut down on a number of toddler punch-ups as they weren’t all fighting over the right to be the driver. Don’t worry, they found other stuff to fight over. Like the table with the wooden version of London on it (quite geographically inaccurate, I have to say. I know a little boy who had a far better one set up). There was a trough cut into it with a train track and train – kinda like a stylised tube I suppose – and there was many a tantrum over that train. Not from Roo, weirdly enough, but from every other toddler there. And also over the spinnable London Eye. Ah, I love 2-years old en masse…. Anyway, there was generally enough to keep them all happy all the time. Shocker, hey?

VERDICT: Go there, especially if your toddler is excited by a) trains b) buses (not the ones you have to get on in real life but the kind you can clamber all over) c) tube trains d) all of the above. Don’t be put off by the admission price, just make the most of it and go as often as possible!

More details here (official website)

Posted in Token attempts at culture (museums) | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Where not to take a toddler outside London

Posted on August 6, 2011 by katese11

Bracknell.

It’s just grim and crazy. Oh, now I’ve offended all the people in my readership who live in Bracknell. I’m sorry. But really, have you looked around you?

A small explanation – today we went to a friend’s BBQ in a small village, just south of Reading. En route we needed to stop at a Mothercare to exchange a stairgate (wacky nighttime fun with my amazing little Houdini…but that’s a whole other story). I wanted to avoid the masive faffiness of going into Reading itself on a Saturday and my perfect Plan A (branch just off the M4, next to a lovely big park that I could write a more interesting blog post about) fell through because Reuben rather inconveniently fell asleep just before we were due to turn off.

So, plan B it was then. Bracknell. I know very little about this place other than it’s the same junction as ouir eventual target, on the same side of the M4 and a smallish town. I know its neighbour Wokingham a little better and had imagined Bracknell to be much the same – a market town, with a single high street and some picturesque tea rooms and stuff.

No, it’s Croydon-on-Berks.

I should have known from the sat-nav directions – “Take the first left at the roundabout, bear left on the double roundabout and then straight ahead at the roundabout”. When has a large collection of roundabouts signified anything good? Basingstoke? Swindon? Milton Keynes? (Aggghh, and now I’ve alienated anyone who lives in those places. Sorry Allie). We drove round and round in circles looking for Mothercare before being directed onto a road which appeared to lead into some kind of car park.

So we parked there, relieved to get out, especially after many screeching turns (no, not that first left – that’s part of the larger gyratory over by the Hollywood Bowl). We got into a lift that I swear was from some kind of low-budget horror movie and went down to the ground floor. And then we were back on the road which appeared to lead into some kind of car park and NOWHERE ELSE so we went back up in the lift, I made another remark about how it was the kind of lift no-one would ever try and kill us in, back to the floor we were on, round a corner, almost into a hotel, across another car park and down into some luridly painted ramps (dark green and lime green, to match Roo’s dino shorts), with some kind of world music being piped through. There was a large picture of children happily playing in a fountain. We didn’t expect to find happy children. And guess what – we didn’t.

Emerging onto another set of ramps, we heard the aforementioned fountain (thought that was the rain for a minute but hooray! the rain was only a drizzle) and saw a shopping precinct lifted directly from mid-90s Basingstoke. And Mothercare! Huzzah! I was crazy-hungry at this point but the only food outlets I spied were the hot-dogs and candy-floss van (really? Were we at the fair?) and a stall called “Troll’s Kitchen”, selling bogey stew and used tissues. Didn’t fancy it much.

Then I noticed the whole area was covered with people flyering for the English Defence League. One girl had a t-shirt on saying “Proud to be English”. I felt like saying “I’m proud to be a random mix of English, German, Scottish and Polish, Did I mention I’m Jewish?”. They got a flier into my hand before I realised who they were so I had to get rid of it before going into Mothercare. I don’t normally litter but in this case, I made an exception. You don’t want to exchange a stairgate if the sales assistant thinks you’re a racist. Just imagine!

Through this, I noticed that the world music that was being piped into the corridors of doom was coming from a real live band, as part of an event called “Love Bracknell”. I wasn’t loving Bracknell. Neither was the band, I’m guessing, seeing as they were an ethnically diverse band playing in front of a load of white fascists. We did what we had to do in Mothercare, then Nathan dragged the new stairgate back to the car and me and Roo desperately searched for an outlet – Superdrug or somesuch – that could sell us a packet of crisps. Eventually I found a cafe where we could buy three flapjacks, for a pound each. And then we got the hell out of there.

Posted in Rants | Tagged | 3 Comments