So with no lottery win looking imminent we obviously could not justify the cost of a family holiday this year, but we still wanted to do something nice for the kids. With some judicious early bookings, careful planning and saving we decided that a 3 day weekend in London was doable. The country was awash with Olympic fever for the first weeks of August, and my 2 boys were completely swept up in it all, eager to get to London and see the stadium, even if we were too late to see any of the Olympic events and too early for the Paralympics.
They are especially taken with the mascots Wenlock and Mandeville, and whooped with delight when we spotted any of the figures dotted around
Going to London was a wonderful opportunity for me to see some people I hadn't seen for a while including Debbie Owen, who was the first person to take a chance on me when I arrived in London in 1997, and give me a job. It was amazing to see her for the first time in about 10 years, and especially to introduce her to my children. She took us for lunch in Canary Wharf, next to the river, and afterwards we the river taxi up to the London Eye - Tom was in his element! In the space of one day he had been on...
a metro
an intercity train
a tube train
a DLR train and
a river taxi
and then over the next few days he also got to travel in an actual London taxi - a proper black cab - and also on an open top bus AND on the London Eye... total transport heaven to my little dude!
On Saturday we went on an Olympic walk, which walked us around the perimeter of the Olympic Park, and shared some of the history and mythology about the area, and the building of the park. It took about 2 hours and was very interesting... at least to us.
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| Bored |
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| Still bored... |
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| Bored AND grouchy! |
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| Olympic Stadium and The Orbit |
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| Interested! |
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| Attentive! |
One of the people we got to catch up with was the very lovely Dr Caspar Addyman, who took some time out of his very busy work (and social!) life to come and hang out in Greenwich with us on Saturday afternoon. We went to see the Cutty Sark (interesting - even to Tom this time, especially when he got to tear around on deck - in the rain!) and had a lovely visit to Ann Keates that Steve used to work with and got caught in a downpour in Greenwich park which was all blocked off on all the paths we took as a result of the forthcoming Paralympics! We were extremely sodden when we finally saw the welcoming lights of an eating establishment promising "Lasagna!" (Sam's requirement for tea) and I had had a very snorting kind of chuckle at Caspar who had been taken in hand (literally) by Tom
"Caspar, can I tell you something?"
"Yes?"
"back there the house had a number 4 on it and then the next house had a number 6 on it."
"yes, that's just how the numbers go"
"No (shocked voice) that's not how they go, they go 4, 5 and then 6!" Leaving Caspar scrambling for an explanation that showed he did actually know how to count and and leaving me snorting with laughter.
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| Caspar delights Tom |
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| Cutty Sark from underneath |
We had a not-long-enough visit to to The Science Museum, which had many exhibits that amazed the boys (and their parents!) and wished that we did not have to rush off to keep our appointment with the London Eye. The lure of the all the other museums was great, especially The Natural History Museum, but sadly only being in town for 3 days meant that there was just not enough time to explore all the wonders.
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| Science Museum |
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| Add caption |
It must be said that for the boys the highlight of our trip was Sunday's visit to Hamleys, the world's biggest toy shop, spread over 7 eye watering floors. They were almost shaking with excitement as we walked in and it took a looooooong time for them to decide how to spend their money. In the end they resorted to form and Tom bought a rescue centre complete with helicopter, police car and a loud speaker (lord!) and Sam chose a lego set.
So many things made of lego!
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| Ninjago Kai |
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| Telephone box - even the phone was made of lego! |
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| ... even Her Maj and one of the corgis got the lego treatment! |
The John Lewis at Westfield Centre, where the Olympic Park is, also had a lot of lego and some amazing lego constructs. To Sam's eternal delight, 2 of his favourite things "ever!" came together in a Dalek made of lego. He was also very taken with a miniature reconstruction of the Olympic Stadium made of lego, with the stands full of mini figures!!
The open top bus tour on Sunday was a much earned rest after 2 days of a lot of walking, and even Tom was content to sit and listen to the audio on his headset (whenever he hear a good bit, he felt compelled to shout it out to us, sitting a few rows back!). So we saw most of the big sights and also got a chance to have a quick canter around Tate Modern, which I was very keen to do, and really enjoyed. Steve took some fab pictures, and a trip to London wouldn't be complete without some of those "big sights" being captured for posterity!
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| Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament |
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| St Paul's Cathedral |
The weekend went surprisingly well - every night was a late night, past 10:30 at least, but both of my boys still managed to conduct themselves with a degree of good manners and humour. Tom had little patience for the boring stuff - at one point he declared that he would rather go home to Whitley Bay than keep doing the Olympic walk! But that is typical of his low level of tolerance for stuff that does not allow him to interact with it - or run around bellowing! But all in all I found a weekend in the bustling, hustling city of our Capital city with 2 young children to be a pleasure... and I cannot wait until we can do it again - before they turn into teenagers who sit buried in mobiles and headphones hopefully ;-)
