Black Bogeys

I really struggled to stay awake last night to watch Ady do his 12.45am show but just about managed before crawling into bed and falling asleep instantly. I did stir around 3am and checked the time and that he was in bed next to me before falling back asleep until after 7am when he’d already left again.

The kids and I went down for breakfast where Scarlett selected honey and yoghurt only from the massive selection of breakfast fayre available, then managed to get honey in her hair, on her hands, on her dress and all over the table before deciding she didn’t like the yoghurt and didn’t want anything else. So that was honey for breakfast then :roll:. Davies ate plenty though.

Back upstairs we checked our London pocket planner and the tube map before heading off. Having never really used the tube on previous trips to London and avoiding it since having children as way too tricky to manage with pushchairs or toddlers last year was the first time I’d taken Davies and Scarlett on it. My London geography is really rather ropey so being underground on the tube would normally make it worse but actually due to some redirecting yesterday as one of the lines (Circle I think) was out due to engineering works I felt pretty confident about it today. Sure enough it was a breeze and we navigated our way all around on Central, Piccadilly, Northern and District lines just fine :). And it was dirt cheap at just a fiver too :).

Yesterday there had been a very friendly woman at the Putney Green tube station and she was there again today and remembered us from yesterday. She wanted to hear all about what we’d done yesterday at the Museum of London, told Davies and Scarlett random facts about the Great Fire of London and urged us to go and see The Monument, also built by Christopher Wren (of St Paul’s fame) to remember the Great Fire, standing 202 feet tall as the fire started at 2am on 2nd September. It’s funny, I remember being in America (on both of the visits we’ve had there; one to Vegas and one to New York) and commenting on how very proud Americans are of their country, how knowledgable of it’s history and keen to share that with tourists. Normally I don’t think the English are as bothered by our own history but the last two days we’ve encountered loads of people wanting to share stories and knowledge with us :). On the tube Davies came up with a very funny conspiracy theory that the trains don’t really move at all but there are teams of people shaking the carriages to give the idea of it moving and running alongside the windows with huge pictures of changing scenery. I explained some of the flaws in his theory and also what a conspiracy theory is and then told him about a series Ady and I watched years ago called Last Train which we’d really enjoyed. I love his flair for the surreal and ridiculous 😆

Two changes later we arrived at Leicester Square and walked to Trafalgar Square. After yesterdays snow it was a gorgeous sunny day and the fountains looked lovely all sparkling in the sun. We threw some pennies in, had a quick run round the lions and then went into the National Gallery. I’d not been before and it’s a real rabbit warren of a place, with rooms leading to rooms leading to rooms. We decided to walk into each room and see which painting ‘spoke to us’ first and why. Sometimes it was the sheer size, or the colours, in one it was how realistic the materials in the painting looked. There were loads of religious images so we talked about them a bit. Scarlett was very taken with the Whistlejacket painting that Em mentioned after her visit there a while ago, we also liked the Surprised Tiger painting and all of the Van Gogh and Monet collections. I’d half thought about the National Portrait Gallery as well but one gallery per trip to London seems to be sufficient.

We came out and Davies wanted to slide down the handrail of the big steps down to the fountains. I agreed he could so he did, with much glee. Scarlett got about halfway, wobbled and scared herself and then wailed. She has been rather delicate today, easily explained by tiredness from weekend spilling into a late night last night but still rather wearing just the same. Davies further compounded it by winding her up lots today so plenty of times all three of us were either whining, winding or being Very Cross as a result of the previous two :roll:. We then had what was possibly the highlight of the trip for me in meeting up with an internet friend who I adore and have only managed to meet up with once in real life before. She was childfree and indulged Davies and Scarlett with great patience considering it was a special treat to be alone for her. We went and had coffees in a shop in the square, had further chatting time when D and S played on the lions again and finally parted as we wanted to get to our afternoon location and she had busy things like a theatre trip to be getting on with. Fab to see her though 🙂 :).

Scarlett got involved with a mother and son who were feeding the pigeons and trying to catch them until we left to get another tube.

This time we were off to the Bank Of England Museum
, yet another place I didn’t even know existed until I found it in our guide book. On the way out of the tube was a shoemenders / key cutters kiosk which also sold watch batteries so I got a new battery for my watch that stopped working over a week ago and I have been wearing to remind me to get sorted ever since. The children were fascinated with the shoe mending and key cutting side of it and the very friendly man fell in love with Scarlett (and her name) and chatted away to them for ages about London.

The museum has the usual no photos rule which was a shame as there were plenty of exhibits I’d have liked photos of. We had to walk through security with xray machines to get in before being greeted and given activity sheets to complete as we walked round. The museum is quite small but packed with a variety of recreations, interactive touch screens, real people who are only too happy to chatter away to you, waxwork figures, machinery exhibits and more. We watched films about the role of the BoE, inflation and monetary policy and more. We learnt about security features on banknotes and who the people on the reverse of each denomination are, we looked at minting of coins, coins through the ages including recent one such as pre-decimalisation and the old halfpennies, bigger five, ten and fifty pence pieces, poundnotes and talked about when the 20p and the £1 coins came into circulation and what happens to old and tatty banknotes. There was a solid gold bullion (or ingot as us Famous Five readers call them ;)) to try and lift weighing 2/3 as much as them. We also did jigsaws of banknotes and I did a ‘crack the code’ quiz about the new £20 note which meant I opened the safe to get a ticket for a prize.

Back at reception we handed in our activity sheets and my ‘I cracked the code!’ ticket and claimed our bagdes of ingots, gold pens and picture postcards of all the bullion bars, which was pretty cool :). We realised we were very close to Monument so grabbed some food from a local Sainsburys and walked up to see it. It’s closed for refurbishment and has scaffolding round most of it meaning we didn’t get to see much detail but did see the height. We were all pretty tired by then so made our way back to the hotel.

We were back in time to watch Ady’s last performance of the day from the hotel room. The children built an ‘adventure park’ in the room with pillows and things to enable them to get all round the room without touching the ground and I drank lots of tea. Ady returned and we headed for home.

It’s been another nice cheap trip – food, hotel, parking and petrol to London were all on expenses for Ady and when I totted it up all I’d spent was the £15 on tube fares. The kids were both tired after the weekend but it’s been great to tick another 3 things off our list as seen and visited, I’ve gotten all confident about the tube and despite seeming to take very little in I know from listening to their games already plenty of what they’ve heard / seen has gone in for processing.