Musical Monday

Off to The Smoke today for the LSO concert at The Barbican. We always toy with walking to the station when we go to London, it’s only about a 15 minute walk but the prospect of the walk at the end of a long day and long train journey is always unappealing so we drove to the library and parked there.

We usually get the train to Victoria and tube in from there to wherever in London we’re going but having checked traintimes online last night the recommended route was changing at East Croydon, then onto Farringdon from where it is just one tube stop. This all went incredibly smoothly with trains pulling onto the platform ready for us both times.

We found seats and were chatting generally when we had an unscheduled stop at Preston Park station in Brighton. The children thought they knew the word and we remembered there is a dog in A Close Shave called Preston. Davies couldn’t imagine him so I got my diary out and drew a quick (bad) picture of him to remind him. Davies then drew a few pictures and then Scarlett did. She drew a tapdancing cat with fat legs which she christened ‘Duffy Cat’. This refers back to my Granny seeing Duffy on Top of the Pops at Christmas and commenting on her fat legs which has become a family joke. Scarlett told a story with her pictures about how Duffy Cat did loads of tapdancing, got really fit and lost all the weight. Davies and I added bits in and Scarlett had Duffy Cat selling her books and exercise dvd like all shrinking celebrities. This kept us entertained for ages 😆

Davies played his DS while Scarlett and I played the ‘on Monday I went to the shops and bought…’ game which is standard train journey entertainment for us. We walked from the tube to the actual Barbican which was slightly longer than I was expecting somehow, went to the toilet, faffed for ages trying to find Door 8 where we meeting Michelle and then got a cup of tea / bottle of coke and sat down with that to wait.

LovelyEm and co were next to arrive, followed by more Home Educators including lots we didn’t know, and indeed didn’t actually know Michelle either. One family were lovely and had a 6yo Scarlett and a 8yo boy too so I chatted to the mum for a while and the kids ran about together. Eventually we went in – it was well over an hour that we’d sat there though and so I thought the kids did well really. Scarlett asked to ‘sit with my friends’ so she went off ahead although we ended up directly behind her anyway as she sat with Chloe. I sat with Davies and I was quite nice to just have one child to whisper stuff to. We all really enjoyed it although felt slightly silly during the Bamboozled bit. I was torn between wishing we’d managed to learn it and inwardly sniggering at the school party behind us who were so proud of not only knowing it all but having put together their own actions too. At the end they stayed behind to do it again in their seats which is probably very commendable and great but is one of the small things about school that I used to cringe at even when I was at one, maybe I’m just not very good at belonging!

I think we were all itching to get out by the end so after treking to the bowels of the Barbican in search of toilets we sat at one of the fountains to eat. Scarlett joined The Beans in paddling round the fountain – she soon dried off in the sunshine. Davies wanted to but didn’t want to take shoes and socks off and roll up his trousers and as that was the only circumstances he was going in under he chose not to. I realised they’d slipped away and then realised there was a whole row of fountains when I’d been relieved they had moved away from the one we were sitting at 😆 Fortunately they were busy running around with the others rather than getting waist deep wet without me realising 😆

We walked to the Museum of London, which we’d visited before. Davies, Scarlett and I slipped off and looked at the London before London bit of archaeological finds and replicas. The guy who runs Davies’ YAC works there and his picture was on the wall and I suspect he’s referenced some of the exhibits in YAC sessions so that was cool for Davies and actually Scarlett was quite interested too.

We’d picked up the London’s Burning activity sheets so caught up with the others and did some of that including watching the film. People had started to drift off by then and whilst if someone else had been up for going on elsewhere or even a more enthusiastic explore of the museum I suspect we would have been too but I was happy enough to sit and chat to Michelle and Merry while the kids did some drawings.

At the exit D and S handed their sheets in although the woman on the desk was very firm about them being properly finished so only stamped Davies’ sheet. We walked back to the tube where I lost my rag with both my children nice and loudly and publically which is always good for making you feel like a great parent.

Order and good humour was swiftly restored and we walked straight onto a train for Brighton at Farringdon and settled down happily with seats. Davies said he’d been thinking about games to play and explained one using alliteration. He didn’t know it was alliteration but now he does :). We played that for a while and then I read my book while they DS’d and Scarlett eventually did some more drawings of the Amazing Adventures of Duffy Cat.

At Brighton we had yet another train waiting at the platform for us to walk on to – it really was an amazing day for public transport with no delays and excellent connections. Again we got seats and we were back in Lancing just after 5pm. Davies and Scarlett begged to go into the library as we went past so we nipped in and I had a quick chat with a couple of colleagues while Tarly cleared the shelves of Magic Kitten books which she reckons Ady will read to her 😆

We came home for their tea and had a plan to all go to the allotment but they were clearly both flagging so I cycled up there to water while Ady supervised a bath to wash London off them. I need to be cycling more regularly to make a dent in how bloody hard it is to do that 4 miles, much of which is uphill, but I did it :).

Back home we had a chapter of George and talked about what we’d learnt today. Davies learnt about alliteration, Scarlett learnt about Samuel Pepys (which she remembered as my parents cat was called Peeps and we read a book about a cat in the Great Fire which refererenced Pepys a while ago), Ady learnt that there is a type of bee extinct in the UK which is being reintroduced from New Zealand and I have been learning about why people wear neck ties which I got curious about while finding out why birds don’t get electrocuted on wires in one of those bizarre one link takes you to another tangents that fact finding can often send you on.

We had a very late, but very lovely dinner of curry just after 11pm and knowing the kids have to be at Forest School in 8hours I really should go to bed and rest my weary cycled and London addled body!