The last day of Easter

I don’t know about you but these Easter holidays seem to have lasted forever (In a good way), and while we have had a LOT of fun my little monkeys are definitely ready to go back to school – being free with the cartoons has finally started to loose its appeal.

So on the last day of holidays I decided come hell or high water we were going to get out of the house.

Bank Holiday Monday is a bit of a funny day with some things but not all things open.  Also I was figuring that every other parent would be experiencing their same version of cabin fever so wanted to go somewhere where we wouldn’t spend the whole time fighting with crowds.  So this may seem an oxymoron considering my motivation. But we headed up into town to walk around Covent Garden and then across to Trafalgar Square to join in the St Georges day Feast.

We left early so Covent Garden was really pleasant – not too many people but still loads to see and we spent a good hour watching all the street performers, and listening to the music.

Heading towards 12 we walked across to Trafalgar Square where they were putting on a St Georges day festival.  It was a really great thing, with lots of games for the kids to do – creating a shield and collecting gems for different Knightly behaviour, there was live music and loads of food stalls.  We missed all the food because my 2 wanted to have a go on the swing-boats, but just as they got to the front of the queue the heavens opened – undeterred Bella road the boat while Eadie and I got soaked to the skin.

A little soggy we then walked back into Covent Garden to try out the Shake Shack.  I had heard lots about what a great burger it was, but to be honest I was really unimpressed – it was really expensive £21 for 2 hotdogs a single burger 1 x fries and a milk shake.  And while the girls liked their hot dog and the Shake was good, my burger didn’t look that different to a McD’s and had cost 3 times the price.

Despite being a little disappointed our tummies were full, so we walked back to the tube talking about whether the girls would like to be professional ballerinas one day and if so would they dance at the Royal Opera House.

 

Things to look forward to in 2014

So 2014 did not start the way I thought.  But in a spirit of optimism I have started a list of things I would like to do / things I would like to see / places I would like to eat.

So come 2015 we will see how many things I have managed to tick off.

Places to eat:

Social Eating House

The Delaunay 

Bocca di Lupo

Balthazar

Green man and French Horn

The Grain Store

Dishoom

Vivo

Super Tuscan

Burger & Lobster

Opium ChinaTown

Shakeshack

Chotto Matte

Duck & Waffle

The Attendant

ChickenandSteak

Merchants Tavern

Casa Negra

The breakfast club

 

To Drink:

Monty’s Wine Bar

Red Church Bar

Mr Foggs

The Experimental Cocktail Club

The Major of Scaredy cat Town

Night Jar 

Lounge Bohemia

The Hawksmoor Bar

 

To Read:

Barbara King Solver – Flight Behaviour

Lionel Shiver – Big Brother

Americanah

The sisters brothers

The Lost art of keeping secrets

Brokeback Mountain

Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler

Changing Places – David Lodge

Instead of a letter – Diana at Hill

Angelica Huston Memoirs

The little old lady who broke all the rules

Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet

The Maze Runner

Shift

The young World

The 5th Wave

 

To see:

Good People

Henri Matisse

Feast of St George

Rooftop Film Club

Berndaut Smilde

Baileys Stardust @ National Portrait 

 

To Do:

Paint the shed

Paint the garden furniture

Decorate the Spare Bedroom

Buy a spare bed

Go to New York

Learn to Salsa dance

Take care of myself

Get Divorced

 

A few of these have been ticked off already and I am sure I will add to it as I go along.

Lets see in 2015 where I got up to.

Heres to 2014 – lets be having you then.

 

 

 

 

 

A lovely day out for mummy and me

The gods smiled down on us for our planned mummy day.
The girls wanted to go to paradise park – our local zoo. So we packed a picnic and headed out before the Easter crowds descended.
Of course £50 down and it turns out all they really were interested in was the picnic and swings! But I bribed them to spend a few hours looking at the animals and filling in the Easter treasure hunt before I gave in and cracked open the babybells and swings.

All swinged out we headed home.
A lovely day out for mummy and me, with lots to do and so much to see

The Gruffalo Forest

The sun was shining, the picnic was packed and I had the day off work.

So to celebrate little Rosie’s birthday we all trooped off towards Brentwood to Thorndon Wood to take a hunt for the elusive Gruffalo.

Even though I grew up around here and have now lived here for nearly 6 years with the girls, I have never been to Thorndon Wood nor the Gruffalo Forest.  And oh my goodness what a stupid mistake that was!

How can 30 minutes away there be a perfect forest with bluebells and dens that also has the characters from the Gruffalo hidden away in little Glens for the kids to find, climb and pose by for a million photos.

We had a fantastic day, collecting more rocks and stones than I could carry in my pockets (what is it with kids and rocks?), picking up sticks bigger than them and hunting down the Gruffalo.

The trail is not very long, but it was very energetically attacked and soon tummies started rumbling and we tucked into a birthday picnic.

Chocolate cake followed by numerous rounds of ‘whats the time Mr Wolf’, meant they snored the whole way home.  I think we will be going back again.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to Brussels we will go

My best friend and I operate on different schedules. She is a sohm and I work full time. We catch up on the phone and text and we are relatively good at booking in a weekend play date, but the reality of these meetings is spent fielding children and we never really get a chance to talk.
So we came up with a plan to fix it! And to be better friends to each other.
The solution was rather than buying each other birthday and Christmas presents we would book one weekend a year to go away – no husbands no kids – just us 🙂
This is how I found myself at st pancreas at 7am last Saturday morning – jane, sus, and me heading off to Brussels.
The journey couldn’t have been easier, I was amazed that the journey only took 2 hours – and probably said to often for it to be funny “but you can’t get to Manchester in 2 hours!”
So by mid morning we were in Brussels – and so started a weekend of eating, walking and gossiping.
I was convinced we would be in bed by 10pm (considering the early start and the chance to get uninterrupted sleep) but we eventually got kicked out of the hotel bar at 3am as they started setting up for breakfast!
A definite Christmassy and wonderfully gossipy weekend

Waiting for Santa

On Saturday we headed over to see Santa switching on the Xmas lights at Stratford Westfield
We jived away to the Go Go Gos who were on stage, destroyed both parents backs by sitting for an hour on their shoulders, waiting for the parade until we finally saw the big man himself – went crazy and then demanded pizza for tea to warm us all up.

A date with the Dogfather’s

We are not very religious, but we did borrow a few religious customs after we had the girls. One custom was godfathers or ‘dog-fathers’ as we have called them.
When at uni rich and his arrogant group of boys named themselves the Dogs….and the term has stuck.

While not religious we do agree with the principle that it takes a village to raise a child, and we wanted to ask certain friends to pay attention to our little girls lives, to advise and support and tease – just enough so they don’t take themselves too seriously.

The 2 Dogfather’s have taken their role more seriously than I ever thought possible, and because of this B & E adore them.

Last Sunday we had a Dogfather catch up in Coram fields followed by a very lovely lunch in kings cross.

A girls day out

I had 2 days off this week, and had promised the girls a couple of treat days to make up for not being around loads during pitch mania.
I failed miserably on Monday – with the storm and being surrounded by trees we were housebound, so I made the girls clean the house and donate 2 bags of toys to charity “to make room for Father Christmas to bring new toys”

So today was going to be different.
We started with a trip to the museum of childhood in bethnal green.

They had a superhero theme running over half term. Storytelling, superhero tasks as well as superhero games to play.

Superheroed out we headed over to Giraffe for enormous hot dog and ice cream. A much better day….. Maybe even a super(b) day….too much?