Cadbury World

Today's trip was to Cadbury World, which I have long wanted to see, ever since I read about a trip round the factory in one of the Chalet School books. Factory tours, as such, ended in 1970, but Cadbury World, which opened in the 1980s, goes a fair way to fill the gap. Your tickets are for a timed start, and we had to wait 40 minutes before going in, but that was all right as we had a cup of coffee, and the minute's silence for the victims of 7/7.  Then we had a quick look round the gift shop, and then it was time to go in. The first bit was a diorama showing how chocolate was grown and used by the Aztecs and the Mayans before Cortez landed in 1519.  The next bit had some very good CGI film sections showing how chocolate was brought to England. Then there was a bit of a bottleneck while two live actors talked about chocolate in London and the Cadbury family, and a short film introducing John Cadbury, who could not enter a profession as he was a Quaker, so he opened a grocery shop instead.

There then followed two short films, in separate cinemas, first giving the history of the company and then showing how chocolate is made. After which there was a shorter bit of film showing how various different chocs were made and wrapped. Then quite a long walk past the packaging area - one could not go in, but you looked in through the windows, rather like the cheese factory in Normandy we visited that time. After which came an exceedingly silly "ride", which neither of us could at all see the point of at all, but I suppose fun for the little ones. And finally a section where we saw chocolate being made the old-fashioned way, and we were each given a little cup of melted chocolate with our choice of toppings. The tour then led through a display of various different advertisements, and a place where you could pretend to grow a cocoa plant (even the SW enjoyed this).  This then led us back to the gift shop, and was the end of that part of the tour, but there was plenty more to see and do.

Outside there was a huge children's play area, and a "4D Cadbury Experience" which we didn't visit (no thank you!), and, in the back of the building, the "Bourneville Experience" which was a display about the Bourneville village built by the Cadbury family, with sports ground, school, swimming-baths, etc. There was a walk we could have gone on, but the heavens opened just as we came out, and we got soaked.  So we went to the nearest Tesco and bought a sandwich, and then found the Bourneville park to eat it in, and as the rain had stopped, we walked round the park and saw the sports ground and pavilion.

All in all, we very much enjoyed it, but I did slightly wonder who its target audience was. It was a very odd mix, although mostly it worked.

Then we went and bought a motor home.

Ludlow

We are in exile at the moment, as the corridors outside our flat are being varnished, and there is no daytime access, so we are staying with family in Shropshire, and yesterday we drove over Clee Hill to Ludlow for the afternoon. After a false start, we parked in Tesco's, which only charged us 50p for the privilege, and we could use their loos. So we walked through the town to the Castle, but decided not to go in as it was within half an hour of closing. There was a footpath that went all the way round it, so we walked round there and then back to the car. It is such a pretty town!

 Then, to be different, we drove back via the small town of Tenbury Wells, which is also very pretty, although we didn't stop.

France with a Four-year-old

My grandson, usually known in Blogland as The Boy, is now four years old, as he will tell you given the least provocation ("I am four you know, Gran!").  He is obsessed by trains, and the thought of a train that takes cars under the sea was irresistible.  So I said that we would take him to France for a day, so that we could go in a train that takes cars under the sea (aka Eurotunnel, of course). 

He spent the previous night with us, and on the Monday morning we were up early and away slightly later than planned, at 07:45, but still made our booked crossing, with no time to call in at the terminal.  The Boy found the subsequent wait rather boring (so did I!), but was enchanted when we had to drive on to the platform to get on the train!  It had not occurred to him that this would be necessary.  We were on the top floor, and he was just slightly nervous when we had got parked and it was time to get out, but he coped admirably, and enjoyed visiting the loo, and going into the compartment behind us with his grandfather - this was empty, so he could run around.  They also went downstairs to have a look.

The plan had been to shop first, then go to Cap Blanc-Nez to have a picnic lunch, then go to Boulogne to play on the beach and then walk - or scoot in the Boy's case - round the walls of the old city.  The first part went without a hitch; the weather was fine, and there was a lovely view across the Channel to the White Cliffs of Dover.

We had our lunch, and then headed off in the car to Boulogne.  The Boy fell asleep, despite my attempts to keep him awake with raisins - he woke up with them clasped in his  hand and said "Ooh, raisins!" surprised to find them there!

The beach, too, was lovely.  Even I, who don't like beaches much, enjoyed walking on the sand as there were so many different kinds of sand - dry, damp and firm, damp and squishy....  The Boy was fascinated by his own footprints, and by various other footprints there were, of dogs and birds and other people.

 

And there was paddling:

But then, sadly, it all went pear-shaped.  When we got back to the car, the Swan Whisperer couldn't find his key - and we realised that someone else had found it, and had stolen our satnav, all the charging leads (but not, oddly, the multi-charger that plugs into the one and only socket) and, worst of all, my beloved binoculars.  And the first-aid kit and warning triangle, so we were now illegal.  We were, of course, extremely lucky not to have lost the car, the shopping in the boot, and the Boy's beloved scooter.  I think what I mind most, apart from my binoculars, is the clever lead that plugged into the satnav which made it able to tell you where there were traffic jams.

We should, with hindsight, have called the police, but neither of us thought of it.  And we didn't like to move the car nearer the walls of the town in case the thief were following us - we just wanted to get away.  So often bad things happen to us in Boulogne - we have had a puncture there, I drove our previous car into a ditch with the Boy's mother when she was 8 months pregnant with him, we got caught in a serious blizzard (and I have never been so frightened, as the French are even worse about driving in the snow than we are in the UK - but the Swan Whisperer was marvellous, and actually enjoyed himself that time)... and now this.  No, we are never, ever going to Boulogne again, and our day-trips will either be in Calais itself (something I was reluctant to do this time as there has been some unrest among the would-be migrant community there) or north towards Dunkerque.  Which is where we headed.

I felt sorry for the Boy - if it had been just us, we could have driven round all day, or something, but with a four-year-old.  But he was very, very good.  I don't know how much he gathered of what had happened, but he didn't fuss or anything, and enjoyed a second walk/scoot with his Granda in some random seaside resort north of Calais.

Then it was time to start thinking of supper, so we drove back to Calais, got petrol (which we didn't need, and I didn't think was all that much cheaper, but still), and then went to the Buffalo Grill for an early supper - all the people there were British, having an early supper before going home, we were amused to note.  The Boy had a burger with rice (he chose that instead of chips, and ate most of it), followed by a scoop of chocolate ice-cream.  The waiter raised his eyebrows and asked if he wouldn't prefer the children's lolly that was part of the set meal, but no, he wanted a scoop of chocolate ice-cream, and I was pleased to note that this was allowed as a substitute.  He had orange juice to drink.  I had a steak with ratatouille and then a crème brulée, which I had been fancying  (it wasn't part of the set menu, so we had to pay extra, but the Swan Whisperer very kindly said that was all right), and beer to drink, and the SW also had steak (but a more expensive one) with chips followed by chocolate mousse, and also beer.  It was all very good, although the Boy steered clear of the starter salad they give you as a matter of course in that place. 

And then it was time to go back to the Eurotunnel, and again we didn't have to go to the terminal but went straight through.  The English passport control were far more stringent coming in than going out, and we had to produce the letter of authorisation that the Boy's parents had given us; his passport is now four years old, and he really doesn't look like that any more! 

He was most disappointed that we were on the upper level again, but we explained that you didn't have a choice, but had to go where you were told, and Granda took him down to see the lower level before taking him to find a loo that wasn't locked out of service (as the one in our compartment was) to clean his teeth before we got him into his pyjamas and snuggled in a blanket in the (vain) hope he would go to sleep on the way home.  Apparently another family were doing the exact same thing, so they had to wait while several lots of teeth were cleaned and final pennies spent....

Google navigation on my phone, while adequate, isn't quite as good as the satnav, and we got one or two wrong turnings on the way back to Walthamstow, but got there in the end.  A cup of tea later, and we set off on a remarkably painless drive home (it is so much quicker and easier to use public transport that we always do if at all possible), after what ought to have been - and mostly was - a lovely day.

Railways, Routemasters, Rain - and a lost village!

August Bank Holiday, and the weather forecast was appalling.  But there is only one chance a year to travel on a Routemaster across Salisbury Plain to a lost village, and that is on August Bank Holiday.  So, despite the rain, we set off.

The day started badly.  We were hoping to catch the 9:27 from Clapham Junction, which would have been a direct train with no changes.  However, no sooner were we on the bus than we noticed we'd left a window open, so we had to get off to go and close it, and lost all chance of that train.  When we finally got to CLJ, we realised that the Swan Whisperer's free tickets were, in fact, day Rover tickets, so I need not have bought tickets at all!  What a waste of £25, we thought - but then, the very kind inspector on the first train suggested that I get them refunded when we got home, not something that it would have occurred to me to do. 

We got to Salisbury, where we had 20 minutes to wait, and then realised, to our horror, that the connection to Warminster was run by First Great Western, not South West Trains.  Oh well, we thought, we'll just have to use those tickets after all, and the Swan Whisperer will have to buy one.  But we ran out of time to buy anything from the ticket office, so spoke to the ticket collector as soon as we got on the train - and he let us travel on our day tickets!  People are so nice sometimes.

We arrived in Warminster at about 12:00, I think.  TfL route 23A leaves from outside Warminster station.

We bought a day ticket, but it was so wet that we ended up staying on the bus for the next couple of hours, while it drove through Imber and out on to Salisbury Plain,

passed through a couple of random villages (with great difficulty; the roads are really not designed for London buses), and finally back to Imber, where we got off. 

Imber was a tiny village in the middle of nowhere until 1943, when the villagers were given six weeks to get out (which is a lot more than my grandparents got - they had to leave their home with only ten days' notice!) and the village has never been inhabited since.  Most of the houses are shells, built to train troops in house-to-house fighting.

The Church, however, has managed to remain open, and a service is held once a year.

  It was open today, and there was an exhibition showing the history of the village, and photos showing what it used to be like:

People were selling things to raise money for the church - tea and biscuits, plants, honey, books and booklets about the village, and so on.

When we had seen enough, we had a wander through the village, and then finally got back on the bus to head back to Warminster.  We had already noted when the South West Trains service was, and caught that train, which took us all the way to London without a change.  And the kind person in the ticket office refunded my tickets, so I hadn't wasted £25 after all! 

A day out on London's Canals

It was all The Boy's fault.  Some weeks ago now, he wanted, unusually for him, to watch television.  So we turned on CBeebies, and there was a programme about a canal trip in Scotland, going on the Falkirk Wheel, lucky them.  And we talked about canal boats, and he reminded me that he'd been on one for his Great-Baa's 90th birthday, when we'd gone on the Wey and Arun Canal.  I was thinking that a trip on the Waterbus from Little Venice to Camden Market and back might be a plan - I have vague memories from when I was little of going on the Waterbus to the Zoo, presumably over fifty years ago!

So when I got home that night, I looked up the London Waterbus Company's website, and they were advertising these day trips.  So very bravely I rang up to enquire, but got their answering-machine, and was very pleasantly surprised that they got back to me a couple of hours later to say that at the time they weren't sure whether the trip would go ahead, but they would get back to me a couple of weeks before the date to confirm. Which they duly did, and the tickets arrived in the post.

And yesterday was the big day.  We were scheduled to leave from Camden Lock at 09:30, so for a more pleasant trip in the rush hour - although, as it is August the Tube wasn't too crowded anyway - we left from Brixton and changed at Euston.  We weren't quite sure there was time to get coffee, so managed without.

The waterbus was called The Water Ouzel, and was a converted narrow-boat, with seats like an old-fashioned bus - not all that comfortable for a whole day!  Fortunately it didn't rain, so the sides were rolled up and we could see plenty.  The bodies of the 1950s and 1960s might have fitted comfortably four abreast, though, but those of the 2010s didn't, really, and there was much sucking-in of breath whenever anybody had to walk down the length of the boat to the loo at the back (they had lovely-smelling soap; I looked to see what it was but I don't think it was what it said on the tin, as that said it was tea-tree).

We set off down the Regent's Canal towards the Thames.  The canal drops about 86 feet through a series of locks, and, thanks to a girl on a bicycle, we weren't held up at many of them.  Mostly we shared the lock with another boat - a holiday let for the first part, then a narrow-boat that has been restored to its former glory called "Empress", and finally, towards the end of the day, the Tarporley. 

After the first three sets of locks, we went past St Pancras and its eponymous lock, and then past King's Cross.  Apparently the lines from King's Cross go under the canal, whereas the ones from St Pancras go over it.  Then came the horrible Islington Tunnel, which was not pleasant, but I concentrated on looking at photos of my phone and we did, eventually, come out the other end.

After this, we were held up for a bit by a digger blocking the canal.  Apparently, electric cables run underneath the towpath, and somebody had accidentally driven a spike through one, fortunately when the electricity was turned off.  So when it came back on again - ka-BOUM!  And this was being repaired.  But they were supposed to have reopened the canal at 11:00 and it was well past that - we had to wait for about 30 minutes while it did move, with serious ungraciousness on both sides!  However, we were eventually away, down through Islington, Hackney, and so on, and eventually past Victoria Park and the entrance to the Hertford Union canal (Duckett's), and arrived just outside Limehouse Basin shortly after one.  We were told to be back at the boat just before 2, so we got out and found somewhere to sit and eat our lunches, and then went off for a walk round the Limehouse Basin - one can, as I thought, walk all the way round it - and a quick look at the Thames. 

Then it was back to the boat, and we set off across the basin and up the Limehouse Cut, the oldest canal in London, past the Bow locks (which name the rather stupid couple sitting behind us thought was screamingly funny)

Three Mills

and on past what is now the Queen Elizabeth Park - we were given a map diagramming the various waterways through it, but most of them are not yet open to navigation.

Finally we turned left into the Hertford Union.

When we got to the locks, they suggested we get out at the bottom lock and walk up to the top lock, if we would like; there was a shop where one could buy ice-cream, apparently.  So we did.  But then the boat didn't come and didn't come and didn't come, and we were left hanging about at the top lock for about an hour.  Sadly, someone had failed to shut the sluices after using the middle lock, and there wasn't enough water in the basin between them.  So we had to wait while it filled up - they opened the sluices of both gates in the upper lock.  Finally it came up and we were able to continue our journey, back on to the Regent's Canal, back through Hackney and Hoxton, back through the Islington Tunnel and, finally, back to Camden. 

We were tired by then, and hungry, and decided to eat before we set off home.  The local Wetherspoons was incredibly busy and incredibly noisy, but next door was a Japanese restaurant called Hi Sushi Salsa, which we chose.  It was mostly sushi, which the Swan Whisperer doesn't really like, and although I like it, I have no idea how much to order for a main meal, so we both went with noodles.  He ordered udon with seafood, which he said was lovely, and I ordered gyozi ramen.  Which was also delicious, but I found the ramen and broth under-seasoned; unusually, it could have used more salt, and I would have liked a touch of chilli or Japanese ginger in it.  The pork gyozi (pot-stickers to my American friends) were absolutely lovely, delicately seasoned and I wished there had been more!  We then ordered ice-cream - at least, that's what I thought I'd ordered (the Swan Whisperer went for mint choc chip!), but it turned out to be ice-cream in some kind of skin, called mochi, which Wikipedia tells me is a kind of sticky rice cake.  Delicious, but not quite what I was expecting!  And Tiger beer to drink, which I don't think we've had since we were in Hong Kong over 30 years ago!

Then we really did head home, staying on the Northern Line all the way - and when we got off the Tube, the rain that had been promised to spoil our day had finally arrived!  Luckily there was a P5 fairly soon, so we didn't get too wet, and we got in just after 9:00 pm.  I was very, very tired!

Day Trip to Salisbury

On Tuesday of this week I went to Salisbury to meet some friends for lunch. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day, involving delicious food from Cranes Wine Café, lots of talk and laughter, some buying of cotton yarn (ahem!) and some buying of books (I only bought ONE, honest, and it was a birthday present for The Boy), a lovely walk through the Close, and a cup of tea at the Museum. This is only a short post, but I wanted to share these pictures of the Cathedral:

Travelling First Class

I had never travelled First Class in my life before last Saturday, when I went up to Crewe for the day.  Now that I have a Senior Railcard, the Weekend First option was not impossibly expensive, and I thought I would treat myself.

The outward journey was via London Midland, a train company I had not used before and, frankly, I don't think I mind if I never use them again!  I would have regretted paying for a First Class ticket had the train not been so full as to be standing-room only between London and Stoke-on-Trent.  The seats were no bigger or more comfortable than in standard class, and the compartment was not at one end of the train so there were a constant stream of people walking through trying to find either a seat or a lavatory that was working (in vain!).  And it was COLD!  The heating seemed to have been turned off in favour of the air-conditioning!  At least in First Class I had a seat and nobody sat next to me so I could spread out a bit.  Plus I could plug in my phone while listening to Saturday morning radio (via Internet, which ate my data rather, but I couldn't get a signal on the FM bands).   Nobody checked my ticket at all - good thing I'm honest - although the guard did say there was an inspector on the train and First Class Tickets Would Be Checked.  They weren't.  On the whole I was not very impressed.

I was, however, very impressed with the facilities at Crewe station, which were both clean and free to use, not a common combination.

My time in Crewe was lovely, apart from being severely hailed on just before I arrived - I had gone to attend a friend's husband's induction to the Pastorate of a Baptist church, and there were other friends there, too, which was great.  After a lovely tea, some kind people let me share their taxi to the station - it had stopped raining and I would happily have walked, but it was nice not to have to.

Then the First Class really kicked in.  I was able to go to the First Class lounge which was very comfortable and had free Wifi and was warm and clean.  I made myself a cup of Earl Grey to drink while I waited.  I was going home with Virgin Trains, and as the train was non-stop the waitress suggested I sat where I pleased, so I had a lovely four-seat bay all to myself.  I didn't want any tea or coffee, but did have an orange juice, although I passed on the snack box, having had a huge tea.  Really, I should have had one and eaten it another time....

Virgin trains were blissfully comfortable and had free WiFi, and plugs, so I turned on my phone's maps and had great fun watching the train careering through the countryside.  Well, while I was awake, that is.  I did sleep between Stafford and Milton Keynes!  The only blight on the journey was that the train was rather late, the earlier storms had caused some damage to the overhead lines.  But when you are sitting snug and warm and it is dark outside, this doesn't really matter!

Virgin Trains did cost about twice as much as London Midland, and you can quite see why.  I am not sure whether I would travel First Class again - certainly not on Southern or South-Eastern, it really isn't worth it.  If I could get a decent bargain on Virgin, though... well, their First Class is worth it!

A visit to the Museum of London Docklands

I had always wanted to go to the Museum of London Docklands, and finally had the opportunity to take my elder grandson, the Boy, now 3½ .  We met up at Westfield Stratford City, and after coffee and Babycinos we left the Daughter and Boy Too with her friends and their babies of roughly the same age as Boy Too, while the Boy and I made ourselves comfortable (he loved, as I knew he would, the loos in the parent/child room there, which have a big one and a little one in the same space so you can pee comfortably together, and then two wash-basins at varying heights so you can wash your hands together, too.  But there was no way to dry them ("We'll have to shake!" said the Boy) until you got out and there were some paper towels in the nappy-changing area.

We set off on the DLR to West India Quay and then walked to the Museum. I thought at first we had gone the wrong way, but Google navigation soon confirmed we were right.  However, when we arrived it was about 11:30 am and we were told that the children's play area - which is very, very well-reviewed - did not open until 2:00. We hired an activity backpack, but much of the stuff was too young for him - a couple of very easy puzzles, and a book that he dismissed, scornfully, as suitable for his baby brother.  There were some binoculars, though, which he loved, a friendly dolphin finger puppet, ditto, and some shapes which you were supposed to match, but he didn't fancy that.

I think I would have enjoyed the museum better without him.  It wasn't very suitable for young children, as there was an awful lot of reading, and I think you had to know about things coming in big ships and how they used to come to London.  However, he liked the mock-up of Old London Bridge, and showed me which house he would like to live in!  And he liked a lot of the model ships, and was very, very brave when it came to Sailortown, a reconstruction of how the sailors would have lived back in the day, which was very dark and gloomy and spooky, and he hated it, so we came out - and then he insisted on going back in for another go, even though it was scary. He also loved - so did I - the boxes of spices, tea, coffee and sugar that were there to be looked at and sniffed and identified.  The cloves smelt gorgeous!

We had a very disappointing lunch in the café - expensive and my salad was incredibly dry and nasty, and my tomato quiche was very odd, although not unpleasant.  I wish I'd chosen a sandwich that looked nice, but it didn't happen.  The Boy had a "kiddies' sandwich" - cheese in white bread - and a pirate chocolate (we thought it was cheese) which was disappointing by being merely a lump of chocolate, not printed like the chocolate coins he got for Christmas and has been enjoying.

Then we went back home via the DLR, the Central Line and the W16 bus, and arrived home a good 45 minutes before the others.  "I expect Mummy's doing boring shopping!" said the Boy.  So we made ourselves drinks and another cheese sandwich as we were still hungry.  Not the most satisfactory day out ever, alas, but not the worst.

Bussing round the town

A young cousin is visiting from South Africa and has been staying with us for a couple of days.  December is not the nicest time to be visiting London, and it can be a bit daunting if you don't know where to start, so I suggested we do a round trip on the buses, so he could see some of the main sights.

We started off on a 35, which you can catch from outside my block of flats.  This took us via Camberwell and Walworth to the Elephant, and then to London Bridge station, crossing London Bridge and then up Bishopsgate, passing the Monument and the far side of the Bank of England, to Liverpool Street Station, where we got off.  We walked through the station to the bus station at the other side, and got on a no 11 - now a Boris-bus - at the start of its route.

I have to say, I wasn't very impressed by the Boris bus.  The interior is all dark red, mimicking the original Routemasters before they were refurbished, and the lights pretend to be like them, too, only of course they are modern halogen bulbs, not the incandescent bulbs of days gone by.  If you get on at the front, it just feels like an ordinary bus, only it is less comfortable, I thought.  The ride quality was good, but the seats were hard and not nearly as comfortable as the 35 we had just left.  Of course, when you want to get off you can do so at the back, or you can, I believe, get on that way, too.  But that doesn't impinge - it's not an obvious thing to do with it, although I suppose it is different if you are catching it along the course of its route.

Which, of course, is ideal for tourists.  The bus goes back down to Bank, this time passing the front of the Bank of England, and then along past St Paul's Cathedral, down Ludgate Hill, along Fleet Street and the Strand  passing King's College and Somerset House.  I kept expecting it to turn left over Waterloo Bridge, but of course it was not a 59 so it didn't!  It went straight on, past Charing Cross Station with its eponymous cross, to Trafalgar Square, and then down Whitehall, passing Horse Guards, Downing Street, the Banqueting House, the Cenotaph and so on, to Parliament Square, where you can see the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St Margaret's Westminster and so on (including Central Hall and the Middlesex Guildhall which is now Westminster Crown Court).  The bus then goes up Victoria Street on its way to Chelsea and Fulham, but we got off at Victoria, and caught a no 2 back to Brixton.

The 2 goes over Vauxhall Bridge, and then down South Lambeth Road to Stockwell and thence to Brixton, but it was dark by then, and one couldn't see a great deal.  And then it was raining, so we got a P5 home.

The Brixton Chocolate Museum

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter, her sons and I visited the Brixton chocolate museum in Ferndale Road.

First of all, Google maps is misleading - when you ask it where it is, it says it's about where St Paul's Church is, but in fact it's right down practically next door to the Bon Marché offices, so only a few minutes walk from Brixton Tube.

The upper part is a shop and café, with the museum downstairs.  Not desperately interesting; there is a short video about the production of chocolate playing on a continuous loop, some posters, and some display cases containing things like miniature cars with chocolate themes, chocolate drinking cups from the ages, a "Poulain" school lunchbox and so on.  Worth ten minutes, but I wouldn't go there again unless I were going for a chocolate tasting or a workshop.  I rather wish I'd booked in for the special event tomorrow!

We could have had a cup of tea there, but as the Boy is at the age where you never know what he will say next, and the place only had a couple of people in there and was very quiet, we thought better of it and went to Costa instead, which was noisier!  But we did buy a bar of very expensive raw chocolate with salt and cocoa nibs, which is absolutely delicious, not sweet at all.... sadly, you get what you pay for when it's chocolate and theirs, though utterly delicious, is very expensive! 

Out and about with a 3-year-old

The Daughter goes on maternity leave after tomorrow, so needed to be in the office today for handover purposes.  And playgroup is on holiday, so we agreed to meet at Russell Square Tube Station and I would take custody of my grandson, known to Blogland as the Boy.  Just as I arrived, I had a text from the Daughter to say they were going into Prets, where she bought a sandwich and a can of soft drink for her lunch, and we decided we had time for coffee - Prets do the best babycinos I've ever seen, and they are free!  The Boy loved his.  And I love Pret's coffee; if I am going to buy coffee when I am out, I do like it to be Pret's.

Once we had drunk our coffee/babycinos and visited the necessary facilities, we set off.  A bus down to Aldwych, a quick sit on the collapsible potty over a drain grating (him, not me, I hasten to add!), and then another bus towards Liverpool Street, but we got off just past Bank, and went wandering, down all sorts of little side streets, finding hidden gardens (useful to sit on collapsible potties on flower-beds!), statues, and all sorts of exciting ornamental railings to look at.  Eventually we fetched up at Liverpool Street, and I asked the Boy whether he wanted to go straight home, or whether he would like to go to a museum.  He wanted to go to the museum, so we got a bus down to the Museum of London - only two stops, but I thought we had walked quite far enough.  Then we actually found a lift going up to the entrance level of the Museum, and the yellow brick road (a yellow stripe on the tarmac) led us to the entrance. 

The Boy was fascinated by several very surprising things - flint hand-axes, although I'm not sure he quite understood what their purpose was.  And a couple of models of Roman London; he loved the farms and the horses and "carriages" and the cows and sheep in the fields.  I am not sure what he made of it all!  I would have liked to have seen a display about the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens for work purposes, but it was a bit dark in there and the Boy balked.  So we came out and looked at floor displays of broken crockery - even a spoon!  He liked that.  And quite the best was at the end, when we found a place where you could run cars and a tram on fixed lines on a road (and horse-drawn traffic, too), and you could press a button and a Tube train would go round and round, and other buttons did different things.   We spent a very long time there! 

Then we were hungry, so we went to Prets (a different one) and he had most of a cheese and pickle sandwich, having removed all the poisonous lettuce and tomato and onion and I had a chicken and avocado one and what was left of the Boy's, and we both drank orange juice.  The Boy had very cleverly found the exit down to ground level when I couldn't see one: "Gran, Gran, there it is!  I can see it!  I found it!", so when he said "Can we have lunch there?" and pointed into Prets, I let him.

It isn't that far back to Liverpool Street, but I thought he was getting tired and I knew I was!  So we caught a bus, and then had to queue for ages as I needed cash and there appeared to be only one working cash machine in the entire station.  Anyway, we got on a train and I asked if he wanted to go all the way to Chingford and get a bus back, or go home from Walthamstow Central.  He naturally wanted to go on to Chingford, and as the collapsible potty's disposable lining had to be brought into use in the train loo, it was probably just as well.  The loo was lovely and clean, but no hand-washing water.

A 212 bus brought us tiredly home from Chingford, and it was lovely to collapse for an hour before the Daughter came home.  Mind you, it would have been even lovelier if the Boy hadn't pooed himself - he is very good at staying dry but a lot less good at getting to the potty in time when he needs to poo.  Still, once I had told him what I thought of him and cleaned him up rather more thoroughly than gently, all was forgiven and we went back downstairs and ate biscuits!  He did, I didn't....

More than I intended!

I was not on grandmother duty today, as the Boy is on holiday, but I needed to get out of the flat, and I also needed to go to Lakeland.  Our nearest Lakeland is in Westfield Stratford City, which seems quite a long way to go, but as I have free travel now, it is cheaper than shopping by post.  And I never mind an excuse to buy myself some lunch.

The obvious way to go to Stratford from here - the quick way - is to get the Northern Line to London Bridge and then the Jubilee Line, but that's no fun!  So I caught a 35 bus all the way to Liverpool Street station and then a "proper" train (as my grandson calls them) to Stratford. 

My errand at Lakeland was quickly done, and I then treated myself to a falafel wrap at the Lebanese place, which I think has changed hands and is more expensive than it used to be, but still very nice.  And then I made a mistake by going to Bubbleology and ordering a strawberry tea.  I had first had a bubble tea in Hameln, which was lovely - it was a yoghurt-based drink and the "bubbles" sort of popped in your mouth, but these were huge, slimy, chewy, nasty bits of tapioca.  Yuck!  Not doing that again!

Because I hadn't done it last time, I  decided to go on the Emirates Royal Airways cable-car across the river, so I took the DLR to Royal Victoria Docks station and went over the river on the cable-car, which was great fun, only I think I'd have liked to have been with someone.  Beautiful views, only rather high.... Still, I would certainly take a visitor there, another time.

The cable-car drops you at the O2, so the next decision was how to get home from there.  I could have been boring and got the Tube, but it was hot and I didn't feel like going underground, so I got a 188 bus to Surrey Quays, and then the London Underground.  BIG MISTAKE - the train came at once, no waiting.  I should have got off at Peckham Rye, but was actually planning to go all the way to Clapham High Street and then walk.  BIG MISTAKE.  No sooner had the train pulled out of Peckham Rye station than it stopped at a signal, and stayed stopped.  Eventually, the driver came on the pa to tell us that there had been something dropped on the rails at Denmark Hill Station - a concrete beam, he thought - and we would have to wait while it was fixed.  So we waited, and waited, and waited.  Finally he came back to say the damage was more serious than had been thought, and we would have to go on to where we could reverse back to Peckham Rye.  So we went about ½ mile further, and sat for another fifteen minutes or so, while the train ahead of us was brought back and joined on to ours (they must have been waiting even longer than we were, as the trains only run every 15 or 20 minutes). 

Eventually we crawled back into Peckham Rye station and got out.  My first port of call was McDonald's for some cold bottled water - I had had a bottle with me but it was tepid and not very refreshing - and then I decided to do my errands in the 99p shop, which didn't take long.  Then a 37 bus came and took me rather slowly home, popped into Lidl (which has delicious Belgian cheese this week!) and home a good hour or more later than I would otherwise have been!

Bodies and roses

Last night we headed down to Brixton Village to eat; goodness, the place was heaving.  There were, predictably, enormous queues at both Franco Manca and Honest Burgers, and we ended up in the Colombian café, which was less crowded.  What Colombians like to eat, it appears is meat, meat and more meat - I ordered a steak which was huge, but in fact not too enormous when you got down to it, as it was very thin.  And delicious!  With rice and potatoes (why?) and salad which included a slice of beetroot, yuck, and avocado (yum) and fried plantain (also yum).  Dr Sauvage had the veggie option, which was a huge plate of beans with salad and all the possible sides, and the Swan Whisperer had another kind of steak that had a fried egg on it and came with a tomatoey sauce.  We all drank beer, and when we had finished we went to the gelato opposite for ice-cream.  I've never seen that gelato without a mile long queue, and certainly there was a steady stream of people in and out while we were eating our main course.  I had salted caramel ice-cream which was delicious, but was also tempted by the nocciatella and/or the pistachio, which was the dull green colour one associates with proper pistachio ice-cream, as opposed to the bright green of fake.

This morning we did not hurry to go out!  However, once we were ready to go, we caught a 35 bus that takes us up through Camberwell, Walworth, the Elephant and Borough, over London Bridge and to Liverpool Street (and on to Shoreditch).  We got off just after Liverpool Street and headed towards the Spitalfields Charnel House, which was open to the public today (I had found out through the splendid Ian Visits website).  This was fascinating - an ancient hospital church (the 2nd in London after Barts) founded in the 11th century and persisting until dissolved by Henry VIII.  The Charnel House had been built in the graveyard as a repository for bones, mostly of people who died in the famine years of the early 13th century, before the Black Death took hold.  It survived because it had been lived in after the dissolution of the monasteries, and because rubble from (I think?) the Blitz and earlier redevelopment had been piled up there.  Anyway, it was fascinating.

After that, Dr Sauvage said she would like to visit The George Inn, which we had passed on our way, so we caught a bus back to London Bridge station and had lunch at the George. I had a rather dry, but tasty burger and a pint,  and she had fish and chips and cider.  Then we walked.  We wandered round Borough Market, which gets bigger and bigger, and then retraced our steps very slightly to see the remaining wall of the Bishop of Winchester's Palace.  Then we walked along Bankside and found the remains of the Rose Theatre, also open to the public today, so we went in and enjoyed a film about the theatre and the modern excavations and campaign to save the remains, which I remember from when it happened (a shot of a very young Judi Dench amused me, but I probably looked that young then, too).  Dr Sauvage's day was made by one of the audience apparently being someone from Downton Abbey, but I don't watch that so wouldn't know.

Anyway, we then headed back to the river and walked on past Shakespeare's Globe, the Tate Modern, the Oxo Tower, the new Blackfriars Station, the South Bank Centre (never seen it so crowded!) and nearly to the London Eye (and I am not going to link to all these places - if you don't know them, google them for yourself!), and finally ended up walking past the former County Hall to catch a 159 home from Westminster Bridge.  And a much-needed cup of tea when we got in.

I don't know where the afternoon went, it seemed no time at all but it was well past 5:00 pm when we got home.

A Tourist at Home

I have a house guest - she whose blog name is Nicole Sauvage - all the way from Macon, Georgia (which I learn that, unlike its French counterpart, is pronounced to rhyme with bacon) by way of Paris.

So last night we had a very traditional English supper: cold trout with salad, followed by summer pudding and all washed down with Pimms.  Sadly the Swan Whisperer couldn't join us as he had a nasty fall at Dance Club (fuelled, I suspect, by having drunk all the Tinto de Verano before he went), and had to spend the evening in A&E having a badly cut knee dressed.  He didn't reappear until nearly midnight.

And this morning after breakfast Dr Sauvage and I headed on out.  We walked down into Brixton and then caught a 159 outside Lambeth Town Hall, and sat on it all the way to Paddington Basin. I wasn't very sure how we could get where we were going from there, but a very kind bus driver said that What We Needed was a no 7 from outside Paddington Station, so we walked there, and our walk took us via St Mary's Hospital which is full of paparazzi waiting for the Royal Birth.  No sign of TRH, of course - if I were her, I'd have it in the wilds of Welsh Wales and tell people afterwards; after all, they no longer need the Home Secretary to come and check that it wasn't a changeling smuggled in in a warming-pan like whoever it was meant to have been.  Anyway, no sign of any excitement, so we headed on to the bus stop and got on a no 7 to Russell Square.

We were a little early to meet the Daughter, so ensconced ourselves comfortably on a bench in the shade and then texted her, and she texted back in about 5 minutes to say come on over, so we did and she met us downstairs and showed us round various bits of Senate House. As Dr Sauvage so rightly commented, it looks exactly like a Fascist or Communist headquarters - wasn't it used as one in some television programme or other?  I know it was used for The Day of the Triffids.

After this, we had lunch in the local Prets, which has quadrupled in size since I used to work upstairs from it, and then the Daughter had to rush back to work, so we finished our fizzy water and then caught a 91 bus down to Trafalgar Square, only we sat downstairs which was a Big Mistake as we couldn't see the entrance to the Aldwych Tram Tunnel properly, nor Bush House.  We could see Somerset House, though.

We got off the bus at Charing Cross and made our way to the National Gallery.  Dr Sauvage had two things she wanted to see, which were luckily almost at opposite ends of the gallery - Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode, and the Marriage at Arnolfi.  So we went to the one and then wandered slowly to the other, stopping to look at whatever caught our fancy - and a great deal did!  Then we wandered back by a slightly different route, and so to the gift shops where postcards were bought.

And then a potter around Trafalgar Square before heading underground again to Tooting Bec, as Dr Sauvage wanted to buy a shalwar kameez, which she duly did.  I was very tempted, but persuaded myself I didn't really need one.  Sadly, the sari shop is closing down soon - I bought my set there, so did my mother, and Sasha0407....

Then we caught a 355 bus home, and are now relaxing with a cup of tea before heading out to Brixton Village to get some supper.  Tomorrow is another day.

Days of Discovery

Although we are at home, and going no further than my parents' for the long weekend, I have had a couple of very different and interesting days.

Yesterday, I had arranged to have my grandson, known to Blogland as The Boy, to spend the night as his parents wanted to go out to dinner and his bedroom is currently uninhabitable due to being re-plastered.  So my daughter suggested we met at the Horniman museum in Forest Hill which, despite living in the area for over 30 years, I had never visited.  I always thought it was awkward to get to, but in fact it is on a direct bus route from Brixton.  For my daughter, it is a fairly direct journey on the Overground, although it takes quite a long time.  In fact, it took longer than she thought, and I ended up drinking coffee in the café there and rather wishing I hadn't had lunch as the "Healthy Eating" dishes - mostly falafel, hummus and salad - sounded so delicious. 

The Horniman Museum is very splendid.  There are a couple of wonderfully old-fashioned nature galleries, full of stuffed animals and birds, and wonderful for small boys to run around in.  Then there is a music gallery, and a room designed for "hands on" music-making, also lovely for small boys.  The gardens, too, looked as if they would be glorious, but, alas, it was far too cold to want to walk around in them.  So we came home on the bus.

Today was, if anything, even more interesting.  My daughter had scored free tickets to the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the odd sculpture in the middle of the Olympic Park, so the Swan Whisperer, the Boy and I set out fairly early, braving the overcrowded northbound Northern Line and changing at Bank to the DLR, and then changing again at Poplar.  I do like the DLR, and we were lucky enough to get front seats on both trains - the Boy loved this, needless to say.  When we arrived at Pudding Mill Lane, it was only a short walk to the site office, where we picked up our tickets and waited for the Daughter to join us.  She was a few minutes late as it was a longer walk from the centre of Stratford than she'd realised, but that didn't matter. 

The tour was a preview of what the public will be able to pay quite a lot of money to see from tomorrow!  A bus tour takes you around what will eventually be the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and then you go up the ArcelorMittal Orbit.  You start off on the ground, and then a high-speed lift whisks you up to the top of it.  Where there are splendid views all over London.  Then you were supposed to go outside, but it was bitterly cold, and the floor was the kind I hate, with little holes in it so you could see the immense drop below.  Thanks, but no thanks.  So the Boy and I went down in the lift- we should really have stopped off on the floor below, where I gather there are fun things to do - and the other two WALKED all the way down. My knee would not have survived that.

The Boy and I caught a bus into Stratford, while the other two walked, and we were happily ensconced with our coffee and babycino in Costa when they arrived.  After a couple of errands, my daughter and the Boy went off, the Swan Whisperer having already left, and I did a bit of shopping, and then treated myself to lunch in the Moroccan place in Westfield - falafel wrap, yum - and a kulfi ice-cream in the Indian sweetshop opposite.  I then walked to Stratford International DLR station - I had some thought of treating myself to a ride on the Javelin to St Pancras, but I was just about to miss one and then next was not for another half an hour, so not worth it - and got the DLR to Canning Town, then the Jubilee Line to Canada Water, the Overground to Peckham Rye and the 37 bus home! Which took a long time, but was fun.  What I ought to have done was to have stayed on the DLR one more stop, to Royal Victoria and then the Emirates to North Greenwich, but I didn't think of that in time!

Then home, and 30 minutes' work, and then out again in the early evening to a pamper evening at l'Occitane en Provence, where I was VERY strong-minded and managed not to buy anything, but had champagne, a hand massage (which would have been much nicer if she'd taken off her ring), chocolates and a facial, and came away with some free samples! 

All in all, I shall be glad of a few days' break in Sussex over the Easter weekend.