Busy, busy march

Busy couple of weeks here- have hardly been at home. Spent a few days in London- which we had been promising ourselves for a while- but were waiting for the children to grow a little ( wanting them to have some memories as well as making it physically easier). We inflicted ourselves upon my brother for five days (Zone 2) and tramped around. We had done quite a lot of discussion prior gauging the various family members priorities thus visited Natural History Museum, Imperial War Museum, Tower of London, HMS Belfast, climbing the Monument and walking past Houses of Parliament/Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Nelsons Column and Downing Street. Higlights for the children were probably HMS Belfast and London Bridge (looking down the 'gap' where the bridge lifts), Mark liked the new wing at the Natural History Museum (Darwin Wing)- am not sure what mine was-probably seeing little awe inspired faces as each marvel unfurled in front of them (probably with the Underground at the top of the list). Lots of tramping and lots of pale stoical faces- who are still recovering 2 weeks later.

We then immediately went away in the caravan- over to Boston Lincs and had a few days near the beach, visited the Seal sanctuary at Skegness and some lazy mooching plus making friends on the playground at the campsite. Then Daddy took them to Devon for a few days to do a round the reli's tour- sounds like an interesting time was had..... Then I traipsed them upto Haworth yesterday for my aunts funeral- gosh we really must allow them to have a few quiet home days.

Half term and upcoming events

The two littlies at one of our Favovourite Places- Rufford Park (Nottmshire). A Lake that is big enough for little legs to toddle around with encouragement- lots of ducks and swans, little wooded areas with lots of sticks and leaves to collect, dens to build and the absolute number 1 best feature- a ford with a viewing platform where cars know that they are expected to 'perform' for the onlooking child audience. We often go with friends- or equally not with friends- we have our set 'routine- traipse around the lake to the viewing platform, lunch, walk back through the little bridges/den building and then (in the summer) onto the playground- complete with sandpit and litle log cabins- hmmmmm I think I have just persuaded myself to buy a season ticket again this year (car parking rather than an 'entrance fee'). We went this week with some schooled friends and had a great time- such a shame that T goes to school- spoils all our fun! Also managed to catch up with another schooled friend E and visited her new house- came away with my older two saying 'why can't we see E more'- well unfortunately E goes to school......

Have been doing a mini 'St Davids' day theme with Daddy today- SJ & FI found 0ut about St Davids story, national emblems of Wales and planned and cooked welsh themed food for today. Themes do seem to work well for us at the moment- maybe it is about concentration span, maybe it is about the ability to add great variety I don't know- but it works for us, for now. Tomorrow we are off to a local historical Victorian life museum- where the older two are trying a couple of work shops (arranged by another local HE parent) which will be quite a new experience for them- will see how that one goes- especially as I have to stay out of the way as toddlers are expressly excluded- fortunately the older two know one or two of the others fairly well from Forest school- so hopefully that will go OK. Then the rest of the week I plan to do some preparatory reading about our visit to London next week. We have been planning to go for a family 'holiday' for a couple of year- but this year we think that TP is old enough not to be too difficult to manage on the Underground/buses etc. It has been a really family planned holiday with requests taken from all members (except TP bless him). SJ wants to see where the Queen lives and the Dinosaurs (Natural History Museum)- he also wants to do a boat ride through Traitors gate and see the Ravens at the Tower of London ( we have persuaded him that he will probably have to be happy with 'seeing' Traitors gate). FI wants to see the Crown Jewels and the big whale (Natural History Museum) and they are both intrigued by the thought of seeing the Houses of Parliament. We also intend to do the Imperial War Museum as we have done a lot about WWII over the last year- especially from a childs perspective- and the IWM has a childrens war exhibition on at the moment. I have been trolling through their websites and have been pleasantly surprised by the wealth of material and projects on them- I think we could be kept going for a while. I need to remember to take cameras and video for them!