Saturday morning started off interesting enough. Our gaggle traipsed into a sketchy neighborhood to drop off our laundry at a questionable facility. There are times in this life when you just have avert your eyes.
That done, we went through St. James's Park to watch the practice for the Horse Guard parade that was to happen later.
St. James's Park was full of new birds for us to gawk at. While we thrilled at calico and patchwork ducks, and other winged beauties, we noticed that the bulk of other tourists were much more interested in the squirrels. If there was a group of tourists with cameras we knew that a squirrel would be the focus. To each their own. I'll just say this -- for a couple of hundred years there has been a cottage for the resident bird keeper. Diversity of waterfowl is a large part of the history of St. James's. There is no squirrel keeper cottage.
The gardens in St. James's were originally redesigned by John Nash (he was the architect/landscaper known for renovations to Brighton Royal Pavilion and Buckingham Palace, as well as designing the buildings around Regent's Park, etc.). His style was to contour, rather than adhere to rigidity. Because of this, in some guidebooks it says that St. James's is the most beautiful of all urban parks. The man, and his contours:
The Sister is an appreciative, but not enthusiastic birder. Her interest was more in the changing of the guard, and so to Buckingham palace we went. Unfortunately, because of that Horse Guard parade business the area in front of the palace was barricaded off, and though we patiently watched for a while, there didn't seem to be the regularly scheduled guard-changing.
After a bit we decided to get on with our main activity for the day: Portobello Road in Notting Hill.
It was a bloody madhouse. I've been twice before, but never has it been such a crushing crowd. It was particularly difficult with two kids in tow (one of which wants to open a museum someday, so he kept hearing various sirens' songs that would lure him away... causing our entire group to try an about-face against the swarm of humanity and then huddle around him, while being jostled and pinched, until he got all the information he wanted... this did lead to funny conversations throughout the trip: i.e. after passing a window display at a home supply shop: Would you rather have a steam cleaner or a taxidermy pheasant? What? They both cost one-hundred pounds... which one would you choose?).
We held our own and fought to get our fair share of street-food carbs, as well as a few treasures:
Awesome book given as a reward for punctual and regular attendance!
This guy's arm moves!
'Tis true that some of the little toys are most likely lead... so that led to a big debacle of proper hand washing before eating... and then there was a debacle at the smoothie stand... No point in going in to all the gory details, but let's leave it at this: self-inflicted hair pulling is part of traveling as a family -- at least for this family.
We saw George Orwell's place of residence:
And yes, we saw the blue door from the movie Notting Hill. We refrained from joining the queue to take a picture of it. Though, The Boy was game (the kids get a kick out of Spike; in fact, I think one of the soldiers bought at the market, and for sure the little rabbit have been named Spike). I'm not proud that my kids have seen the film (we did skip some parts if that makes us seem less terrible), but as this is documenting family history, I don't want to fudge.
From Notting Hill Gate I took the tube back to the hotel to catch up on this blog/journal (so totally struggling to keep up... and yet, I fear that if I don't make the attempt so much will be lost), while The Dad, The Sister, and the moppets went to the Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens. There is a keeper at the gate counting kids, so they had to queue until enough kids emptied out -- a playground that teaches kids about the replacement theory. The offspring enjoyed clearing all the sand out of the alligator's mouth (only to have it filled again by a sassy Brit kid) and playing in the teepees. The more playground play the better -- one cannot live off of car-travel and museums alone.
For our evening plans we decided that a very London thing to do is attend the longest running play in the world: Agatha Christie's "Mousetrap" (the best part is the end, when the audience is sworn to secrecy regarding who-done-it). It's a bit slow-moving at times, so we felt that the kids wouldn't love it, and certainly didn't need to be up so late.
The Sister and I went and hunted out some tickets, and then grabbed some Subway sandwiches which we ate in front of a bookstore window as we kind-of-sort-of looked at the coffee table books being sold at reduced prices. The play was as charming as I remembered, though I couldn't hear it as well as I used to be able to... Creeeeak. (Did you hear that? Not a murderer entering the room -- just my body.)
While walking home we passed one of those street performers I mentioned: guy with a guitar singing/playing cover songs. In retrospect I wish that we had stayed longer to enjoy him, but we were tired and chilly, so we moved along.
I love what The Dad did with the kids. They went to Gabriel's Wharf and had a pasta dinner -- at an outside table. It happened to be right by where the scene from Love Actually was filmed when that darling kid tells Liam Neeson's character that he's been acting strangely because he's in love. Clearly, the best chance we have to help our kids grow up strong and healthy is to keep an open relationship with them, so I'm happy that the kids have a special memory with just their dad. I hope that they will always feel close enough to both of us -- collectively and individually -- to share what is in their hearts and minds. Relationships happen because of a parade of shared moments... As Rowan Atkinson's character says in the move: "'Tis but the work of a moment." (And back off: the Love Actually DVD we have is actually a clean-up/edited version... Consequently, it's about an hour shorter than the original film... We might let our kids watch smutty movies -- but only if the actors have British accents... like I said before, when London calls: we answer.)
