Playing away

Window-fitting meant the best place for the children to be was somewhere other than home, so Monday found us visiting friends for the day, including a trip to Wandlebury, where the children (8 altogether, from 3 families) spent rather more time chatting and playing than walking, leaving the adults (3 mums, 1 dad) to choose between dragging them along on a forced march or standing in the cold, getting fed up of waiting… Good chance to chat a bit though – and the dad (not Bob!) spent a fair bit of time showing off his tree climbing skills 🙂
On Tuesday we had hoped to meet up with E, O, M and F, but when that proved impossible the children decided they fancied a trip to London anyway so we caught the train and picked the museum which sounded most fun but also least likely to be busy from a long list of those running half-term activities 😉 and ended up at Geffryes Museum in the East End. We bought some lunch as we walked from Old Street to the museum, then sat in the garden to eat it. When we went in we found that we were just in time to catch the tail end of some Chinese storytelling by a lovely lady who said that she is also organising activities at the V and A for Chinese New Year, so we’re going to try to get to those 🙂 J was entranced by some of the cultural things she told them and by the Chinese writing she showed them. When the other children left he stayed behind and asked lots of questions, then asked her to write out the alphabet for him. She explained that she couldn’t do that, but wrote out the numbers for him instead, and then put an approximation of how to say them so that he would remember that too 😀
Then we did a pottery workshop, making Chinese-style vases. J had wanted to do one on making treasure maps (using lemon juice and special paper) but children under 8 had to be accompanied and I couldn’t accompany them all at once, so he had to settle for pottery too – upsetting at first, but I think he enjoyed it anyway 🙂 The chap who did it was really good and started by getting them all to think about shape and form and then about patterns and decoration. He gave each child a piece of paper and a pencil and we all trooped upstairs to look round the room settings (it’s a museum of the home, so has room settings from different periods) and sketch anything that appealed to them or inspired them with ideas for their own pots. Then we went back to the workshop and he showed them one he had made already and how to get started (rolled out base, then scratched marks on it, brush with water then start to stick on coils of clay – the scratch marks make it hold together better, apparently) and how to make lids (including a bit in the middle to stop them falling off) and then gave them a lump of clay each and let them get on with it. The boys worked pretty much independently, as I was keeping L busy in the creche corner. I think J prefers to work independently anyway – that’s why he was so upset that they wouldn’t let him do the map workshop without me…
Once the pots were finished they painted them straightaway, which I was slightly dubious about tbh, but it seems to have worked well and the finished pots look pretty good 🙂 The biggest problem was that the boys then decided they desperately wanted to get to the Natural History Museum so instead of wandering round the museum a bit more while the pots dried enough to be easily transportable we found ourselves catching bus and then tube with two pots and two lids, wet clay covered in wet paint, on a shoe box lid. Amazingly they just about survived!
Got to NHM to find that the Investigate bit, which was what they had both been so desperate to get to, had closed early that day 🙁 but still had a good browse round the Primates section, talked a fair bit about evolution, admired the Grand Sequoia (and realised it had been a seedling when Columba went to Iona – fairly recent SOTW topic 😉 ) and lost K briefly in the Grand Hall 😯

When we were thrown out of there (along with everyone else at closing time – nothing personal lol) we got the tube to Covent Garden and walked to our favourite eating place round there, Food For Thought , where J chose stir-fried veggies with rice, I chose a delicious chickpea, red pepper and squash bake and K and L had lots of brown rice and a little of each of ours. J, off his own bat, decided to go and ask for a tub to put his leftovers (lots as generous portion) in so he could take them home for Bob (who enjoyed them very much for lunch today) and also that we should get some pudding to take with us and eat on the train, which he organised all by himself as well 😀 He really is growing up!