Tuesday was the long-awaited trip to Pizza Express to make pizza 🙂 We did this several years ago – I think possibly even before A was born – and it proved to be a very memorable, exciting and interesting trip, so the children were keen to go again and see if the giant fridge was really as cool in real life as it was in their memories. Sadly, our time there proved underwhelming. The description of what should have happened already promised less than we experienced on our last visit: the kitchens were not mentioned and nor were giant fridges; instead there was to be an ingredients tasting session and a quiz. Presumably health and safety now has something to say about taking hordes of children into restaurant kitchen. We were prepared for this, however, so the children all knew not to expect the heady excitement of seeing pizza ovens and fridge emergency buttons 😉
What we got, though, was less again. We were greeted warmly enough, and the guy who showed them how to make pizza was excellent both at making them himself and at helping the children to do it. He was in control and fun at the same time and that part went well. Only having margarita as an option was a little disappointing (last time we had bowls of toppings we could choose from) but not unexpected, thanks to that outline we’d been sent. Then the pizzas were whisked away for cooking, jugs of squash were brought out and we waited for someone to come and lead the next part of the session. We waited a bit longer. Some of the younger children started to get a bit tired of waiting. We played I spy. We chatted. We waited a bit more. No sign of any tasting session. No quiz. Finally a waitress appeared, looking a bit uncertain what to say to all these children. She dumped a pile of pizza boxes, asked if they’d washed their hands and disappeared again. I psyched myself up to ask about the quiz when she came back – if she was too nervous but had a sheet or some info I could do it for her, I thought. She came back, but before I could speak to her she called out to the children to come and get their pizza, then suggested they put their coats on first. Clearly it was time to go, although we had been there for rather less time than any of us had allowed, given the information we’d had earlier. We took our pizzas and filed out, all a bit bewildered.
They were very tasty though – we ate them in the park, holding off a marauding duck, and I got a slice from each child’s and some bonus bits of A’s once she was full 😉
After a mid-morning snack of pizza and a play in the park, what could be better than doughnuts and another play in the park? So that’s what we did while we waited for it to be time for ‘cello 🙂
6, L and K played a maths game while A had her ‘cello lesson, then we left K there for his and went down the road to L’s violin lesson. More maths games, for 6 and A this time, but I noticed that 6 was transfixed by the violin lesson, so suggested that she try a few different instruments to see if there was anything she fancied taking a little further. I’m not sure when we could squeeze anything in, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.
Home again for a trampolining interval, then K had gym and L and 6 had Brownies. I meant to take a picture to show the uniform, but it will have to wait until next week; we ran out of time!
