Week 7 - Hyde Park, Chipping Ongar, NHM, The Monument, Bank museum

What a cutie: The pterodactyl outside the Natural History Museum in South Ken that comes to life to kick off the brill kids' novel Stoneheart that we've almost finished





















Lara gets a hair extension courtesy of an antler in the hands-on part of the NHM









Staying with the hair theme, Medusa puts the xeno into phobia or maybe it's just a reax to the state of Ellie's hair (not a lot of brushing going on these mornings it has to be said).














The Princess Di Memorial Fountain, Hyde Park. Very cool, surprisingly.


The Gunner, the guy in Stoneheart who deals to the pterodactyl among other taints. Hangs out at the Wellington Monument, Hyde Park corner.



















Outside Chipping Ongar, in Essex just north of London, where we took a friend's caravan for a spin in a paddock in prep for going further afield. Rural joke. Might drag it up to Norfolk after Easter. Then again, it's 14 foot long and has a corner toilet inside - sardines've had more room. But this pic is of The Leper's Squint, which we're told is a holy water stoupe (yep, Russell, seems that's where the name comes from) in the 1200 year old wall of what is "probably the oldest wooden building in Europe" (some guidebook) and the only remaining Saxon church in the UK.

So, given the gravitas of the place and moment we felt the need for hymns and holy foot coverings akin to what Moses might've worn if he'd had the option. They do keep the carpet clean but rustle alot.

The Monument, another featured location in Stoneheart, would've made some brilliant pix up or down the 300+ stairs of the spiral tower, and the big golden flame on top which Ellie says "looks like an artichoke" (thanks grandma for introducing them to the vegetable), if we'd remembered to take the camera. Adjacent Pudding Lane where the Great Fire of 1666 actually started looks like a 1970s service alley, and The London Stone, round the corner opposite Cannon St Station, and key to Stoneheart (yep, bit fixated on that book) looks like a common garden rock, and may as well be since the placard says no one's sure what it's about. Good one. That was worth the walk, eh kids.

PS kids will have more to say next blog from Ireland

Our Disneyland Trip

DISNEY PARIS - MARCH 15-19

Right - reconstruction: Imagine it's 3.45am, Lara is in her PJs and I've realised there's no way to jump a Toyota off George's BMW. A fun way to start. But we made the 7am ferry.
Sam on getting up early: "I was really excited."
Jac on getting up early: "Yeh, so was I."










Lunch at Amiens Notre Dame,and Jac
gets her first real cafe coffee since setting off from NZ, some sort of record.
Lara says: "It had beautiful pictures."
Sam: "Inside the shop was a giant chocolate replica of the Cathedral... I ate the whole thing (not)."









First night in the cabin at le Ranch Davy Crockett. "The best part was the
pool" says Rosa. Ellie: "It had a slide, spas with bubbles and a river ride."
Getting in before April meant the accommodation basically cost nothing and we got 5 days worth of Disney tickets for the price of 2 (500 quid - yep, 250 a day). Brill value and totally unaffordable in the peak season. It wouldve been worth staying at the ranch even if we never went to Disney, and just trained into Paris instead for some real culture. Which we didn't.

Lara rides the Mad Hatter's teacups first day at Disney, up at 7, back at 7. Lara says: "It was so fun and one time I made it spin around really fast." What is it about humans and spinning round? What is it about humans and queueing so they can spin?

Back at the ranch. "My birthday," says Sam. "We had chocolate mousse for a cake, it's really sticky on your fingers, with quite expensive vanilla ice cream" ($15NZ for a litre, yep, a bit pricey).

You take what characters you can get. Mickey's queue was ridiculous so, sorry, none of him, seen only from afar. I'm not sure who this mangy looking cat is - "He's from Pinnochio, dad," says Sam.

Above, family frights - a photo of a photo taken on the Tower of Terror ride. Rosa: "It was scary, it dropped down real fast, my tummy fizzed."

Right: Our equal favourite rollercoast, Thunder Mountain. Ellie was crowned the Speed Queen for the week - she says: "It's really loud. We went on it 3 times. And there's donkeys (not real ones) and a bit where you think you're going to go down and do a big curve."
I'm not sure about that donkey report. I thought it was a mechanical goat.

Sleeping Beauty's castle. "It's like in the centre of Disneyland"says Sam. Was it Rosa's favourite? "No" she says.


Below: While Jac and Sam rode Space Mountain the girls went down into the Nautilus submarine. A giant squid is behind them; they look suitably impressed. Later Phil snuck Ellie into the Space Mountain ride by stuffing maps in her shoes so she met the 1.32m height limit. Safety first. Only 1 ride was offlimits to sam as well - Indiana Jones at 1.40m, and a bit tame/short really - while one of the best, the Crush's "Nemo" ride in Walt Disney Park let them all on.

Right, the after-effects.

Two days were ideal, the third day a bit of a mish.



And so, below, we escaped.

Lunch at the Roman-Gallo theatre outside Breutiel on Friday. "We pretended the Gauls were attacking and chopped them down with arrows, spears and swords," says Sam. Could've invited them for hummus and crackers instead.

Rosa on Boulogne beach, 30 minutes before we learned our ferry was cancelled and had to drive an hour north to Dunquerque. "Ellie is looking in the telescope and I'm driving."


Got home at 9pm in the rain after a week of spring temperatures and not a drop. Ah, England.







The End

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March 8-14, National Gallery, Coram Fields

Pictures we drew lying on the floor and sitting on benches at the amazing National Gallery (Phil's favourite spot so far, culture vulture that I am) on Wednesday: both Ellie and Lara's are inspired by Angelica Saved By Ruggiero, 1819-39, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres; Rosa's by A Horse Frightened by Lightning, 1813-14, Theodore Gericault; and Sam's the martial patterns formed by Horace Vernet's (1822) The Battle of Montmirail. Other favourites were Peter Paul Rubens' Samson And Delilah; various pix of people with their heads cut off; and anything at all on the (few and hard to find) computers that had cool zoom-in tools etc

Above: Lunch at Trafalgar Square outside National Gallery, 6 or so with a wind chill factor added.

March 1-8, RAF & childhood museums, camden and hampstead

Above: Punch and Judy gets a hand at the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green (all free, 3 stars, looong 90 min+ bus ride from home) on Fri Mar 5

Above: in front of the oldest (1673 or something) doll's house at Childhood museum

Left: iron filings and magnet drawing

Right: the Lone Lara at the Childhood Museum. Below: Rosa laxes out at Camden Lock market on Saturday.

Above: Coming down Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath on Sunday March 7th. Drove there, and later along by England's 2nd most expensive residential street (av price £6.07 m) after one in Belgravia (av price £6.09m). Saw a guy swimming in the male-only pond - there was ice still on some puddles around it at 3pm. Lovely day as you can see, as it was all last week virtually.

Right and below: Scoffing pizza in The Stables (since 1854), the recently renovated part of Camden Lock markets; and below, scooters double as cafe seats at Camden.

Above: The RAF museum in Hendon (20 min drive away, all free except for £11 for 4 kids on 4min flight simulator ride) had lots of hands-on kids stuff, most of it pretty cool, lots to do with fans blowing air around and ping pong balls and stuff. Right: The girls in their simulator (small version meant the short stuffs could do it, whereas sam and ellie went on a bigger one).








World War One planes at RAF museum and below, pretending to fly a Spitfire.

From Ellie,
On Monday we painted Mikey and Minnie mouse. I painted Minnie mouse.Her face was pink &
orange.

From Rosa:

we went on sunday to Hampstead Heath. (dad writing here:) I liked the octopus swing ride in the Parliament hill playground that all 4 of us went on. On Friday we went to Park Road swimming pool again and it was nice and warm.

From Lara:

We went to the RAF museum and went on the simulator.

Feb 22-28, London & Science museums, London Eye and The Palace

Above: Height challenged tourists ride London Eye without theirs open. Remarkably efficient set-up, helped cos we booked on line - in to 3D 4 min movie and into eye queue and out again all in 45 mins despite 000s of people. £61 for us (a family pass + 2 kids, good discount cos adults on their own are £27).

Above: At Cleopatra's Needle on Feb 21 - this is the Not-Nice Sphinx from the kids' novel Stoneheart, the first of the book's statues we've seen - we intend to spot all 10 or so of them.

Top right: if you look closely you can see Rosa and Phil, outside Buckingham Palace on Saturday Feb 27. And the rest of the crew at the palace, right; and Ellie on the London Eye the same day.

From Lara I went to the church and then downstiras to sunday school.

From Ellie,

We went on the London Eye.

I went to a grave-yard.We went to see Carl Marx's grave.It had a

carving of his head on it that was made of stone.He was famous for

being the father of communism.He died in 1883 + was born in 1818.

From Rosa:

we went to the church and we went to sunday school.

From Sam
we went on the london eye I could see all the way to where we live.

More London Eye pix