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.