End of term

 

Spanishgirl has been and gone. She was easy to have but I felt the absence of Spanish in the family: perhaps our lack was her gain as she spoke much more English than our earlier French visitors. Youngest was put under strain: Spanishgirl lives in Madrid and Youngest found it difficult to explain our country slow lane life! But our trip to London went down well with everybody - yes, even  the art heathens among us loved the trip to see the Hockney exhibition! - and a hanging out and paddling in the river evening with a little gang of girls was deemed the 'most fun'. They had to make more flapjack and she took home the recipe.

I have made a cushion for the Church Fete raffle (I was instructed to make red white and blue but in a Kath Kidson style).

And I have made progress with the new chair (but not with the old ones). 

It's the end of term and we are off to Dorset tomorrow for an even quieter bit of country life.

No need to translate flapjack!

When little French girls came to stay I developed an e-mailing habit with Maman, based on my O level French, long before they arrived. If the girls didn’t understand I fished out ancient vocab and we managed. At midnight yesterday we greeted Youngest’s Spanish exchange girl. My Spanish is minimal, of the hola/gracia variety. I am hoping her English will be good enough for us to manage the week. I have had no contact with Madre…

We do know she was very pleased to discover flapjack which you may remember Youngest took as a gift to her hosts. Spanishgirl had hot chocolate and flapjack on arrival and has had the same for breakfast – and taken some to school for snack. She left with Eldest to catch the bus; some careful organization has resulted in a clash of the Spanish exchange with the Work Experience week so Youngest is not at school to be followed today.

This week has been all about my taxi. Youngest has had to be in Chippenham for work from 9 to 4.30. She is loving working in the Swindon and Wiltshire History Centre where she’s been tasked with writing a timeline for our village for their website. I did look at the bus, but it takes an hour and she'd be leaving at 7.30... so that means two round trips a day for me. And then I do the ballet run three nights a week for Eldest.

We will go again tomorrow to catch the train to London to show off the capital and visit the Hockney exhibition. I’m hoping Husband might drive.

New Year Adventure

I can’t now remember who had the bright idea that we would go and look at the fireworks on New Year’s Eve, but we were visiting my parents in south east London and it seemed like it ought to be done.
We left their home in time to catch the 7.42 to Charing Cross. The train was packed and we got only one seat. At Charing Cross itself, the fact that there were barricades everywhere – not to mention police - should probably have warned us of the evening to come…
We set off round the corner into Whitehall heading for Westminster Bridge and the river. Various lighted signs warned us that, once full, access to the river watching places would be closed. As we went through the narrowed (barricaded) entrance to the road beside the Houses of Parliament and leading to the bridge we found ourselves funneled into single file, holding hands, desperately trying to keep together. No more than fifty yards from where we’d entered we decided to retreat: it was too crowded and there didn’t seem much chance of actually reaching the river and the view. We had been advised that if we could see the London Eye we’d see the fireworks, and that meant getting to the river.
Walking back up Whitehall we stopped just beyond the Cenotaph with our backs to a barricade and, looking between two buildings, a perfect view of the Eye lit up like a Christmas tree. It was 8.45. We were packed together with little wriggle room and a line of mounted police to our right directing people around the back of the barricades, though this didn’t stop a seemingly endless stream of people pushing passed us hoping for a better spot. We played a half-hearted game of I Spy but otherwise amused ourselves by people watching. There was a DJ from ten, but we couldn’t hear that. The evening was interspersed with the excitement of everyone putting hoods and umbrellas up because we were being rained on. Three hours later the muttering about whether it was going to be worth the wait had gone as the crowd was getting excited and the Eye lights were getting more varied and changing more frequently. At 11.50 the family next to us popped a cork: their eldest was about to be 21. We could just about hear the music now.


If you’ve been to a major firework display, or saw New Year ones on the TV, you may be able to imagine just how spectacular the 15 minutes of fireworks were! The noise was immense and the sheer size of the display was staggering. We were entranced! I have written before about enjoying the moment at the time of the moment. A surprising number of the people around us were filming the display on their mobiles which meant concentrating on holding the camera pointing at the sky: mad!


We agreed that the fireworks had been well worth the wait.


Walking back up Whitehall we found ourselves stopped by mounted police while they ‘emptied’ Trafalgar Square. We were eventually released to walk around the corner only to find that the entrance to Charing Cross was blocked off and we were being directed to a street entrance further down the Strand. The drunken crowd were getting bad tempered about missing the last train (at 1.30am) so we decided to see if we could get on a tube to Waterloo East or London Bridge. Well, of course, the queue for Leicester Square tube was ten deep and a hundred yards long… Ok, we’d head for Victoria.


The streets were heaving with people: cars were diverted all around the area. There were only four trains left on the board at Victoria, and none of them were going our way. We studied the bus timetable and headed back outside to join a queue for the bus to Lewisham station. No chance of the bus making rapid progress, not even once we were south of the Thames. It was clearly the rush hour whatever the actual time. At Lewisham we looked for a bus to Eltham: there would be one in 25 minutes and it would take 12 minutes to get to the High Street… we grabbed a taxi from outside the station and let ourselves in the front door of my parents home at 3.45am.


It was the soberest New Year’s Eve Husband and I can remember in recent times. It was the latest to bed too. The wait or the journey home was probably worth the fireworks: but not both. It was however an adventure! And, despite not getting a T-shirt, we don’t feel we need to do it again!

Visit London!

Now what shall we tell I’m Crayon to do in London when she’s only over for a week?
She’s staying in Grosvenor Square, which sounds pretty posh to me, and on the doorstep of everything. (She’s already in the country so it may well be too late, but she may check in!)

If you can run to a show of some sort I’m sure you ought to see something. I don’t think it matters whether it’s theatre, ballet, opera or a concert, but see something you should! London will offer you food from pretty much anywhere in the world so you must make sure to eat something specifically local even if it’s only a full English breakfast; or perhaps a cream tea, given the time of year.
And walk the streets! Take a tube certainly, because they’re unique, but just connecting places and people-watching on foot is fun. (And you probably need a ride in a black cab just so you can say you have been in one.) At least one of the parks: Regent’s to see roses or the zoo – or the open air theatre is a great outing if there’s something on when you visit. Or Hampstead Heath perhaps; it’s further out but the views from the top of Parliament Hill are terrific and it’s lovely to wander around. You could combine it with a trip to Camden Lock to look at the market which I wrote about in an earlier post.
I always love Covent Garden: heaving with tourists, but buzzing with interesting shops, street entertainers and eateries.
At least one art gallery too. Depends whether you like art as to which one! I prefer a museum myself: the Victoria and Albert, as it happens, because I love the costumes. When I was a student I spent hours wandering around looking at the furniture and judging everything on whether or not I’d give it houseroom. But the National Gallery can be ticked off at the same time as Trafalgar Square, Horse Guard’s, Parliament, Admiralty Arch, Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard. I think they’re essential and traditional! (I'm rather hoping you may have managed the Trooping of the Colour today.) You’ll be exhausted, but you can walk between all of those easily.

I love London. I lived in Woolwich for a couple of years (twice) with my parents, and then in Highbury, Islington, as a student at the London College of Fashion. My parents now live in their own home in south east London (they might tell you it used to be Kent). They reckoned it was a good place to settle as we’d always want to visit Town: they were right! I still get a buzz from central London despite my love of my present, rural life.


It may well be too late for I’m Crayon, but I rather enjoyed thinking about what to tell her. Hope she had fun!