this weekend i

Joining with Sar from [Life of Love] and Syndal from Synfully Delicious.

Saturday
Eventually once everyone in our house was up the boys went to purchase new bike pedals for Our Sidekick’s bike as it had got to the point where his pedal was almost completely disintegrated. Encouraging Our Sidekick out of bed was a challenge then again I think he’d somehow managed to squeeze extra time out and so went to bed late.

While the boys were out I watched a film and a couple of episodes of Numb3rs. While Chris amd Our Sidekick were out someone knocked on the door and said they were there to collect Our Sidekick for contact – well no one told us that transport had been booked for him as I’ve dropped him off every week since we started having contact supervised. I explained that Chris was dropping him off and that we hadn’t been told about the lift. I got all comfortable again when there was a knock at the door – it was the transport person again – did we want to collect Our Sidekick or should they bring him home? Well if you’re offering and seeing as you’re booked you can collect him that would be lovely.

Chris arrived home and grabbed his shirt for work but got in a grump with me that I hadn’t done them and could I do them as he was down to his last one or he should really be putting that one in the wash. I wasn’t really sure but after some cross words (don’t worry we apologised and made up later – see life isn’t always rainbows and butterflies!) and Chris heading off to work, I gathered together all the washing and did some chores.

I tidied the kitchen and got the washing on, I caught up on some TV while sorting out wool and other bits to take with me to the crochet lesson that Mum and I were running at The Fountain. We knew we were expecting one person but we wanted to be ready if we had extra people.

Our Sidekick was dropped home with another bag of goodies (tube/box of crisps and some chocolate I think) we then headed to my Mum’s to collect her (makes more sense then running two cars when we’re going to the same place lol)

We got to The Fountain and parking once again was a challenge but we got there in the end. We got settled in with our drinks (Apple Crumble special for me and a cup of tea for Mum) just as our friend arrived (we’ll call her A) – she was our definite. I grabbed her a cup of tea as well and while I was at the counter another lady arrived (we’ll call her S). We didn’t know her personally but we knew her in a six degrees of separation kind of way. She grabbed a drink and we got started. We were working on basic granny squares as you just need chain stitches and trebles to get started – you can always learn extra stitches after. I worked with our friend A and Mum worked with our “new” friend S.

After the crochet session, Mum and I went to the local supermarket to get some bits for tea and some other bits. I came home and chilled for a bit then went back to The Fountain to collect the boys. I cooked dinner for us all while the boys fixed Our Sidekick’s bike. We then all went for a run – well in my case power walk as my ribs were hurting.

When we got home Our Sidekick cleaned out the guinea pigs cage while me and Chris gave the guinea pigs a bath – it’s really funny when the sounds of the water makes them jump and they have like a fit – their legs and arms go crazy and they splash around.

Sunday
Originally the plan had been that we’d go to visit Chris’s Aunt and housemate – unfortunately the housemate went down with the flu on Saturday so it was decided to postpone our visit.

Chris decided that while we had nothing booked in the diary (as bits had either been moved, cancelled or our apologies had been sent) we’d go out for the day.

We caught the 11.06ish train out of Bedford and headed for London. We were on a First Capital Connect service which meant that it was pretty much all stops to London. (It came down to money vs time).

We got into London around 12.15 ish. I’d spent most of the journey crocheting and chatting to the boys about the route and what we could do in London when we got there. My friend Daren asked his FB friends about how important wearing a watch or having the time on their phone was. I haven’t had a watch in a while. I used to have one with an elasticated strap – it was the one I was given to learn to tell the time when I was younger – I was still wearing it into my teens and twenties as the elasticated strap was more comfortable than a metal, plastic or leather strap. I have tried other watches and I do have a current one (although its been on loan to Our Sidekick for school days when his phone has to remain in his pocket or bag). So the problem with relying on my iPhone for the time is that when the battery runs out I feel really lost – on a normal day it’s not a problem there’s the clock on the office wall, the display on my work phone and the toolbar on my work PC.

First off we were walking from St. Pancras station towards the British Museum, we stopped on a corner to check the route and Chris realised that we were stood right outside the British Library and he thought I might like a look. Chris said to Our Sidekick that we’d have a quick look then head to the British Museum for our proper trip of the day. We went in the first exhibition which was in the Sir John Ritblat Gallery (it’s named after him as he was a major benefactor during the refurbishment of the building). There were lots of special old documents in here. There were Shakespeare scripts, a notebook that belonged to Jane Austen and an original copy of Handel’s Messiah score – that was fun to read given that I was part of Messiah from Scratch in 2011 and 2012. While in the library I got a text message from a work colleague with some awesome news that we’ve been waiting for and so I did a little dance right in the middle of the library lol. We decided we needed to move off but it’s definitely somewhere to visit it in the future – I imagine I could probably spend all day in there! There were so many documents to look at – there’s a whole collection of folios too – I imagine that if you want to handle them then you’d need special permission and all that sort of thing but I could just look at them from a distance lol.

We grabbed some lunch on the way between the library and the museum, I had a BLT sandwich, Our Sidekick had a Swedish Meatball Wrap which smelt lovely but apparently was spicy even for him which is virtually unheard of from Our Sidekick. Chris had a salad as it was one of the few things without gluten in. (Is it always going to be this hard to find placed that make gluten free meals!?!)

The British Museum was interesting but by this point I was really warm having been outside and then in humidity controlled rooms. There were lots of people so everything took twice as much time to see it and then you felt like you had to dodge out like five people’s way. We did get to see the Rosetta Stone which was really interesting especially for someone like me who loved learning about Ancient Egypt and the Pyramids however it was one of the busiest exhibits so there were like twenty people all trying to see the one exhibit which isn’t as big as I imagined it to be.

After the British Museum we went to North Greenwich to go on the Emirates Air Line cable car across the Thames. It was good fun although Our Sidekick was a bit grumpy. I borrowed Chris’s phone and snapped a bunch of pictures of what I could see.

We caught the DLR to Bank then caught the tube to Tottenham Court Road. We then ended to Soho to grab tea at Wok to Walk. First of all we went to Snog which is just across the road. It sells frozen yoghurt will many different flavours – I had a Natural Classic size with Oreo cookies on top. When we were in Amsterdam we ended up eating at Wok to Walk quite a few times as it was relatively cheap in comparison and was yummy and filling. Amsterdam beats London. London – lack of seating. There were seven people around the main table that was supposed to sit like 12 or 14 and we were snug. Amsterdam on the other hand had two or three larger tables. There’s a second one in London so we might have to try that one next time. The sweet and sour sauce on mine was burning the back off my throat and it had no “fire woks” next to them so it wasn’t supposed to be spicy.

Following dinner we headed back to Piccadilly Circus to catch the tube back to St Pancras. We found an awesome graphic novel shop called Gulp. Chris got annoyed at me for taking too long. Well me and books what do you expect. They had shelves of Zines but most of them had swearing – I did find one that looked interesting and didn’t seem to have swearing so hopefully it’s okay.

On our way through the Trocadero, I found this amazing Japanese shop but the boys weren’t appreciating my geeky moment (some manga is dodgy and our site blocker thing seems to automatically pick up those bits so I can’t link but if you go to the Trocadero site there is a link – the store is called TokyoToys.

We got back to St Pancras and had a whistle stop visit to Platform 9 3/4s, Our Sidekick was getting tired so he didn’t really want to be there, we popped to Paperchase on our way through St. Pancras. Chris said we needed to go and I said I’d pay and catch up with them at the barrier. Turns out Chris had read the sign for the 1907 train which only went as far as Luton so although I sprinted from Paperchase to about three stores from the FFC barrier which in the end I didn’t need to have done as we needed the 1920 service out of London. It was a good day but would have been better if Our Sidekick hadn’t been in such a strop.

Oh I didn’t tell you all about epically breaking my nail, it bleeding everywhere and me holding a tissue to my finger until we got to North Greenwich and found a pharmacy or shop that would sell plasters. Thank goodness for the pharmacy on the peninsula.