London

We usually visit London a lot especially during the summer holidays, this year however I haven't been as I thought with the Olympics on it would be very busy. I agreed to going between the Olympics and Paralympics however life happens and so we didn't get there until today when we picked up our tickets for the event we are watching. On the way to the central London ticket office we saw Downing Street, The Horse Guards, Houses of Parliament and a view of the London Eye which ticked several boxes of one of the group we were with.

We then had a surprise as whilst in the queue for tickets I was told that the Paralympic flame was passing by anytime! So we found the route, with a little help from a policeman on where best to stand for our little people to be able to see. Lots of excitement and cheering as the flame passed.

We then went to the Science museum another request from the children in the group where we looked at space rockets, and learnt about different materials.

Us grown ups are now very tired after a feet aching and frugal day- we walked the almost 2 miles to the train station and back as there were too many of us to go in the car as we usually would. So we saved the cost of fuel which google estimate to be 50p, plus saved the parking which is £2.50 for the day. We got the train to London using my railcard which saved us a whopping £36.55! We took lunch with us using what we already had in the house so in all we saved £39.55 with our day out so we bought fish and chips in the way home as a treat spending costing £18.50. So even taking this into account we saved £21.05 on our day out.

Torch bearer

The lovely policeman who spoke to the children asking about their day, if they were having fun etc.

 

It wasn't as busy as I had expected until the train on the way home, however that is because we get the high speed train back home, which goes through Stratford where the Olympic park is so it was very full of commuters and supporters. Everyone seemed happy even though many of us stood for the majority of the journey. 2 very kind gentlemen stood up so that the younger members of our group could sit down. Other passengers chatted happily to all of the children making what could have been a difficult journey rather pleasant. 

holiday pictures

 

 

I've been playing with an online app to make this collage of some of my favourite holiday pictures from our recent break. I can't work out how to make them clearer on here but if you are interested the original link is here

My clever girl

Warning I was originally going to post today about our fabulous recent holiday, but then Stephanie did something amazing today I'm so proud of her I am going to write  a boastful proud Mummy post for you all instead.

 

I have been trying to get Stephanie to let me teach her something for almost a year, she was too nervous to let me. At the beginning of the summer holiday she finally agreed (with a spot of bribery!). We tried once before we went away she tried hard but was very nervous. Then today we went out just the 2 of us and look what she managed to do;

 

Would you believe it was only her second try with no stabilisers and look at her go. Sorry that the video is on the side, I don't know how to turn it.

She now can't wait until " when I can do it without wobbling Mum then we can go out with Dylan on all our bikes can't we"

a cleaning kind of a week

This week has been all about clearing the mess!

I began by clearing out Stephanie's room whilst she is at her Dad's that took me Sunday and Tuesday to do. Then I moved on to my room where a lot of unwanted items seem to have collected. I have sorted through these and my room has taken an hour or so yesterday afternoon and an hour today, I still have a little to do but it won't take long it's just dusting etc left now. That will just leave the kitchen to be sorted properly. I am trying to get it all done before we go away next week. When we get back I will be posting a lot of the unwanted items on line for sale. Any money made from this will go towards our next holiday.

I saw a post on Sunday about cleaning your vacuum cleaner and realised that I have not cleaned mine in the 2 and a half years that I have owned it. I gave mine a wash last night after I had hoovered the bedrooms.

This is the gross-ness I removed from the brush bar/ behind the brush bar.

This is the washing water after I washed all the removable parts. YUCK!

All clean and drying out.

This evening after everything had dried I put my cleaner back together and re-hoovered the bedrooms I can not believe the difference in the suck of the vacuum! Also slightly grossed out by what came off of the carpets today when you consider I hoovered them 24 hours before, we have no pets and we do not have food upstairs yet there was a lot of mess in the hoover after I finished today.

So when I saw Froog's cleaned her washing machine today I thought it seemed fitting that I should clean mine, now I have cleaned this more than I cleaned the hoover it does get done every so often. It wasn't looking too dirty so that's good. I forgot to take pictures but that's 2 appliances clean now, I wonder what will be tomorrow...