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...

How does it happen?

How do children's bedrooms breed so much stuff?

After Dylan went to the gym and I went swimming this morning I decided I would spend 15 minutes organising in Stephanie's bedroom, I mean it shouldn't take long should it just to put a few things away. Yet once I started I realised there was a lot more to organise than I thought. I started by moving out anything I could see that she has not used for a long time. I decided to put these items into the attic. When she gets back from her Dad's if she hasn't requested specific things I will sell them on.

Here's what I moved out in the 1st 15 minutes;

After moving these items I could see space to organise some of the toys etc on the floor so spent another 15 minutes doing that. I planned on doing some more another day however as I was getting ready to go to the allotment we had a thunder storm so I decided to go and do a little more in her bedroom. I removed this amount again and collected a black sack full of broken/ missing pieced toys and did some more tidying. I ended up doing about an hour in there, there is still more to go!

How do toys etc breed?

Olympic celebrations

Yesterday we began the day by going for a swim. Then we got ready to go to Rochester castle to join in the celebrations for the opening ceremony of the Olympics. We ran the Medway Mile which is a mass fun run which has happened on the 27th July for the last few years here to mark the count down to the Olympic games. It is a fantastic family event with lots to keep the children entertained whilst waiting for the mass race. There are shorter children's races, a mascot race, and a competitive racers mile before the mass race. All activities are free to take part in including the fair ground rides etc for the children.

It is a fantastic evening of fun, we always take a picnic with us as there are burger vans there but they are expensive and I find it strange that the only option is burgers and chips at an event where there are lots of initiatives on display by the local council to get people to eat more healthily..

I am disappointed that last night was the last one of these fantastic events. I think there should be something similar set up as a yearly event, it's great to see everyone come together. Oh and I ran the mile with Stephanie and we completed it at her pace with a time of 11 Min's 09 seconds. Dylan decided not to run and came in about 7 minutes later.

Here are some of the pictures from the evening;

Face painted by the Better Medway team

Stephanie on the big slide

Dylan on the big slide

Swing ride

Making smoothies, they both want one of these bikes!

Celebratory ice cream after running the mile.

One of the local Olympic torch carriers bought the torch with her and very kindly let the children hold it so I could get their photographs with it.

Watching the Olympic ceremony on the big screen whilst waving GB flags. Was great to watch the children running around playing together with others who they did not know. Yet when the people on the screen started to sing the National Anthem the children stopped what they were doing and watched joining in with the words. Very spontaneous and very sweet.

After this we watched the firework display which was fantastic, we were too busy watching to take pictures- sorry!

Tired today

All this getting healthy with the children is tiring work!

After breakfast I took Stephanie out on her bike with no stabilisers for the first time. I spent most of the time holding onto the back of her saddle, then catching her seconds after I let go. For some reason she seems to lean to the right very heavily as she rides. As I didn't let her crash to the floor she is happy to keep trying until she gets the hang of it. The promise of a trip to build a bear when she manages to ride it herself is working wonders...

From bike riding to swimming where we all swam for just over an hour and a half. Dylan took himself into the big pool and swam LOTS of lengths. Stephanie swam in the middle sized pool lots of lengths. We had to come out of that pool at 11 as there was an aqua aerobics class in there. I took Stephanie in the deep pool for the 1st time. She loved it, swimming as deep as 150cm ( as deep as I was comfortable taking her as it came up to my shoulders and she is only just 110cm tall). Definitely need to do this with her again.

We then had our lunch in the park opposite the leisure centre where the children ran around for a while. Came home Dylan prepared the dinner for us. We then went to the library and on to the dentist. I decided that I would save a little bit of money and get some more exercise by not driving all the way and walking the last bit of the journey. It is about a 15 minute walk.

Once home Dylan finished the dinner he made a very tasty tomato pasta bake with chirozo, peperoni and salami in. He added some chili powder to the  tin tomatoes as he was cooking was very good.

Then Dylan went out on his bike with a neighbour before we headed down to the allotment for an hour of weeding and digging.

We are definitely notching up the exercise this week. I just hope we can maintain it once September comes around. Sorry about the lack of picture today but I must admit to being very tired today, I didn't sleep well last night so that probably hasn't helped. Maybe tomorrow I'll have the energy to upload some pictures to show.