London: Day Six
Oh, these are getting harder and harder to write as I get more and more exhausted… yet I don’t start it until 9:30pm, anyway. Ugh.
Today was Knit Nation day! Yay! So, while I looked at pretty wool and talked to a few friends there, Mike and the kids played at the Diana, Princess of Wales’ Memorial Playground. We walked to a different Underground station today, a little farther away and on a different line, for a change (and one less transfer to drag the stroller through). I went with them, mainly to help Mike, as I don’t think it would be possible alone with all the stairs at the stations, and then walked through Kensington Garden to get to Knit Nation. It was a bit longer than I had anticipated, but a nice walk, anyway!
Since it’s my day to blog, I’ll just write about KN first. Ha. I got in and looked at a few booths, then came across the lovely Kim of Pure Purl and Anne. Spoke with them a bit, got warned of the Wollemeise fever in the place, and marched on. Encountered said Wollemeise fever, and ran into my friend Sophia in the booth. Bought two skeins, one Twin in Petersilie (not my picture, nor did I get two!) and one merino in Petit Poison Nr. 5 dark (again, not my pic). I also grabbed a skein of Old Maiden Aunt Yarn 100% merino in Kelpie. It’s my only real impulse purchase of the day.. it’s like oxidized copper, it’s just the neatest color ever. Seafoam green (patina colored) with a brownish haze… man, it’s just something you have to see. After that, I decided I’d gotten enough (ha, like there’s ever enough!) and headed back to meet Mike and the kids.
So, while I was having a yarny time, Mike and the kids played at the playground. See the following videos:
Pirate ship at the playground
Playing at the Diana, Princess of Wales' Memorial Playground
While there, the kids apparently made friends quickly and disregarded anything Mike told them. Elliott also had to stick up for Bean a few times, as there was one little girl who wouldn’t share and was quite the brat. He kept making sure everyone knew her name was Sabine and NOT “little girl”.
The reason they had no clothes when I came back.
While I was gone, I got one text: “Kids are soaked. Don’t ask.” This is why. A faucet to clean the sand off your feet, after playing in the pirate ship or other sandy areas. Well, they just were drenched… so, they wore raincoats instead of shirts, and Bean didn’t have any pants on when I came back. They’re STILL wet. Luckily, I had a spare pair of shorts for Elliott in the backpack and she wore those for the rest of the day. Those grey gym shorts really matched her flowery top perfectly.
Raincoat ice cream party!
They also got ice cream!
Captain of her sand-boat.
Who needs pants or a shirt when you’ve got a boat in the sand?
And, of course, on the way out of the playground, Elliott had to ride the carousel. He loves those things!
We then moved on to the British Museum. This is the one that houses all the Egyptian artifacts and the Rosetta Stone. Elliott did NOT like going through the Egyptian sculpture rooms (gypsy rooms, as he called them).
"But I'm tired..."
We were all pretty tired by this point, so we grabbed a snack (which was my lunch, really… healthy blueberry muffin and some crisps) and set a plan of where we’d go. We wanted to get through it pretty quick, so we picked what we really wanted to see and set off. First, the Rosetta Stone.
Mike taking a picture of the Rosetta Stone
Very crowded, as you can see in the plexiglass reflection. Hard to take pictures of, too. We went through the Egyptian sculpture, the Europe Middle Ages through 20th Century and Ancient Egypt.
Natural mummy!
It was pretty crowded throughout the whole Egyptian exhibit, of course, so we didn’t do much other than speed through. We also had an encounter with a passive-aggressive museum attendant and a balloon, but it’s done and over and I don’t want to get mad again! (Long story short: one balloon got free, he bitched about the other one, then found us, told us “someone radioed to him we needed to leave with the balloon” so I just snapped it and deflated it [just one of those plugs, Elliott played with it for like an hour once we got home] and we walked away. Grr.)
So, tired and cranky, we walked home. Mike took a nap, I looked at and petted my yarn, the kids watched some CBeebies and we all kind of just chilled for a bit.
We went back in to Covent Garden for some dinner things (for the kids, as Mike and I were going to order some takeaway Indian). Elliott kept saying “ah apaht-ment” (our apartment in a posh accent). Said he learned it at his school. He had said it earlier (maybe yesterday? Can’t remember..) and it was one of this first real slips into an accent without him thinking anything of it beforehand) (unlike zed or ladybird, where he’ll say “zed.. or z” or “it’s a ladyBUG, not ladybird!”)
The market was closing up for the night, so we stopped and started watching a show, but the dude just kept setting things up and we got bored before it even started:
It was 20 minutes of set-up time.
Stopped at M&S for the kids’ dinner (posh mac&cheese), ordered and ate our dinner, got the kids in bed and now I’m off to bed! Another long day.
Tomorrow, we’re going to the Imperial War Museum, which has a special exhibit on the Ministry of Food, wartime rationing, etc. I cannot wait! That’s my thing.
I really wish I would have know that “domestic/social life historian” was a real thing years ago… I should have been one of those!
I’m glad you got some yarn, the “petting it” worries me, though. Just kidding, I do that with food!