Day tripping in London with the kids.

I’ve always had a soft spot for London, it’s big, noisy and maybe a little smelly, but there’s something I quite like about it. 

I remember having a day out in London as a child, it was grey and cold but it seemed so big and magical to little old me. We also saw Des O’Connor – WIN.
Though I’ve been back a few times since then, it’s never been as a tourist.
Rather just for a messy night out.

For my last birthday, Rory bought me tickets for The Play the Goes Wrong. 
My parents were having the children and we were going to head to London for a couple of nights, watch a show and do lots of wonderful London things!

The show was amazing, I laughed so hard, harder than a woman who has birthed two children should.
We went to a pub, played darts and then headed back to our hotel.
It was around this time that it became The Weekend that Goes Wrong.

Without going into too much detail, I spent the rest of the night face down in the thankfully huge bathroom.
I then spent the rest of the following day in bed.
We finally ventured out for a walk late afternoon but I was as weak as a kitten and pathetic too.
I managed to ruin our lovely weekend.
At first I assumed it was alcohol related, I confess – I’ve got form, but I was ill for a few days so I clearly had myself an ill timed bug.

Almost a year on and I’m about ready to start considering another trip to London, maybe just a day trip and we can take the kids too.
It’s only a couple of hours by train from Leeds and not too expensive if we book in advance.
Apparently it’s cheaper still if you break the journey into shorter journeys and buy the tickets like that but I’m a mum, I don’t have time for stuff like that.

If it were just Rory and I spending the day in London, we’d just wing it but taking the kids we can’t do that – besides it’s always more cost effective to trawl the internet to get great deals on your favourite activities in London rather than pay on the day. Though my favourite thing about London is the abundance of free things to do too!

Museums, galleries and famous landmarks – many of these cost nothing.

So, in planning our family daytrip to London , my itinerary  reads thusly

• Visit Buckingham Palace to wave at the Queen
• See Big Ben, who is still rather bongless
• Watch the Changing of the Queen’s Life Guard at Horse Guards Parade
• Have a coffee and provide cake to the children to stop them complaining about the walking.
• Visit Trafalger Square, telling Seth a thousand times that he can’t climb on the lions or paddle in the fountain.
• Eat poutin at the Canadian pub I saw but was too ill to enter.
• Watch a magician in Covent Garden.
• Blow the kids minds with a visit to Hamleys.
• Pop to the British Museum to visit the Anicent Egyptian bit and buy a rainbow rubber.

I just need to avoid all incidents of sparkling to make the trip a success.

 

This post was written as a collaboration but all opinons, as ever, are my own.