Strolling the Southbank...

Had a lovely day in London yesterday with daughter and the children. I was ready for 8:30am but got a text to say the girls had only just got out of bed so would be a bit later than expected   :o)

Our drive to Newbury Park station was easy with the girls playing a 'watch out for things' game while munching breakfast and O happy listening to their Horrible Histories cd and not letting anyone sing along with him! Unfortunately the station car park was closed but we found a roadside spot just round the corner so no problem. Walking round to the station I started playing the stop-go-forward-back game with O so he wouldn't keep running ahead without us, very funny when all 5 of us were doing it in the street.

We took the underground to Embankment station (Central line to Mile End then District), which O loved and because the girls were standing he wanted to stand some of the time to see if the movement of the train would make him fall over.

We had a bit of a walk to where the "October Plenty" procession was starting from but unfortunately when we got there we had actually missed it, which nobody minded as it had been such a lovely walk on a really sunny day licking ice-creams, so we carried on walking to Borough Market where the procession was ending for the "Apple Day Festival". We had a good look at lots of food and drink stalls then headed to the other end of the market, past people in costume, one of which was a very tall 'Green man' covered in fruit and vegetation and his face painted green too. This area of the market was packed with people gathered round a stage where we saw minstrels playing and dancers, including a 'bear' performer too! According to the programme they also did some plays but I think we missed them too.

Hunger was the only thing on R's mind so we walked around a bit and debated lots then finally found a lovely place to stop for a yummy lunch. O got restless once he had eaten enough so he dragged daughter out and left the girls and me to finish then we met them back at the market.

When we were ready to head home we left the market with a huge meringue that E wanted, a tart that daughter wanted and O asleep on daughters back. R and I made a quick detour to get her some sushi that she wanted and I was amazed that they could all eat more immediately after having lunch hahahaha.

As we were now at London Bridge station we tried the Jubilee line back to Stratford then the Central to Newbury Park and in fact that did seem so much quicker! O was getting more and more daring and wanting to change seats every five minutes but we did insist he only changed when the train had stopped. Made us laugh that his running about seemed to put all the other passengers on alert to catch him if need be!

Getting back to Newbury Park at such a good time I text my sisterM to see if they were in and wanted to make us a cuppa.....she could have lied and said they were out (I would never have known) but they didn't and so we called round for a welcome cup of tea and natter about their recent holiday.

Finally dropped home before daughter got her lot home for dinner and bed. I'd left them knowing they were coming over the next day (that's today) and with a promise that the girls could sleep over tonight.
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