16.07 - Day 183 - London
Tuesday 16th July - Chelmsford - London
An outing to London (Day 183); catching the train 25 minutes to Stratford, tubing onto Bethnal Green and into the Young V&A Museum. A collection of children’s items through the generations housed in a single large exhibition hall. The kids admire the large bank of doll houses especially after playing with the one at Hilltop. Original NES or the Landlord’s game in glass cabinets don’t hold as much appeal as an 8ft screen to play Minecraft on.
Hopping on the tube we come out in the cloudy sun at Tower of London, walking a lap around the moats but deciding old pictures and jewellery inside will only hold fleeting attention so instead we snack by Tower Bridge talking about jumping from one side to the other if the bridge was opening up. There are hordes of tourists as we try to bring alive some of the Tower’s stories, perhaps piquing Sienna and Seb’s future interest.
After walking along the windy bridge (and Sienna declaring that this is not summer in a very loud voice) we clamber up to the top deck of a red bus making our way to Big Ben to hear the bong at 1pm, Seb convinced it’s running late versus his watch.
No 10 Downing Street is just a black door, the extra security of more interest behind which the new Prime Minister is getting established.
The tube whizzes us to the Science Museum in South Kensington, the interactive games upstairs pleasing Sienna and Seb, from moving underwater rocks for sea cables, to welding roller coaster tracks, to coding ball sorting arms.
We head back central to Covent Garden and hustle and bustle through to the home of movie premieres in Leicester Square and dinner at Moon Under Water, the always busy Wetherspoons.
As we walk up to Tottenham Court Road we first spy the pub where we’d had our UK leaving drinks back in April 2008 and then some three storey screens including on the ceiling by the station displaying an electric mix of moving artwork that has Sienna and Seb spellbound. The train shoots us home after a very satisfying, (and high step count) day.
