Pretty views on Primrose Hill

Sunday Funday didn't fail to deliver this week. We were off on an early start (always the aim, but not always the game), and got to the very pretty Primrose Hill right before the crowds arrived. Austin wasn't overly impressed by the view (and well I don't blame him, he is only 22 months after-all), but he did enjoy seeing the dogs that were on their morning walk, running down the hill and picking out little daisies from the grass (CUTE!). 

I can totally imagine having an evening drink sitting on this hill in summer, watching the sun set, bottle of champagne and picnic basket by our sides... HAHAHA YEAH RIGHT IN OUR DREAMS. But hey, we did get the early morning view which was pretty damn good. 

The Zoo is right nearby too but errrm we didn't go (it is high on our Summer to do list though). After the gardens we walked down Regents Canal and landed smack bang in Camden Market. It was only 10am but who am I to deny my stomach from all of those AMAZING food stalls. So we ate sticky pork buns with crackling and slaw.... followed by ham and cheese croquettes. So very VERY satisfying. If I had room left over the cronut and donut stall would have had to watch out. 

Loving the holiday feels of an average weekend out and about. 

The queen of stuff-ups

Advice to me, from me (which would have been useful about a week ago in Edinburgh aka Edinbra):

1. When the hotel concierge suggests a fancy restaurant for dinner with your toddler, don't be fooled, this restaurant will be fancy (even at 5pm. Come on people, go home and come back for a normal people dinner).

2. When booking an apartment with the most amazing view of Edinburgh castle, ask yourself why does this apartment have this view? Is it because it is high up in the building? Does this mean it is up a flight of stairs? Or several flight of stairs? Coz woulda been hella good to know there was over 3 flights of stairs to carry up the suitcases, portacot, other various bags and oh yeah, Austin sleeping in his pram too. Massive d'oh. (And yes, I was in charge of all of the bookings). 

3. Make more of the time you have on holiday! Travel with a toddler can be stressful - trying to keep them occupied, happy, fed and dry... trying to stop them from running away in castles, pooing on the floor, and breaking all of the ornaments in the apartment you're in... you know just the usual but in an unfamiliar environment. But even worse is getting home and realising there were about 10 other sights you could've seen. Damn, damn, damn. (Mooooooore caaaaaaastles!)

What we did see of Edinburgh was pretty damn good though. Think castles, old buildings, princesses walking around…  ok no princesses but there may as well have been. I wish we had braved the bus trip to see the highlands as well but none of us really thought that would be ideal toddler territory so gave it a miss. Maybe next time we go, or when Austin is older, I don’t know, say in 20 years? 

Let's go Glasgow

Scotland was our Easter vacay destination with the fam. And I managed to convince hubby, and my parents and Austin (well let's be real that didn't require much convincing) to all come to Glasgow. Wooo. And then once they agreed I revealed that I had a sort of an ulterior motive (sort of, massively). A friends dancing competition on in Glasgow that weekend meant I intended to sort of (massively) sneak off for some catching up. 

So while I was mostly off at The Royal Concert Hall checking out the dancing hubby was in charge. And there was poo-gate. Yes that is a poo on the floor. And getting dressed-gate, and going-for-a-walk-gate and ..... uuuuh you get the idea. Poor hubby! But hey, as long as the place didn't burn down and everyone was still alive at the end of the day, I think it was a job well done.

We really didn't see as much as we would've liked between everything else, but we did see the Botanic Gardens and Byers street and the Concert Hall.... and then the train station as we left for part 2 of our holiday, Edinburgh. Talk about blink and you'll miss it. Glasgow was cute, and fun and really that's without us even seeing all of the main sights, so not bad eh? 

Horsin' around

We took Austin to the Freightliners Farm in Islington on Saturday. It's a cute little farm not far from Islington/Highbury station. It's free to enter (woohoo) and has a heap of different animal displays. I have a sneaky feeling that as summer gets closer there will be more on display but even in the middle of winter there was still lots to oggle. 

Austin led the way (as he does) charging from one area to the next. Ducks. Hens. Cows. Goats. And the cat. This was by far the most interesting (according to his reactions). There were no horses (sorry people, my blog title is a bit misleading), but plenty of birds, sheep and rabbits rounded out the animal displays nicely.

Babycinos and cake before we left made for one happy little boy at the cafe. But with no card facilities and a decent walk to the closest ATM it's probs best to bring cash (yep, wish we had the heads up on that one). 

Sleepless in South Bank

I always give advice to get out the door first thing in the morning when sightseeing. But it can be a bit hard to take your own advice when your kid wakes up at 5am every day. 

The positive side of our late departure on our sightseeing adventure (aside from the much needed extra sleep we all got) was that Austin fell asleep on the way there (wooo) which meant we could have a lovely lunch at The Green Room. Burger + glass of wine + chats without simultaneously entertaining a child = it was pretty damn good (double woo).

The downside to getting out the door about 4 hours after we intended was that everywhere was soooo crowded. We wanted to walk around and check out the street art but found out pretty quickly that the majority is in the skate park. Literally, in it. So probably not the best place to go for a walk with a sleeping baby. You know, on account of the teenagers riding the bikes, and skateboards directly at you.

So we just cruised around anyway. There's a heap in this little spot, and if it wasn’t so cold we would’ve stuck around longer. Views of Big Ben, The Eye right next door, a cute as little merry go round (weeee), an adventure park for the kids and the shops and restaurants of the Southbank Centre. I’d say we’d go back in summer but really if it was this packed when it was freezing its gonna be all sorts of hell busy in summer. So thank you very muchly and see ya later South Bank. 

Two of a kind

What do you get when you visit two museums in one day with over two hours travel time and on a hang over? You get a bad cold and have to put up with being sick all week. BUT before that happens you have a pretty awesome day.

Museum 1: V&A Museum where the entry is free, the courtyard is beautiful and there are loads of exhibits. We had lunch in the 'oldest museum cafe in the world' which was a combination of damn fancy and new and classy (not bad eh?). And then caught a quick glimpse of some of the exhibits on the way out. Basically we saw very little here and we were SO tempted to stick around but after travelling for an hour and ten minutes to get to this part of town we had our eyes on the prize..... the Science Museum!

Which brings us to... museum 2: The Science Museum. Two minutes inside and Austin spotted a car on the roof so we trekked up two flights of stairs to stare at it, and stare at it and stare at it. Then there were a whole heap of ho-hum exhibits, probably just that itsy bit too old for Austin. Just as we were starting to give up hope of anything good appearing we found the tractor exhibit BOO-YA, which was followed by cars, engines, planes and space ships.... WOOOO. Austin LOVED it. Love seeing his little hands fly like crazy when he is SUPER excited. 

Small note to self for next time, maybe chill out on the two museums in one day thing. Was just a tad crazy and really, it's pretty hard to get the most out of them when you're rushing around like a madman. Phew. Do love squeezing every bit of fun out of the day though. Consider this day well squeezed. 

Baby banksy

So here we've been trekking half way across the city every weekend to visit the sights when there's a whole shipload of amazing street art right on our doorstep. Ok, this is probably the case all over London but we actually decided to open our eyes to it this weekend and our walk to the art shop became a mini street art tour. 

We had a little moment in front of this Egyptian work by Zabou. And i don't mean just a photo moment. Let's just say mummy should remember to put the pram on lock when not using it. There was a bit of a rollaway situation (don't stress, the kid wasn't in the pram). So that provided a nice bit of drama for our walk. The pram rolling away, Pat diving to grab it before it rolled on to the road, and thank god there were no cars going past at the moment because we might have given someone a heart attack (pram on the road, pram on the ROAAAADDDD!)

There's a heap of other artworks down Essex road too, including a banksy and a stack by bambi. Not bad for a Saturday afternoon stroll. 

Top 3 tourist spots with your under two's

Ok, so I’m not going to even pretend that I’m some sort of travel expert. Just want to be straight up and get that out first. We’ve probably seen about 10% of what London has to offer (there is soooo much to do and we’re limited by the travel time that a toddler can cope with). BUT based on all of the places we’ve been so far… da da da daaaaa, I present to you ‘Mega's Top Three Tourist Spots To Visit With Your Under Two’s’ (ok, I feel like that line could’ve been a bit punchier but we ran out of coffee pods this morning so my brain is probably at quarter capacity right now).

1.     London Transport Museum

The London transport museum was pretty much Austin’s idea of HEAVEN. They have over three levels of full size buses, trains and horse drawn carts. And on top of that pretty much the whole museum is designed with little kiddy’s in mind, from stamp sheets for each exhibit to the amazing kids play area. And because it’s in Covent Garden you don’t have to trek half away across the city to get there. Yippee!

Prices: Adult 17, concession 14.50, under 18 free
Extra tips: Free buggy park and cloak room on site

2.     The London Eye

So the London eye itself is a pretty short ride (a bit of a splurge for the thirty minutes you get - so no napping on the job people) but we LOVED it! You get an awesome view of all the main city sights and it’s in the perfect location to tag team it with some of London’s best (hello, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey). 

Prices: Adult 23.50, child 17.50, under 4 free
Extra tips: expect to ‘fold down’ your buggy to get on and a decent queue from about 12 noon onwards

3.     Manor house visit

We visited Fenton House and I’ve said it before but yep I’m a big ol dork, so this is right up my alley! I mean really what is London until you’ve visited a fancy pants manor house? We chose this one as it's close to us but there are so many in London so wherever you’re staying there should be one nearby. Just visit the National Trust website to make your pick!

Prices: Adult 7.20 child 3.60
Extra tips: If you have time pack a picnic to eat in the gardens

And on our to do list of places that sound fabulous but we haven’t got to yet is both the Natural History Museum and Science Museum. Ok, now that this is in the open I feel I've made myself somewhat accountable as I've been putting these ones off forever because of the 70 minute travel time, yikes!  But enough is enough it is time to get there!

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend out and about.

King of the castle

Ok, I admit it. I am a senior citizen at heart. Well at least when it comes to visiting old houses. I hadn't really noticed until I convinced hubby to go to the Government House open day in Melbourne a few years back. We were literally the only people under 50 years old lining up to get a squiz inside the beautiful old estate. 

So I was pretty excited to realise there was going to be a CHOICE between historic houses to visit on our way back from the weekend in Birmingham. Jackpot! Thinking long and hard about the decision (yes, I am a dork, I know) we decided on Baddesley Clinton because who doesn't love a medieval mansion complete with moat and its own chapel on site?

But despite my extreme excitement the real winner of the day was Austin. Or he would like to think. He's at the stage now where everything is a test. Testing me, testing his limits, testing life in general... Yep and the results are in. He is definitely king of the castle (or at least King of Baddesley Castle). How do I know? Because:

• he can’t walk through a gift store without clutching on to a toy for dear life, using an unbreakable ninja grip until mum pulls out five pound to pay
• he will happily sit and play with the pebbles in the mud and not budge regardless of how many bribes you throw at him (fruit, crackers, biscuits, chocolate… yes, we were pulling out the big guns at the end)
•  he walks over to you for what you think is a cuddle but once ‘up’ points in the direction he would like to be taken (go forth woman! Faster, faster!)
• he smiles at the person standing next to you until they smile back because he’s learnt way too quickly that’s he’s pretty damn cute
•  he has the cheekiest little laugh when he runs away from you because you’ve said its home time
•  he sits in his ‘throne’ (car seat) post castle expedition and snoozes while the grown ups have whispered conversations around him

Not long now until he has all of his toys bowing to the new king!

The best of the borough

We went to the Borough Market to get some delicious food and oh boy it did not disappoint. With both eat at the venue and take home fresh produce we were able to extend our fattiness from not just the morning but all the way through to the evening.

Here's a little run down of our menu for the day to get your mouth salivating.

Consumed at the market: pulled pork roll, duck confit bap with salad, fresh clear water rock oysters shucked on the spot and skinny flat whites all round.

And the food we took home with us (oh my god even more amazing): truffled salami (pretty much the best thing in the world), prosciutto carved on the spot, french camembert, vintage gouda (18 months old, same age as the kid), garlic infused focaccia, and cold pressed coffees.

Was the market a success? Hell yes. Could we get through with the pram? Just. And most probably because we got there right on opening. Will we be going back? You betcha. The halloumi burger has my name written all over it.