Mrs.B

Yesterday we went to the Science Museum for a family day organised by J’s firm. First thing at 1pm was a show about bubbles, the kids got to see bubbles made the ordinary way and also using helium and dry ice. There was lots of laughter and shouting and audience participation. Oskar got to stand inside a giant bubble…

… or should I say “summer”?

As I was basking in 23°C yesterday (I don’t work on Wednesdays, remember? :), I realised how I managed to fend of depression for so long (from my 1st episode in 1998 until 2010) – for most of that time I lived in Australia! …

A few weeks ago on a rainy day we went to the London Sealife Aquarium.

Although the tickets are a bit pricey, it’s a great place for older children – Oskar enjoyed it to the full.

Oliver, however, found the dark tunnels in between the aquariums a bit creepy…

I so totally love London!

A colleague of mine told me about a very cool FREE initiative to help people run as part of their commute – your bag is carried for you, all you have to do is run!

Running groups meet either at 6 or 6:15 pm. I am trying it out next week! [...]

On our way to the Estonian Christmas market today, we stopped at a playground near the Tower of London.

The boys loved the long slide and it ended up being a very nice and playful little detour :)

Nondigitally Estonian is the name of a photography exhibition that we went to see today in the Europe House. The photos were all taken by the children who go to the Estonian School here in London – for a week in March they had a disposable camera and the “homework” was to take photos of their life in London.

The exhibit was fascinating, mainly because at first glimpse the photos are random and most of them sort of blurry, but when I read the descriptions written by the curators, the photos all of a sudden became very intriguing – I guess that’s what good curating does :) [...]

Parents do a lot of crazy things to make their kids happy – we sit through movies like the Smurfs or Cars with them, we tell them the same bedtime story three times in one night and repeat that for weeks until they request another one, we organise exhausting birthday parties for them and go to Disneyland Paris during school holidays.

Yesterday I did one of those crazy things. I gave up my work free day, which usually includes a nice long run that I always really look forward to, to accompany two year 2 classes to Hampton Court [...]

The Estonian School in London started with lessons this Saturday. From now until next summer, half or most of our family will be spending every other Saturday morning in Chiswick – Oskar will be at school and others will be hanging out in the nearby Chiswick House Gardens.

There is a playground there, plenty of green space for kicking the ball around and a cafe that has very slow service but decent coffee and a great selection of cakes. There are always lots of people with dogs in the cafe, it’s almost like a dog show every time we’ve been there :)

All in all, it’s not a bad place to hang out on weekends. When it gets colder, we’ll venture inside the Chiswick House one day to check out the beautiful rooms inside. [...]

This weekend we finally checked out the Notting Hill Carnival. We have always stayed away from it because small children + loud music + crowded streets do not mix, but my sister’s teenagers who have been staying with us for the past month wanted to see the carnival so we decided to cramp their style and tag along.

We went on Sunday and just followed the crowds from Notting Hill tube station, not knowing where exactly we were supposed to go. There were no signs anywhere, just a lot of people and an equal number of cops. The Internet said that the carnival would be on from 9 to 7 that day. It was 11ish by the time we got to the heart of Notting Hill, but nothing much seemed to be happening. [...]

While I recuperate from the past weekend, I’ll share a few photos of the Museum of London.

We went there for the first time a couple of weeks ago with my sister’s kids who are staying with us for the month of August (yes, I have FOUR kids at the moment!! :|) and while the little kids didn’t really concentrate on anything specific, there was plenty of interesting things for them to look at and point to and ask questions about why were there no cars when the dinosaurs were around. [...]

I love this image of Londoners coming together to clean up after the looting that swept across the city earlier this week. It sort of restores one’s faith in human kind.

Things seem to have calmed down here, although even in our neighbourhood, many shop windows are still covered with plywood as a precaution and there are a lot more police on the streets than you normally notice. [...]

I love Twitter, it’s so addictive but it’s also informative – on Friday I found out that Jamie Oliver is doing a food festival nearby on Clapham Junction and on Saturday we were some of the first people there :) Our first stop was to get food – the kids got fish and chips from [...]