London Mums Blog

Magic!

We had dinner in an Italian restaurant in the Worlds End, Chelsea, last week with my mother and stepfather. It was one of those sweltering evenings and we ate at a table on the pavement. An amazing musician came to our table. He was unnervingly good – and my mouth literally fell open as he performed his tricks. He changed a pack of cards that my husband was holding into a brick of glass without any of us knowing how he did it. Later Luke said he felt nothing untoward happening in his hand. He also got Luke to scribble his signature on a card, then shuffled it into the pack and it later appeared folded up under Luke’s watch strap. Catch him if you can before he becomes mega, Daniel Alexander. What  a man. He is a genius.  Mention the woman with her mouth open last Thursday at Frantoia. 

Best museum day for the under 5’s in central London ...

Hands down, the Science Museum is one of the best museums to take your toddler to in South Kensington. 

What makes the Science Museum such a favourite with parents and children alike, there are two areas that are specifically toddler focused as well as other parts of the museum that are fun for toddlers if they are tagging along with older children.

The toddler focused area include the Pattern Pod and The Garden.

The Pattern Pod is located at the very rear of the museum, on the ground floor and offers a wonderful experience for small children.  The exhibit is officially designated as being for 5 – 8 year olds, but there are many interesting, hands-on things for any young child to investigate.  There are dress up clothes for children to try on, tiles you insert into a special display that projects different patterns on the ceiling, giant foam pattern blocks and a pattern making art program plus much more.

Win a photo shoot with a celebrity photographer!

Surprise, surprise, spending time together during meal times is beneficial for your family!

Nutella knows this, and is holding a photo competition to celebrate their 45th anniversay. Just send in your favourite photograph of your family enjoying breakfast together and you could be eligible to win a family photo shoot with renowned family and celebrity photographer Ken Sharp or a family day-out in London. All submissions will also be included in a giant breakfast mural which will go live on the website in September.

Sample photos and additional information can be found here.

To enter the contest, visit nutella’s website.

Good luck!

This post was written by Susanna, a London Mums Blog founding contributor. You can read more at her blog, A Modern Mother.

A new breed of yummy daddies

A completely average Wednesday morning, around 9:30AM. Rushing around my local Sainsbury’s with little L screaming, juggling piles of grocery shopping on the pushchair. Queuing at one of the few tills that hasn’t been turned into a ‘self-checkout’, I dare to look up and count annoyed co-shopper’s looks against encouraging fellow mummy-smiles.

Result: one cashier who looks like wanting to kill me, a drunken dosser who just about manages a smile, two annoyed grannies disapproving my parenting abilities, four silently smiling mums and six dads. SIX DADS? Now, what is going on here?

Are you a coffee shop mummy?

I used to be a Starbucks chick, but I am now a Cafe Nero Mum. The reason for that was convenience to begin with. My local Starbucks is probably the only one in the whole of the UK so baby UNfriendly. It has very limited space on the ground floor and no lift, no wonder it alienates half of their most loyal customers: us, mummies and buggies! So I had to shift to Cafe Nero and its large comfortable sofas, wide space and chocolate panetones, I soon became addicted to this place.

My love for coffee goes way back to when I was a child. In my family like in most French households, coffee is the way to start the day, end lunch and dinner, share when friends come to visit and have any other time in between. In France when people turn up at your house, you switch on the cafetiere, not the kettle. I love nothing more than being greeted by the smell of fresh coffee in the morning.

Was it worth booking to see Jude Law in Hamlet 18 months ago?!

There was a time when I vaguely fancied Jude Law, particularly when he starred in The Talented Mr Ripley as the rich, cool and beautiful Dickie Greenleaf. But I would have had dinner with Philip Seymour Hoffman who played his ebullient friend. Hoffman is ugly and weird and interesting, a fabulous actor. I would watch a Kleenex ad if he was in it.

But I liked Jude’s name and named my son Jude too. Jude is now 8; Jude Law must be in his later thirties. We went to see him star as Hamlet at the Wyndhams Theatre. I had strangely booked the tickets a year and a half ago, before 2009 existed, before 2008 had arrived. I remember thinking I could be dead by June 2009, but I booked anyway because my husband had made me a friend of the Donmar Warehouse and they had alerted me to the news that Jude Law would be playing Hamlet several years down the line. I wanted to see the production because the Donmar Warehouse can’t seem to deliver anything mediocre.

Discovering inside Coram’s Fields

 

Coram’s Field s is one of the most historically interesting playgrounds in London.  Originally London’s first home for abandoned children and simultaneously of London’s first public art gallery, The Foundling Hospital became London’s first public playground, Coram’s Fields, in 1936. 
 
Coram’s Field is a seven acre playground in the heart of London.  This magnificent haven for children is fenced in, with only one gate, making it the perfect place for mums and carers to let their children run off and really play. 
 
The site boasts spacious grassy areas, several climbing frames, sand boxes with climbing apparatus, swings, animals in pens, sports fields and an adventure playground for older children.  In the middle of the park is a large paddling pool for hot, summer days.
 
If a safe, varied playground were not enough, an amazing café, Kipferl, offers Austrian coffees, cakes, sweets, sandwiches and small hot dishes of superior quality at very reasonable prices.  With each order you receive a tiny piece of heaven, a complimentary Austrian biscuit!  
 
Adults are only allowed in Coram’s field if they are accompanied by a child.  The park opens daily at 9AM.  The sports fields are available for hire from 2PM on, during term time. 
 
While Coram’s Fields is a destination in and of itself, the really nice part about it is its proximity to The Charles Dickens, The Foundling and the British Museums.  You can either begin or end museum visits in the playground.  Conversely, you can use the museums as back up if it rains when you would like to go to Coram’s Field.  Also, some sneaky inside information: there is a limited intake playgroup for the under 3’s from 10 – noon Mondays through Fridays and another group for the under 5’s from 1-4PM Monday through Saturday.  If rain spoils your plans and you have small children, you may luck out and get a place to play indoors.  

Corman's Field, 93 Guilford Street, London WC1N 1DN, 0207 837 6138

This post was written by Laura Vogel, a former primary school teacher and full-time mother of two who is enjoying every minute of her life in London discovering the city with her children on her extended maternity leave.

Photo credit: grievousangel

Top five tips for enjoying the changing of the guard with children

 

I felt so smug the first time I took my child to see the changing of the Guard.  My toddler sat awe-struck listening to the music; she clapped her hands and shouted “One more time!” after each song.

As the band marched towards the palace, I wondered whether I finessed this love of music in my child’s character.  After speaking to other families and carers, The Queen’s Guard Band has this effect on every child.

Top five tips for enjoying Disneyland Paris

Ella and I had a great time at Euro Disney this Tuesday and Wednesday. The weather was amazing, the queues bearable (the longest we ever had to wait for a ride was 30 minutes) and the atmosphere happy and upbeat.

I had steeled myself for an onslaught of unbridled consumerism and in-your-face American-style Disney overkill but was pleasantly suprised.

I'm not denying that food and merchandise were expensive, they were. But the French are, well,  French and so their Disney-ness was expressed with a smile and a 'Hello Princess' (for Ella, not me). They were charmingly free of faux enthusiasm, tending towards friendliness instead. A refreshing experience for any visitor to Paris.

Me, My Dyson and my car

I love my new Dyson DC25 Animal to bits -- but it's been a bit of a culture shock. Its predecessor was about 100 years old, so giving me a Dyson was like giving a granny an iPhone.

I can't get over how much it sucks up. Five containers full on the first go around our house. I had no idea I was living in such filth!

OK, I am a bit obsessed by it. I will often take it out do a quick run round the house. My husband caught me once and asked why I was vacuuming at 10 pm, the night before our cleaner was due. I just looked at him and scrunched my brow. Am I the only who enjoys dust being neatly sucked up and encased? Because, I told him. Huuummmph!