What a great break away in London. Lucas loves Peppa Pig (trust me, this is goin somewhere) and the character George pig went to the museum to see the dinosaurs for his birthday. When the subject if Lucas’s impending birthday started to come up he started to say that he was going to the museum. So we decided that with me having some holiday booked we’d take him up to London and give him an early birthday present.

Normall I like to plan things to the nth degree but for whatever reason this just didn’t want to come together and at the start of the week we had absolutely nothing set in stone. But I managed to start piecing together some social stuff and made a list of things I thought Lucas and Ang might enjoy.

We ended up staying in Hammersmith. Whilst it’s not glamourous i had the distinct advantage of being somewhere I know well and cost about half what a hotel in ventral London would have cost me and has pretty good transport links. Plus it meant I could drive up and even with a £50 parking bill the travel was cheaper than the train!

Thursday we went to the natural hisotry and science museums. Lucas loved seeing dinosaurs and all of the stuffed animals in the NHM and then we found all the cool kids stuff in the science museum where he had an absolute whale of a time. I got such a massive kick out of sharing and encouraging his enthusiasm for things like engineering and dinos. Actually speaking of his enthusiasm he had his first train journey on the tube which could have been a disaster as he doesn’t like loud noises but he was absolutely fine, in fact he had a great big smile on his face for most of he journey. He grasped the idea o stations and having to stay to the right on escalators really quickly.

He got a little freaked by the animatronic t-Rex in the nhm but then that shows he has good survival instincts. He still managed to talk to all sorts o dead animals as he went

That evening we met ang’s mate Kate in piccadilly circus and went to the rainforest cafe for dinner. This is a kid themed restaurant chain thing…the food was ok, bit it was huffing expensive and while they made a nice fuss of Lucas I don’t think it was really worth it. The company was good though and Lucas opened up to Kate and had a lot of furn.

By the time we got back to the hotel it was about 10pm which in Lucas terms is very very late indeed but he stayed in pretty good mood and settled down into tr sofa bed and went straight to sleep and slept all the way through till 8 the next morning when I woke him up…this was good as Ang was panicking he’d have the door open and be wandering the halls of the novotel. Plus he didn’t empty the mini bar, which is good.

The next morning was intended to be a real treat for Lucas. We headed to Covent garden and after a breakfast in patisserie valerie we hit the transport museum. Lucas’s eyes popped out of his head when he saw a poster of a bus…imagine his surprise when here were half a dozen real buses waiting for him to play on. He absolutely loved this place, he ran about like a madman playing on the buses and just beside himself with happiness. Between this and the museums the day before this should be a time he will remember for a long while…and hearing him recount his adventures to his granny to goth I reckon I’m right.

We met Babs for lunch. I haven’t seen her since my aol leaving do and she’s only seen Lucas once so it was a real treat. We shared lunch and then she came with us to the London eye before leaving us to continue our transport adventures as we boarded a Thames clipper boat to the o2, this is a great way to travel the thames it’s cheap and you get to see all the sights, Ang hadn’t been on them before and it was Lucas’s first boat trip…lots of firsts.

The o2 wasn’t a destination as such, it jut gave us. Chance to hop offhe boat and look around the “big tent”. Then it was back on the boat to embankment and then off to find a lebanese restaurant I had been to whilst away at work.

Ang absolutely loved the place, so kudos to me. We had a mezze platter and after ordering the larger one for two people (intending to share between the three of us) the waitress talked us into the smaller one. After it arrived I was glad she did, we finishehd what I thought was the meal she then informed us that was just the starters!

A quick taxi ride got us back for an early night during which Lucas disappeared from his bed only to be found happily asleep on the floor next to it.

Saturday we checked out and wen to borough Market, neither of us had been there before and as has become our tradition we had travel issues in London at he weekend, but we got there in the end and it was foodie heaven for Ang.

We met Jim and Amanda who again we’ve not seen for ages. Amanda has lost a huge amount of weight and looks amazing.

We had lunch and Lucas whilst a little shy eventually made friends with their daughter Becky.

And then just about soon enough the weekend was over.

Don’t get me wrong, Lucas was a little shit at times bit all in all it was even better than I had hoped for.