London with the kids

A Chesterfield landslip couldn't stop us go on holiday thankfully. It was a long old train journey but we made it and walked from the station to the nearest free tourist attraction, the British Museum, not wanting to miss out on using every minute of our family London experience. We don't really do much sitting about on our city breaks.

I wouldn't say the British Museum was the best place to take children as young as ours - there is an awful lot of stuff in glass boxes - but the girls did admirably. They liked quite a few exhibits (Egyptians were popular) but we must have walked at least a mile round in a circle and I really wish there had been more hands on things for them. There is only so much looking without touching a six year old can stand. Even I was getting a bit jaded by the end and we only saw about half of it. I personally was left in awe of the building and it's contents, but left with the overall feeling that it was essentially a large quantity of things England didn't really deserve to have. Maybe that's why it was free.

The tube trains were popular with the girls, and the hotel room even more so even though it was extremely diddy. It had the design aspect of having a desk you could actually sit at while sitting on the end of your bed. The fact that that is the only way you could sit at it was of no concern. It was the optimum to place to colour in Smurf pictures that they gave them on the reception. Holiday Inn Express is clearly the best type of hotel.

Tesco clubcard vouchers and a tiny local Pizza Express made everything even better. As did the bottle of wine (us not them). Then we went back to our functional diddy bedroom for a restful night's sleep.

Of course we were all sharing a room. It'll be fine, I thought, they will stay up a bit late and we will all go to sleep at the same time. Great theory. In reality after a full day with children everyone in the world wants them to go to sleep first and we were no different. Phoebe was too excited to sleep and bounced up and down for some time while Paul and I sat in the doorway on the floor trying to pretend we weren't there. Tilly fell asleep first, then Phoebe. We daren't make any noise and sat reading in the dim light of the bathroom for so long I finished my book and had to send Paul out to buy me another one. I think he volunteered to save his aching floor impacted buttocks.

After a while Tilly knelt up and played a clapping game in her sleep. It was going to be a long night. But it didn't matter because, well........holiday!