London - Last Day

So it was nearly over - our little holiday. Fortunately the best was yet to come.

In the morning it nearly fell over a bit. we went to see Westminster and the sky was blue. The London Eye was tempting. The price and queue were not. Eveutally we plumped for a river cruise down the Thames which was still a bit pricey and a bit cold for Phoebe who is nesh at the best of times. But it was witty and informative and we always love a boat trip.

And then Matilda. I can't tell you how brilliant this musical is. The girls adored it. I adored it. Even Paul who hates musicals adored it. The cast was amazing, as is the set. We've had it on repeat in our kitchen and our heads ever since.

We had one final blow out on a meal at the train station and the girls continued to be amazing doing stickers, colouring and reading. Everything is so much easier now they are older.

A late train and we were home. All in all a fab few days.

London - Day Three

As the days slip past on holiday I always start to feel the pressure. It's entirely a problem I invent for myself. The need to ensure we experience the place we've visited with a balance of history, culture, fun - made worse if it's a flipping mini break. I am a bit of a nightmare.

So we have done animals, museum, food, movie on the first days. History it is then. Really going on holiday with me is fun.

I went to the Tower of London when I was little. I remember it vaguely and there is photographic proof of me in a T-shirt covered in road signs.

It's such a brilliant place. I'm far from a monarchist but we got through the crown jewels bit without me spending much time thinking about that and focused instead on Gangsta Granny. We spent a bit of time dodging school parties round the white tower, and didn't hang about in the torture room for obvious reasons. We chatted to a beefeater and discovered the royal mint. It's such a great place.

After lunch there was more tube travel and walking past iconic sites. The kids were probably bored of me by now. They quite liked the wobbly bridge though and I got overexcited because we passed Joe Thomas from the Inbetweeners. In true celebrity spotting style I didn't know his name and Paul had no clue who I was talking about.

Then it was the Tate Modern. I can highly recommend going with children. It makes you all look at art with innocence. It is also a bit embarrassing. I made the mistake of asking them to find one piece they loved and one piece they didn't in each room. Limiting themselves to one they disliked was a challenge. I'm pleased none of the artists were there.

It made no sense to them and perfect sense.

Then it was back to the hotel for a picnic tea on the bed spread and some telly. Followed by Paul and I sitting in the actual bathroom this time while the kids eventually dropped off and Paul banging his head on a glass shelf.

London - Day Two

Breakfast was free and nice. There was no system and we were surrounded by defeated business men and people who stuffed the wrong kind of bread in the toaster but other than that it was a cracking start. Croissants, coffee and smiley excited children.

We stopped on the way the buy sandwiches. All I'm going to say is that Subway is like a sandwich making equivalent of Aldi. We also bought snacks from a health food shop. The healthy covered in chocolate type to keep us going for the trek up Primrose Hill.

The sun shone, the playground was quiet, the children were smiling. The benefits of half term being out of kilter with the rest of the country are vast. London Zoo was great fun and the stars seemed to be aligned. Tilly got chosen to dress up as a penguin. The sun shone as we ate our complicated sandwiches outside. The owl was enticed to stand on Paul's head. We turned up at the giraffes during impromptu feeding time. Hell even the reptiles moved more than usual.

We walked to the tube through Regents Park and ate the speediest Tesco voucher subsidised Zizzi meal in history to get to the Lego Movie on time. Which is, for want of a better word, awesome. Unlike the singing that has continued from the children ever since...

We used a new tactic and put the kids in our bed so we could watch TV and move them later. We sat in the doorway awhile they dropped off with Paul making far too much noise pouring spritzers (fizzy water is louder than you think) and we worried my "laugh out loud" book was an error. But it didn't matter because they were so knackered they went to sleep at the speed of light and we got to watch the Mentalist. Quite a day.

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!