Collins UK Travels: Long Weekend: Easter in London

Street performer in Trafalgar Square. How does he do it?

Our trip to London wrapped up a busy few weeks of travel and hosting guests. Kristine's parents were here for 10 days, we spent the following Saturday in Birmingham, Kristine picked up friends from Indy the next morning, drove them back to the airport for their return flight early in the morning on Good Friday, the girls and I drove down to pick her up a couple hours later, and we made our way to Swindon for another couple of days with the Oldfields. Unlike last Easter's trip, we did this drive through Moreton-on-Marsh and Stowe-on-the-Wold during mid-morning instead of mid-day. That meant, much to our shock, no roads turned into parking lots as we entered either town. This drive also had three girls who have considerably more practice handling road trips. Lots of engaged comments about the countryside we drove through, imaginative games played together, and singing along to "Here comes science" from They Might be Giants. What a difference a year makes.

Like our trip to Swindon last Thanksgiving, this one involved a cheesecake. Unlike Thanksgiving, Kristine made the cheesecake after we arrived. This version was also majorly upgraded. It had mangos on the top.

The flurry of activity with visitors before this trip left us all ready for some down time. The girls and I took advantage of the local swimming pool. Charis is starting to do some basic front crawl. I lost count of how many new friends Clare made while she cheerfully played in the kiddie-pool. The girls also spent quite a bit of time reading or playing games (jenga, old maid, DUPLO blocks). Here's story that Charis and Clare worked on together.

Sunday morning we caravanned with John and Carol up to London for an Easter service with Alex and Hannah at St. Augustine's Church in Queen's Gate.

Kristine described it as a sensory feast. The building is Victorian era, but had a major facelift in the 1920's. Lots of interesting architecture to enjoy visually. The church uses an Anglo-catholic liturgy; more parochially known as "smells and bells." The smells came from the burning incense, flung upwards at various points in the service using bells on chains. I enjoyed the liturgical content - much was a brief return to elements of our ELCA sojourn in CT (including the small 4-part choir that led the sung portions of the service and did its own special number). Elise enjoyed listening to the Latin elements.

Easter lunch enjoyed at Bumpkin, we made our way up to the Natural History Museum. This was a good idea on paper (after all, can a building this impressive be anything but fun to explore?) that stretched our ability to cope.

Turns out we were some of a very, very many people who all decided to make a mid-afternoon visit to this well-known museum. The throngs around this dinosaur skeleton give you a little idea. We decided not to visit the main dinosaur exhibit because it had a 60 min wait.

We did brave the crowds to see this Redwood trunk. The early rings are circa 600 AD. I was impressed. The girls didn't understand what was so interesting about a piece of wood.

Our visit to the museum was redeemed by finding the investigation center in the basement. All three girls enjoyed the interactive elements here - drawers of specimens on the walls to pull out and look at under microscopes, guided investigation centers (Charis got to build her own bird, and was then told how well it would survive based with the habitat and predators she'd picked for it).

I learned from one of staff members that the museum is the first point of call for investigations when live or dead animals are confiscated at the border, and also when dead animals wash up on beaches. The border confiscations deal mostly with illegal imports like crocodile skins being brought in to make leather goods. Sometimes it's clear what the item is. Other times it's not. The museum staff get to do the investigations to try and identify it. Same applies for dead animals washed up on the beaches. The staff get called in to figure out cause of death. In both cases they get to keep the specimens. Many of them were in the investigation center. The shark's mouth (not captured on film) that all three girls enjoyed handling was a border confiscation. This whale skeleton was a forensic investigation on the beach.

We left the investigation center when it closed at 5, made our way briefly past this mechanical scorpion, and then headed out to our flat.

The flat was a good find off AirBnB. It had two bedrooms with a couch / bed in the living room (which Kristine and I got). It was only a 10 min walk to the Earl's Court tube station, and also had a couple small grocery stores in the area. Kristine and I were still full from our Easter lunch, but we picked up a small dinner for the girls and cold cereal for breakfast. The space to spread out and relax was welcome after a long day.

As was a desk to read at in the morning.

Or beds in which to sleep in late.

Monday morning we did another obligatory "parents trying to give their children educational exposure in London" activity. This one as a double-decker bus tour. It was also a good idea on paper that yielded less-then-stellar results. The whole idea behind personalized audio tour is that you sit quietly and listen to the voice tell you about the places you're driving past. The whole idea behind personalized children's audio is that children do the same thing because their guide is also a child. 9yo - no problem. 6yo - okay, but not if the audio only works half the time. 4yo - no grasp of the "sit quietly and listen" part of the deal. Cue parents taking turns with 4yo on lap while other parent listens to audio (as long as it works). Notes to self: Flexibility to get on and off the bus at your leisure means others can also get on and off the bus. Double decker on a pleasant spring day means nobody else wants to ride on the first level either. Be prepared to throw elbows, monitor who's getting off, and quickly make your way to the upper level at a stop before the new folks can get on so that you can grab a recently vacated seat.

We got off the bus at the Tower Bridge. Which meant we lost our upper level seats. See notes to self.

Charis recognized Big Ben from the bus before it came up on audio

To be fair, the tour was a good way to get quick visibility to many of the well-known sites in London. Grumpy selfies of father and 4yo notwithstanding. The girls were noncommittal about the tour when we finished, but told several people about it afterwards. Elise and Charis had studied enough in school to be excited about seeing some of the buildings on the tour.

I had promised Charis that if she came on the bus tour (instead of going up the London Eye), I would let her chase pigeons at Trafalgar Square. I told her there would be lots of pigeons. I might even have said there would be so many that she wouldn't be able to find the ground. Alas, it was not to be. There were very few pigeons at Trafalgar Square. I learned later from a friend in Melbourne that there did indeed used to be many pigeons at Trafalgar Square (in other words, memories of my last trip there from the mid-90s were not entirely incorrect). About 10 years ago the number of pigeons, combined with all their droppings, got so high that the city of London decided to phase them out. They started by asking tourists not to feed the pigeons. Then they hired a hawk to come fly around the square daily. The result is that the last 10 years has seen a drastically reduced number of pigeons at Trafalgar Square. More importantly, the result is that there were none for Charis and Clare to chase. Overall they were good sports about it. They graciously allowed themselves enjoy a couple of street performers before we grabbed lunch and entered St. James Park to meet Alex and Hannah for a picnic.

Yoda's ability to float gave him my "top performer" rating

The girls preferred this fellow's ability to balance the chair on his head

St. James Park did have a few pigeons. It also had fences at the side of some sidewalks to protect flower beds from pedestrians. The clever pigeons had figured out that people can't chase them if they're on the flower bed side of the fence. As a result, a pigeon on the path who suddenly got chased by someone (say a Collins daughter) would simply flap its wings a couple of times to hop from the path over the fence. No panicked flight into the sky. No opportunities for repeat chases when panicked flight ended and the pigeon landed back on the ground. Just a fence. The girls were not impressed. Fortunately the spot where we ate our picnic had more open green space with pigeons on the nearby grass. They were easier to chase and did not have a fence to hide behind.

Lunch complete, we made the short walk through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace. We were there during the mid afternoon, so didn't get a chance to see the changing of the guard. The girls did find the guards to be interesting enough that they crammed against the fence for a better look (for some reason - maybe the bank holiday - there were no guards outside the fence).

At Buckingham Palace (no, we couldn't get a photo with Clare looking at the camera)

They also enjoyed climbing on the statues in front of the palace. We were not the only family taking pictures of children on statues. Must be the thing to do when you visit Buckingham Palace with children.

Our last stop of the day was at Fulham Palace. The palace is the historical home of the Anglican bishops of London. There is some archaeological work going on to restore some of the older areas of the palace grounds. We didn't get to see that due to the bank holiday. We did, however, get to enjoy a welcome change of scenery from crowds and concrete to open space and green. Elise has been spending lots of time on her hands recently - a result of the weekly gymnastics club at school. We weren't in the palace grounds for long before the cartwheels started.