…and then there was London!
The last time Ollie was on an airplane, he was 3 months old. He didn’t really have a clue what was going on. This time was a lot different. First of all we had a 2 hour bus journey to the airport in Dublin and he was SO well behaved. During the journey he slept, ate lunch and opened a couple of surprises I brought for him for the long journey. At the airport he watched the planes and told me what colour they were!
When the airplane was taxi-ing to the runway…. we kept thinking we were there and I kept holding Ollie’s hand saying “are you ready?”… it was litterally another 20 minutes before we took off haha! When we took off Ollie shouted “airplane going up a hill”.
The plan was for Ollie to sleep on an air mattress at Auntie Sandra’s house (SIL’s house she shares with her partner – Uncle Paddy, where we were staying), but that lasted all of one night. The other nights he shared with either myself or James in the double bed while one of us kipped on the air mattress.
He loved the underground train (un-ga-gown train) and this picture was taken as soon as the train started moving. It was quite a chore carrying him down the steps in his pram, because most of the stations do not have lifts!
Our first stop was Hamleys!! OH WOW! All their Christmas stuff was up and Ollie looked so overwhelmed by it all. It didn’t take him long to start enjoying his trip and start asking me for EVERYTHING. In the end he settled on a little toy underground train carriage. I thought that would be a lovely souvenir for him!
Hamleys had a massive Hello Kitty section and he thought the massive Hello Kitty was hilarious!
…and then he found the Thomas section. Boy, was it hard to get him to leave after that!!??
After Hamleys we went to Nando’s for some lunch. I love Nando’s!
We went to the Natural History Museum. What a gorgeous building inside and out! There was a massive entrance hall full of real dinosaur skeletons!
The first section was entirely devoted to different dinosaurs and had an animatronic T-Rex that we were so looking forward to seeing. The T-Rex was really cool but as soon as we got past that area there was an announcement asking everyone to leave the building. How annoying! We made sure to go back on another day.
We visited Covent Garden which I normally love, but Ollie was super grumpy that day and caused us a lot of heartache in an Indian Restaurant. Talk about getting stressed out!! I did get to pick up a couple of souvenirs there though.
On the Friday we went to the Imperial War Museum. It was amazing and definitely a highlight of the trip for Ollie. When we arrived on the ground floor, Ollie was asleep in his pram and James and I dandered. I wondered why we couldn’t see any life-size real life tanks etc, because I knew there were some here. A lot of what James and I were seeing were just small exhibits with a lot of writing about the different wars. I was glad Ollie was asleep at this point as he wouldn’t have liked it at all. We went up a floor, and all of a sudden we were greeted with what we had come for! We had to hurriedly wake Ollie up so he could see!
He really loved it all. He saw tanks, planes, rockets and submarines!
As Friday night was 5th November, Guy Fawkes Night, there was a fireworks display taking place locally. It was so cool seeing so many people all walking to the park together. I really wanted Ollie to see fireworks at Halloween but he didn’t get to, so I was pleased this was taking place, though nervous. I knew he would either love it or hate it.
He loved it.
The firework pictures don’t do it justice at all…. they were really amazing fireworks. I loved watching them. Uncle Paddy met up with us there and brought with him some sparklers.
On Saturday we just relaxed and hung out with James’ sister. Sandra and Paddy had bought a whole load of train track and trains for Ollie and he was in his element.
On Sunday we got to go back to the National History Museum and got to explore properly. Here is Mr. T-Rex!
…and a sloth. How cute!
This is a life size replica of a whale!! There were real whale bones everywhere you looked.
On Sunday night James and I went out for dinner while Sandra and Paddy babysat. Our meal was delicious! I had garlic and chilli king prawns and they were massive. They were the most delicious prawns I have ever had in my life!
This was followed by a leek and pancetta risotto with scallops. Yum. James went for an antipasti platter to start and a steak for his main. We even got 50% off our food bill because James’ sister lent us her Taste of London card (which gets you 2 for 1).
Unfortunately we didn’t do anything on the Monday as Ollie was not well…. he had a rash and a high temperature, but I will write about that in a separate post. We really wanted to do the Sealife Aquarium, but we can do that the next time we go.
Needless to say the journey back home was not so happy and exciting.
All in all a fab family holiday. It was nice to get away together and have James off work with us for 5 lovely days. It was definitely well deserved. The last time James and I came to London was the year before I became pregnant with Ollie.