I’ve been sorting through some photographs this afternoon and realised that I haven’t written anything about our Summer staycation!  After our week in Scotland, we’d planned to go and spend a few days camping in Northern France – but the weather was appalling, with gales and torrential rain, so we opted to stay in London.  We were pretty disappointed, but end up having a lovely week enjoying the capital.

After a trio to the Olympic Park where we enjoyed a family swim, we made our first visit to the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green.  It was a stunning building packed full of exhibits and even though it was the school holidays, it never felt too busy for us to enjoy exploring.  There were loads of play stations dotted around so the children could have a go on the toys whilst we took in the exhibitions.  We loved the brilliant dolls house exhibition – and we were so impressed with the amount of interactive programming – here’s Alex in a mock 1950s dolls house room, dressed up looking very cool!

The children also loved making pictures with a magnet and iron filings – they were fascinated with how they could control the movement of the filings with their “magic pens”:

I definitely want to go back and explore some more.

During our week in London, we achieved another milestone for Family Agar – we went on a trip to the cinema together for the first time.  It’s something Matt and I have often talked about – imagining spending winter afternoons watching the latest releases together!  So here we are, about to watch “Inside Out” enjoying the popcorn and feeling very excited!

It didn’t entirely go to plan, as Sophie got a bit restless and then quite upset (mostly by some of the sad incidental music which was interesting!) – so she and I spent much of the second half of the film playing in the foyer and the corridors!  Oh well – we’ll keep trying!

When the weather was clear, we tried to get outside more – we had a fun day in our local Brockwell Park.  We cycled on the BMX track, played a comedy family game of basketball (girls v boys!) and did lots of rolling down hills in the grass!

Sophie as a bit under the weather on one day, so the boys headed off on a trip by themselves – to Chatham Historic Dockyard.  Having spent part of my childhood in Maidstone, this was a bit of an old haunt for me – but it looks like its grown and improved enormously!  Matt and Alex had a fabulous day, exploring ships, submarines and even learning how to make rope!

It’s such a massive site, that they could easily explore it all – here’s Alex getting into the nautical theme!

We spent the final day of our holiday at the wonderful Horniman Museum with some friends.  We loved the new “Plantastic” exhibition.  The children could’ve stayed all day, playing on the interactive games and learning so much.  Alex worked hard to figure out some food chains – he looks very proud with the completed set, and very engrossed in a photosynthesis demo!

It wasn’t quite the summer holiday we’d imagined, but we had a lovely week together.  I was reminded of quite what a fabulous place London is for children and how pleased I am that we’re bringing up our pair here!