London: Somerset House and Covent Garden

After spending our first day in London shopping, the next two days were to be spent doing the usual tourist thing.

All seven of us walked from the hotel till Somerset House. It took twenty minutes and a quick stop at Boots on the way (one of Charlotte's favourite shops now....in London they're dotted all over the place)

Somerset House was beautiful, sitting on Thames, with a lovely open air skating ring there over the festive period...that was fully booked when we tried to reserve via internet.

The children found the visit boring, and we too, were disappointed, but

we did get a nice view upon leaving of The London Eye, and later on, after Covent Garden, that's where we were going to go.

 Despite the fairly mild weather, Covent garden had a very Christmassy feel.

Just because the weather wasn't freezing cold, it doesn't mean that you'd want to strip down to your underwear like this street entertainer. We left him to it, with his funny Father Christmas boxers and his knife juggling, and we went to eat round the corner and Wahaca (Mexican Restaurant) that we'd been to a couple of years ago and liked it, only this time it just got better and better.

Belated Merry Christmas

Wow, things have been crazy around here and I've got a couple of minutes before I have to dash out.

 We were lucky enough to spend a couple of days in London before Christmas.

 This tree was built using Lego bricks, it was awesome. You'll have to get yourself off to St Pancras if you want to see it, before it's dismantled...I wonder how they do that?

 First mince pie, photo isn't great, but the mince pie was yummy...New favourite place for cakes " Peyton & Byrne...

MK preparing for two more crazy days in London.  The Ridgemount Hotel just gets better and better and really reasonably priced too.

National Gallery London

outside The National Gallery

Take one 7 year old, a lively boy, and ask him, which museum he prefered while in London, what would he say? The Natural History Museum, The Science Museum maybe.....well not Alexis, he adored The National Gallery. He spend ages sketching the portrait of Charles I painted by Van Dyke ( to come soon).

The Picasso expo was super (we are big fans of Picasso). Another favourite was the crabs by Van Gogh.

British Museum

First full day in London, first visit, The British Museum.

This museum is exceptional, the children loved loved the Mummy Section (we didn't visit the whole museum).

Here's a photo of the Rosette Stone, it's kind of funny that they try to minimize Champollion's contribution to the translation of the hieroglyphs inscribed on it.

Fish & Chips at The North Sea Fish Restaurant

Before going to London, I read that this was one of the best Fish & Chip restaurants to go to in London, and as the children had never eaten this national dish before, we thought we'd try it.
As soon as we walked through the door we felt even more that we were in England, it was very authentic, very good fish and very large portions. The English(Bombarder) beer wasn't bad either.

You can' find chips like this in France.

You can't eat Fish & Chips without trying some mushy peas. Their home-made tartare sauce was just amazing, yet another thing on my list to try and make at home.

Marie-Kate's favourite restaurant, and Alain loved it too.

As for price, we paid £56, it was less expensive than Wahaca, however we didn't have a dessert nor wine, we did share two bottle's of Bombarder beer though.

Covent Garden

We were really lucky during our stay in London, in didn't rain, infact the weather was better in London than back at home in the south of France.

Covent Garden was buzzing with activity, we managed to catch the end of this performance.

I wondered how he was going to get down. He made it look easy!

London: Super Mexican Restaurant

Wahaca was really a great place to eat, fun, spicy and in. Just of Covent Garden, this place was Gabrielle's and perhaps my favourite restaurant that we dined in.

The children were really made to feel welcome, the staff gave them crayons to colour their menus, and they helped us choose suitable things for them to eat.

We arrived just before the rush and were lucky to have a place without waiting.

We shared some heavenly guacamole (best I've ever tasted), ate plenty of great food, shared a bottle of good wine and finished off with some churros and some mango sorbet for £70 with tips, the cheapest place we ate inIf only I knew how to make guacamole like this.

Next year this restaurant is first on my list to re-visit.

Annual Turn Off Week Blog challenge...How it went here

Kapla Tower

What a great turn off week we had, ok, we were lucky, as we went to London from Thursday onwards, so that helped us turn off ...

Tower Bridge in sight!

Marie Kate, who celebrated her 5th birthday the 22nd did really well, never watched television nor did she play on the Wii. She played heaps outside, and she helped tidy up our garden ( note: she hasn't watched tv since coming back Monday lunch-time..yippee) I'd give her a straight A.

Marie-Kate opening some presents

Alexis watched a little tv in London, but it was in English and we need as much English input as possible, in really enjoyed "Horrible Histories". He probably watched in all, abot 1 hour over the whole week of tv. Before leaving for London he helped more in the kitchen, read more and had more imaginative fun. Alexis has started to read books all on his own which is a great leap forward.
Shelling peas, this is more fun than the TV!

Gabrielle watched the same amount of tv as Alexis and thats all... no wii, no dvd's. Gaby drew a lot and read A Picture of Dorian Gray and a couple of J. Wilson's books (her favourite author).

I didn't do as well as them, I didn't manage to keep to 15 minutes per day of internet, but for a good reason, I had to surf a little to organise our visit to London. I probably used the computer 1 hour per day from Monday till Wednesday. No tv, no videos. I have started to prepare our vegatable garden and I read lots of books with the children. The children have helped me cook a lot more.

A glimpse of a bit of our garden from kitchen window


Alain hasn't used the computer (work not included) and he watched on program on the tv (45 minutes). Bravo Alain. He used to be quite a tv add

Unfortunately our teenagers sucummed to temptation, Oliver couldn't stop playing with his toys (psp, ipod) and the tv, too! He deserves the worse mark of the class. he did play chess once and beat me, argghhh..

Charlotte, watched less tv, but listened to lots of music and hung out with her friends ( which is great).

Charlotte peddling hard at the Sciene Museum

It's Thursday, today, and the children and their friends have been playing outside most of the day, the weather's glorious at long last.

I'm really happy to have participated in this years Annual Turn Off Week and I think we are ready to give up the tv completely.