London - A Jubilicious Weekend

We've been making the most of the Diamond Jubilee and our special four day weekend. I'm kicking myself because I've left my camera at the in-laws, so only have a few photos for this post from my old camera. I'll do another photo-dump post once I've got the camera back.

So, Charlie's jubilee weekend started on Friday with a Jubilee party at nursery. He came home wearing a crown:

He'd made it himself, and delighted in pulling as many of the sequins onto my freshly vacuumed floor as he could! He was also waving a union jack coloured by his own fair hand.



On Saturday Daddy bear and I had tickets to the Coldplay Concert at the Emirates Stadium. Yellow, is "our song", we chose it for our first dance at our wedding, so it was great to see them live again and hear them sing 'our song', and a really nice treat for me from my husband. I have tons more to write about, but will wait until I've got my camera back so I can include photos.

My Auntie, Uncle and Cousin came over after lunch on Saturday to spend the day with us and to babysit C-bear in the evening. We had a lovely walk in Crystal Palace Park and blew bubbles for C. He was as good as gold, he doesn't know my Auntie and co too well but went to bed for them with no fuss! I'd emailed my Aunt with our bedtime routine and she'd even learnt the Cbeebies bedtime song to sing to him before bed!

On Sunday we had a home day, I was pretty tired from getting to bed at midnight after the Coldplay concert and then getting up with C-bear at 6am. We watched the Thames River Pageant on TV and it felt like a very good idea not to have gone into London, the rain was horrendous!

Image from the official Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant website

The flotilla started just near our old flat at Battersea and made it's way along 7 miles of river to Tower Bridge, it was nice to see our old neighbourhood on the TV! If we still lived there we'd have taken Charlie down to see the boats. Charlie and I ventured out into the park for an afternoon stroll, we found a golf ball and then got rained out and hurried home, running from tree to tree for shelter.

On Monday we took the boy out for another adventure. We drove down to Rochester Castle and had fun pretending to be knights and jumping down stairs (more on this once my camera returns). We popped into Bluewater to get some bits - a birthday present for C-bear's girlfriend, fixing of a watch strap for Daddy Bear and some new jubilee inspired red, white and blue PJs for me. We went onto Nana and Grandad's house to spend the afternoon with them. We gave Nana her birthday present and she cooked us a lovely dinner with her homemade special chips.

Today, the final day of our lovely 4 day holiday, C-bear and I had a playpark playdate with his friend little T. We made sandcastles, a sand tunnel (expert engineering from T's Mama) and both boys slid down the big helterskelter slide (can't believe how grownup they're getting!). We fed the ducks (and pigeons and geese) the crusts from the posh sandwiches T and his Mama had made for their own jubilee celebrations yesterday:

And in the park cafe we shared a Jubilee lemon cupcake with a cup of tea/juice.

On the way home (we were a little late and someone was hungry, tired and grumpy) we had a monster tantrum. I'm trying to get him to walk more, C-bear always wants to be carried and I'm trying to get him to walk for a little while before picking him up. We had fishfingers, waffles, beans and peas for lunch with fresh pineapple and yogurt, and right now C-bear is enjoying a nap, whilst Daddy Bear and I celebrate all things British by watching Miss Marple (the 1980s Joan Hickson verion).