Easy like Sunday morning

After the excitement of the snowfall last week we decided to have a relaxing weekend. It was quite cold outside so I planned some home cooking for Sunday that would keep us warm and cosy and also involve the boys. Brown Bear has always enjoyed helping in the kitchen so we decided to make some pastries on Sunday morning. 

I bought a Jus Rol kit and asked Brown Bear to check the instructions - he likes to look up the temperature and cooking times for me. It helps with his reading and also I ask him to check the cooking timer so there is some sneaky maths going on too. Mwah ah ah (evil mum laugh).

He loved the twisty carton and said, "Wow !" when these pastries pieces came out of the tube. I used some baking parchment to stop the pastry sticking to the baking sheet. We've had an issue with this before so I learned from my mistake.

Brown Bear laid out the chocolate slices onto the pastry sheets and carefully folded the pastry over the top. 

We decided to brush the pain au choc tops with milk to make them golden brown.  Brown Bear loved using the pastry brush. 

They look pretty good don't they ? 

A treat for Daddy - breakfast in bed on Sunday morning. 

It was only afterwards that we noticed we were supposed to put the folded side down on the baking sheet, but it didn't matter. The boys enjoyed them just the same.

Cooking with the kids is such fun and they love to eat what they've made. Now that Blue Bear is older and can understand safety in the kitchen a bit more I hope we can cook together too. I would recommend the Jus Rol kits as they contain everything you need and are simple to use. I have some lovely recipes that are really easy to make so I think we will start with cookies - they also taste great.

Do you cook with your children ? What are you favourite things to make ?

Boxpark Croydon: My new exploration challenge

Look at how beautiful it is !

I took a walk this evening to explore Boxpark - a new venue in Croydon that opened last weekend. It is a phenomenon that started out in Shoreditch and has now come South of the river. I knew something was up when I saw a man with a top knot style hairdo a while back and have watched the rising interest in artisan coffee for years now. We've had our own Cronx brewery too and most recently a project took over all the walls in Croydon with street art that is frankly amazing. Boxpark, however, takes us to a whole new level of cool and I can see why. I mean look at the design of it for a start. How cool is that ?

You can get to Heathrow on that bus - seriously ! 

Unlike our East London counterpart this Boxpark is food, drink and music. There are not fashion outlets - so far. It's right next to East Croydon station and well served by plenty of public transport so if you've planned an after work drink or bite to eat you've got plenty of options for getting home afterwards. 

The perfect lighting for a first date

It was proper parky* tonight so there weren't so many outdoor diners / drinkers, but the outside seating is plentiful and well lit. Probably just right for first dates I reckon. As it is the outdoor spaces are taken up by smokers, but at least the design has incorporated plenty of greenery to counteract the container look. 

I know people who are slavering right now 

There are plenty of food places that already have a great reputation elsewhere and pride of location goes to Meat Liquor which pretty much dominates the upstairs of the Boxpark. Not my scene at all, but it was doing a roaring trade for a Wednesday evening. Mind you maybe Wednesday is the new (insert day of the week most associated with partying nowadays). 

Excellent motto 

I was impressed with how busy it was and yet not at all crowded. I'm sure this will be different at weekends when it's going to be heaving and with so many places to eat and drink it will attract a range of visitors. I've already scoped out all my dining plans for the weekend:

Friday - free Burritos at Chilangos with the kids before we go to watch the fireworks - yes please !!

Saturday - I'm trying to talk my lovely friend into coming with me. I think meat liquor will persuade her though

Sunday - Brunch at the Breakfast Club, by far my favourite venue for a late breakfast / early lunch. The kids have never been before so fingers crossed they enjoy it.

Monday - it's Hubbie's birthday so after parents' evening we're going to take a stroll down to Boxpark and see what takes his fancy.

I haven't seen this many seats since my uni exams ! 

There is so much to try that I've set myself a challenge - I'm dedicating the rest of this year to exploring the eateries and bars and will use it as leverage to get more people to visit Croydon. We are proper trendy now you know !! 

I'm going to be seeing a lot of this sign

* parky is colloquial for very, very cold indeed 

An evening adventure in London

Sometimes we make plans to have a grown up night out and arrange babysitting so that we can enjoy each other's company child-free for just a few hours. Last night was supposed to be one of those and we had tickets to see a comedian in London.

Then Hubbie rang me to say there was going to be a rail strike so it was unlikely we'd be able to both make the early start of the show as our babysitter prefers to take care of the boys when at least one of them is already in bed. As we would have had to leave immediately after feeding the boys it wasn't going to happen.

The last time we had tickets to see Stewart Lee I ended up staying home with a poorly child - despite my best efforts to persuade him that he'd be fine if I went out for a few hours. This time it was my turn to go so off I went to negotiate the depleted train services and jam packed streets of London only to arrive out of breath just in time to see the show start.

As it started so early - Hubbie has a theory that Stew is a fan of Bake off and wanted to get home, but I reckon he has to do bedtime for the kids when he gets in - I found myself in London town on an Autumn evening with no rush to get home.

I've always loved walking in London and the evenings are a special time as everything looks so different. I used to run in St James's park with my friend Soraya at lunchtimes. When it's dark it's a much more serene place and the rain spattered roads add a sheen to the whole picture.

Of course I'd have loved to have had a romantic walk hand in hand with Hubbie, but an evening walk in London by myself was a pretty lovely adventure to have. It reminded me to do something for myself every now and again.

Even better I spotted some traffic signs that made me proud that I'm from London. I only managed to catch this one in a photo, but if you're around Trafalger Square you may spot others.

Next time I hope we both get to spend the evening together - not least as it's going to be our anniversary !

A first trip to Legoland for my boy's birthday treat

We asked Brown Bear a while back what he'd like to do for his birthday and he replied - unequivically - that he wanted to go to Legoland. I realise that it may be bordering on negligent on our part that he has made it to 6 years old without going, but I think he's now at an age where he can truly appreciate it. I grew up 20 minutes drive from Windsor so we would go there regularly either to the safari park (where the monkeys would snap off your windscreen wipers - a sure sign they weren't happy in my book) or to see the castle long before they introduced an entry charge. 

Before we went I asked for some tips on what to do on our visit. Almost everyone said get there early and I can see why. Even on a rainy day in October the car park was heaving when we arrived. The other tip was to go to the very end and work back as it's a long walk at the end of the day otherwise. This proved to be a great bit of advice as there is so much to see and do that just doing a circuit to see what is where proved helpful in planning our visit. My lovely blogger pal Lou also said go to the Laser Raiders ride so we queued for it. It took a lot longer than I expected, but the boys really enjoyed shooting lasers at targets. I think if we go again I won't go for the long queues as we realised (afterwards) that the notice boards give you a heads up how long the queues are in the entire park. 

One of the things I really liked when we waited the longest was this kids area where Brown Bear sat and watched a lego movie while we stood in line. Blue Bear wasn't so keen to be left so we carried him instead. The queue management is pretty good on Laser Raiders, I guess because it's so popular. You can purchase ways to jump the queues, but as it was our first visit we decided not to. I think that was the right idea and on a future visit I would consider it, but we did so much I didn't feel the need on this occasion. 

Brown Bear was so excited when he saw that there is a fire academy in Legocity. We headed over there and both boys could hardly contain themselves when we got to take part. It is an exhausting activity, but we had such fun that I can heartily recommend it. 

After we'd been on some rides and put out fires we went to see Miniland. This is the bit of Legoland that I have always seen in photos and it's pretty breathtaking. Brown Bear loved London and Blue Bear ran around looking for the moving trains and boats. As the boys missed football to go to Legoland it was with great joy that they spotted a mini version of Wembley (the original one) and cheered on the match that was taking place. 

I had to share a photo of Covent Garden as it's such an iconic London location.  

This year is Legoland's 20th birthday and we were there to see a live show featuring Olly the dragon and his dance moves. The sun came out and we all had a bop along with him on the grass. 

As we were getting tired and wanted to get going we decided to make our way out, but Brown Bear spotted a sign for the Star Wars Miniland exhibit. I'm so glad we did as it is really impressive. Lego depictions of great battles from the movies and all the iconic characters take your breath away, but the most amazing is the Millenium Falcon and a Death Star that sent a chill down my spine. 

We didn't have the best weather as it was rainy and sunny in turns all day. This did result in the perfect end to our day though. A double rainbow. 

Disclosure: The lovely folks at Legoland gave us a family ticket for our day out. 

Adventures in music

One of the things that me and Hubbie most enjoyed before we became parents was watching live music. We also took Brown Bear to a few gigs when he was still cooking, he enjoyed the Primitives and Billy Bragg amongst others. I like that our boys love music as much as we do and hope to cultivate that interest as they grow.

In the past few years we've been establishing our own traditions and have a few regular gigs that we go to without the kids. The one that we always go to is the Edge of the Sea in Brighton - a two day festival created by Dave Gedge of the Wedding Present. By far the greatest band we've seen playing this event was a close run thing between Dream Themes in 2015 and Art Brut in 2014. I think Eddie Argos definitely wins it for Art Brut though.

I thought we'd missed out on the Pixies earlier this year when their gig sold out in minutes. We've seen them before at Field Day festival and (pre-children) at Alexandra Palace supported by the Futureheads. They were amazing at Field Day and I can't wait to see them later this year in a smaller venue as Hubbie managed to get tickets for us - yay !! 

We took a break from Field Day last year and were tempted back this summer by the headliner PJ Harvey. It was the first time that either of us had seen her live and it was a vibrant - if odd - performance. Still, she's pretty spectacular to witness in real life. 

I've always wondered what a gig at the Eden Project would be like and earlier this summer we found out when we saw Manic Street Preachers there. I've seen them a few times before, but it was Hubbie's first timea nd they were amazing. Despite it pouring down with rain the whole night we had a fab time - and burittos so not all bad eh ? 

So, in this year of rediscovering our love of live music we also have the band I discovered aged 16 and that we finally saw live for the first time a couple of years ago. Jesus and Mary Chain have a cult like following, but at my school I was the only one who even noticed them and I played psychocandy obsessively to anyone who would listen. Most tolerated this with a kindly smile, but no one shared my appreciation. I was chuffed to get tickets to see them in a teeny tiny venue in a few weeks time. 

The final band on this odyssey of musical memories is Killing Joke. I first saw them at Digbeth Institute - probably around 1991 - and was blown away by their live show. I had tickets to see them in 2010 and they had to reschedule the gig for Oct. As I was due to deliver a baby in September I took the decision not to commit to a gig immediately after giving birth. As a result I'm very tempted to go and see them in November, but I'm not entirely sure they are Hubbie's cup of tea. Still, you never know I might be able to persuade him to give them a go.