Day 696: Childhood returns

21/06/2023

It was a hot night in a hotel with no air conditioning. This did not stop the kids from jumping between the beds when they woke up. We had to get out of the hotel room. It had been a long morning and an extremely sad night, we’ll come back to more on that in the following weeks. There was a series of emotional video calls back home before we put on the sunscreen and tried to tackle the day.

We caught “London’s majestic ‘Liz Line’” into the city and hopped over to South Kensington. Lachlan had a great setup on the Underground, he is a pro by now.

After a short walk, we were reunited with best friends of the blog, Hugh and Jamila, jeez we have missed them, we needed some friendly faces today. Eloise and Dad went bounding down the footpath to greet them with big hugs. They both looked amazing after all their recent travels through Europe.

We were happy to just hang out for the day with friends, however, Lachlan sprung into action and lead the way to his favourite place on the planet, The Natural History Museum. Both Eloise and Lachlan were keen to show Hugh and Jamila the famous clock from Andy’s Prehistoric Adventures.

The building itself never fails to impress us, Lachlan was a happy boy making his way into the dino exhibition where Hugh made the ridiculous remark that he could name every type of dinosaur that has ever existed.

Lachlan was jumping up and down when he found his favorite dinosaur, the Triceratops. Hugh lifted Lachlan up for a closer look before we made our way to see the birds. To be honest we were all just trying to keep up with Lachlan travelling at super speed.

Disappointingly, there were no puffins spotted. After a quick whale selfie, Lachlan’s next stop was the rock exhibition and we managed to fire a quick rock quiz across to Uncle Kochy, boy would he love it here. Super Mum and Hugh did a brilliant effort hunting down the South Australian opals, represent.

The museum store was full of dino goodies, Lachlan enjoyed trying on the dino mask with a loud “roarrr”.

It was such a nice day we scoffed down some lunch and then strolled into Soho. Super Mum, Hugh and Jamila were pumped to see part one and part two of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Hugh and Jamila were so eager for the show after disappointingly missing it during COVID-19 in Australia. It was a great opportunity for Super Mum to tag along. Super Mum left Eloise in charge of da Boyz as they made their way in.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play written by Jack Thorne, based on an original story written by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne… From its premiere, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has received near-universal critical acclaim for its magic, illusions, and stage wizardry. The original West End production premiered at the Palace Theatre on 7 June 2016. It received a record-breaking eleven nominations and won another record-breaking nine awards, including Best New Play, at the 2017 Laurence Olivier Awards… An Australian production opened at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, on 23 February 2019… The play was originally produced as a two-part play, that could be viewed on the same day (i.e. in the afternoon and in the evening) or over two evenings. In June 2021, the play was re-staged as a single 3.5 hour show for future performances on Broadway in November 2021. In 2022, the San Francisco, Melbourne, Toronto, and Tokyo productions also adopted the one-part play, with Hamburg following in 2023. The West End production is the only location that continues to stage the original two-part play.

Lachlan fell asleep, no surprise after his morning museum miles. Eloise, the Boss, drove a hard bargain, telling Dad he could not go to the Lego store until she got an ice cream. Fair enough, well played Eloise, you win this time.

There were ten minutes when the planets had aligned and both Eloise and Lachlan had nodded off. After a decent nap, Lachlan was firing on all cylinders again, luckily Dad knew a playground that was just around the corner.

It was tiring watching Lachlan zip about the PG, he was very pleased with himself climbing and going down the yellow helical slide all by himself. The PG was packed once the schools had finished for the day, Lachlan was not letting any big kids get between him and his slide though. After what must have been 20 odd slides we woke up Eloise. Lachlan wanted a playground buddie. Eloise was glad to have space to run and climb.

We then swung past the Brompton store to check out the T-Line while we were in the area before rendezvous with the theatre lovers.

Super Mum, Hugh and Jamila loved the first part, they were very impressed with the special effects. We won’t give too much away but they only had glowing reviews so far. Jamila then had the brilliant idea of Thai for dinner which Super Mum quickly seconded, it went down a treat. We were all hungrier than we had expected after dealing with the humid London sun.

With no Paul lecture to worry about, Lachlan did not even hesitate to collect all the carrots off the plates.

The food was delicious and hit the spot, Eloise then demanded Jamila push her while she hit her with a bottle as payment. Thank you Jamila!

Hugh was on a mission as we darted to his beloved ice cream/ biscuit/ London dessert store. Eloise was grinning from ear to ear that she got another ice cream in almost as many hours.

Super Mum, Hugh and Jamila headed back for round two of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, while Dad hopped his way back on the Elizabeth Line, trust me, there is no going back once you have ridden the Elizabeth Line, to put the kids to bed. Every pub, street and any free space in London was filling up with Brits enjoying the weather.