international flights

Long walks in London - March 2000

Excerpt from my travel diary - Sat 4 and Sun 5 March 2000

Loll woke early so we were up and eating breakfast by 7am. But true to form he was back in bed after an hour! After he woke again we dressed in our coats and set off for a walk. It was bright and sunny but still quite nippy outside. We walked to Leighton House near Holland Park. This was the house belonging to a British painter. The front hall is decorated with Arab tiles in brilliant blues and greens. We took Loll inside and carried him about in his Kapoochi and he had a great time - even entertaining a tour group!!

After leaving the museum we walked through Holland Park towards Notting Hill Gate. Joining the crowds of mainly Swedish tourists we walked down through the famous Portobello Road Markets. The masses of people made it almost impossible to browse but it was still an interesting place and I managed to find a pair of mittens for Loll’s cold little hands.

By this time Loll was getting cold sitting in his stroller and so we headed home on the Tube which ended up being a free trip as the guard let us through the gates without taking our tickets.

We had planned to spend the next day exploring the National Gallery but Loll changed our plans around! We packed a lunch and took the tube to Leicester Sq to visit the gallery. We saw a couple of the rooms but Loll was becoming ratty and upset and the security guard was giving me the evil eye so we found the parents’ room and fed him some lunch. After his meal we tried to see some more of the Gallery but Loll continued to cry and whine so we cut short our visit.

We ate our lunch amongst the feral pigeons in Trafalgar Sq and then decided to walk down through Whitehall to the Thames. Once there we thought that we would take a look at Westminster Abbey, but as it was a Sunday afternoon it was closed to tourists. We took a walk around the back of the Abbey to the cloisters where we found a coffee cart (and some inscriptions!!) and stopped for a coffee to warm ourselves.

Loll woke up shortly after we sat down and so we decided to keep walking through St James’ Park, past Buckingham Palace and into Green Park.

By this stage we were nearing Hyde Park and thought that we may as well walk back to Kensington as it didn’t seem too far away. But as we were walking Loll was becoming quite sooky and we took turns carrying him in the Kapoochi. We discovered the reason why he was upset when we got home and discovered that his little legs and hands were ice cold but after a nice warm bath he was happy (and warm!) again.

Loll in his bath - a storage container! Our studio only had a tiny shower (with terrible water pressure!) and we couldn’t find a baby bath at any store - not even Harrods. So we improvised instead!

© 2008 Flying with Baby.