It’s my regular weekly round up – and my first one of 2017 (last week I blogged my top 5 local family activities instead).
This is my way of capturing the small moments that make up a (family) life well lived. Let’s face it, if we didn’t track the small moments we wouldn’t realise we were living at all. Life would just seem to pass by in a rota of swim kits, lunch bags and musical instruments.
It’s all part of my realisation that life isn’t built up by the big decisions and events. It’s the little things that we choose to do day after day, or the small moments that happen in between the big stuff.
It’s taken me a long while to get to this understanding. And I’m still gripped by paroxysms of fear at 3am in the morning when I suddenly gasp “I forgot to become a famous actress / novelist / cabaret star or move to Pasadena / Paris / Phnom Penh”. But more and more, I’m learning to remember to breathe and notice the small stuff and know that this is enough.
But I digress (something I do a lot – in blog posts as in life). So here are the 5 things we learnt last week.
1. There’s a maze in West London!
One of our favourite things to do is get out and ramble in urban spaces. It makes me laugh that when we decided to move back from Yorkshire to London when Chiswick Boy was 2.5 – several people said to me ‘Ooooh I couldn’t live in London. I couldn’t bear not being able to see trees’.
I see more trees and green spaces in London than I did in Yorkshire. And I don’t have to drive out to the moors or valleys to do it.
We’ve been meaning to go to ‘Bunny Park’ (as the locals call it – Brent Lodge is the official name) for years, but finally made it on Sunday. There’s a children’s zoo there which is closed for winter, but we were thrilled to find out it had this maze.
We spent an hour running around, playing hide and seek and chase.
2. It’s never too cold for ice cream
Brent Lodge also had a cafe and we all went for ice cream. There’s something deliciously naughty about eating ice cream in Winter. Normally we go to Fouberts on Turnham Green Terrace (it was one of my top 9 local places in my Chiswick area guide for Visit London) – but this spontaneous bubblegum ice-cream moment was ultra fab!
3. Every generation of kids wants to make messy scientific discoveries – fact
Chiswick Boy has a new secret kingdom in his room – Chiswick Daddy built this as a surprise. It’s a cross between a castle, tree house and secret den.
He’s also using it as HQ for his secret spy society, and base for his science lab.
Chiswick Daddy had just proudly revealed his new water squeezer that he’d bought… when Chiswick Boy promptly snaffled it for his experiment.
I got some bicarbonate of soda from the cupboard, and some apple cider vinegar (this is posh expensive vinegar, not for doing science experiments with – but it was all we had in!). And some food colouring.
Chiswick boy poured some bicarbonate of soda in the bottle, followed by a few drops of then food colouring. Then on top of this he poured the vinegar.
It instantly became a fizzing overflowing mass worthy of any scientist!
Chiswick Boy wrote the experiments and his observations up in his notepad. (Remember GCSE Physics – Apparatus, Expectation, Method, Results). (Yes I know this is chemistry I’m writing about, but I did Physics not chemistry.) The point is thinking about an effect, trying an experiment and seeing if the results match your expectations is what human beings have been doing since the year dot. It’s amazing to see this genetic disposition in action. I think us mothers are privy to the most amazing close-up insight into human nature!
3. Smart is the new cool – but messy is always the most fun
‘Smart is the new cool’ is the catch phrase from Project MC2 – a Netflix original series (whatever did we do without Netflix?)
The basic premise is that STEAM (Science, Technology, Enginering, Arts and Maths is cool and that girls should be proud to do these. Unfortunately it also seems to suggest that even geeky girls need to run around in full make up and high fashion – but hey…
The thing is Chiswick Boy and I have become obsessed by this show this week. It made me guilty as ages ago I was sent a Project MC2 doll and experiment kit to review for my blog and kept on forgetting / getting behind with this blog post malarkey. So I was prompted after we watched the show to retreive the doll from my drawer and present it to Chiswick Boy.
(You think giving it to a boy was weird? Don’t be daft! )
So we got very excited about making the bath bombs that went with the kit. I’d have loved this doll as a kid. We needed two ingredients that we didn’t have in (Citric Acid and Epsom salts). So I ordered them online (sorry – I feel guilty for saying it but I used Amazon Prime for speed and ease rather than trying to get them locally. Bad Chiswick Mum.)
When they arrived we followed the bath bomb instructions to the letter.
Started with food sparkles.
Mixed up the ingredients and filled the mould.
We were meant to leave it for 12 hours. But within 10 minutes of closing the case it had flowed out and exploded (well dribbled) all over the bathroom. Luckily Chiswick Boy was more overjoyed with this messy explosion than he would have been with a bath bomb. (Who would have thought that guessing the measurements rather than, er, measuring would have had such an effect! Just how much in ounces is an American cup anyway?)
4. If in doubt – get out of the house
We had a lazy Saturday morning, but there comes a point when you feel a bit itchy and not quite right. And lazing about just isn’t as fun as you thought it would be.
I think a fail safe method for banishing the cobwebs is just to bundle everyone up into hat and coats and get out of the house.
Our favourite green space is Boston Manor Park – a gorgeous once-was stately home, a lake, a play area, a cafe and gorgeous ancient trees. And in case this made you feel that you weren’t in London – it has the added benefit of being partially under the M4. Ah – that rush of traffic, peppered with the flap of parakeet wings and the chirping of birds, and the soft fall of husks being thrown out of the trees by squirrels who’ve consumed their contents.
First of all we played ping pong on the outdoor table tennis table. Then we played football on the boules court.
Before feeding the birds on a gorgeously mystical and misty (Yes, yes, I know that one isn’t really meant to feed bread to ducks. Another of my weekend sins. I promise I’ll get some more proper waterbird feed.)
5. You should always keep your dreams and live your passion
Our family film night choice on Saturday was Eddie the Eagle (good old Netflix again!).
We missed this when it was at the Waterman’s last year and have been looking forward to seeing it.
We made popcorn with the popcorn maker Father Christmas thoughtully brought Chiswick Boy. There is something very giggle-making at seeing the popcorn stream out seemingly endlessley from the machine. I believe Father Christmas procured this particular model from Robert Dyas on Chiswick High Street, in case you were wondering.
You really can’t beat a good family film night! It takes the misery out of a Sunday evening and makes you want to conquer Monday. This feel-good, motivating film left us all a bit teary-eyed and determined to live our dreams.
So that, in a rather rambling way, is what we learnt last week. What did you do?
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