O Duo

Today we had a trip up to London. It is the first time we have had what I would consider a 'proper' day out since we got our puppy in September and I had been strangely dreading it. We had tickets to a concert at Wigmore Hall to hear O Duo, a percussion duo. The concert started at 11am which meant we had to leave the house before 9am, no easy task, and the energy required to arrange a dog-sitter, pack a picnic and sort out train times and tickets felt more than I had to give. I seriously considered abandoning the idea. In the end I decided that a day out was what we all needed and the change in pace and location would be a lift. And I was right.

We listened to our times tables CD in the car on the way to the station, horribly catchy tunes which have left me humming "one times eleven is eleven is eleven," all day, and we bumped into an old friend at the station, both adding energy to our mood. We read our chapter book on the train and then set off on the tube. We emerged in the middle of Oxford Circus and I was excited, as I always am, by central London.I have lived fairly close to the capital all my life and have been fortunate enough to have been taken their plenty as a child, but I still feel like a tourist, pointing out the Thames, Westminster, red buses and Monopoly streets. I love to look at the buildings and ask the children their opinions - concrete and glass, art deco, Victorian red-brick. We spotted a statue of a bull on a balcony, a window cleaner precariously balanced and sculpture on the side of Oxford Street's John Lewis. We ate our lunch in the chilly spring sunshine - the first picnic of the year - and a good day was had by all. We thoroughly enjoyed the concert too!