land of kids

Half term is always the best, apart from being about 5 weeks too short. And the fact that everyone else is on half term too, which means that anything even vaguely desirable to do in London is totally heaving and usually sold out 6 months before you've even thought of doing it. But despite this, we packed our sacks of snacks and braved a trip to the South Bank Imagine Children's Festival, not for the *awesome* Grandpa Joe's Giant Storytelling Bed for Roald Dahl tales & epic bouncing, because I absolutely didn't get my act together in time and it was long sold out. However, for mums like me there was the fabulous Land of Kids pop up - totally free and unbookable and all over the Royal Festival Hall. YAY! 

After fighting through the swarms of toddlers and buggies and agitated mums to park up and feed our gaggle buns and grapes and sandwiches (and ourselves very large coffees) until everyone was on a lovely blood sugar high and ready to rock, we headed up to Pirate School and let them loose. I haven't laughed so much in a long time, as the pirates dressed even little Indy in bandanas, patches and gold then led them on a rampage around the room ("Captain's coming! Scrub the decks!" etc). Lost & Found are the force behind the pirates, and I hear they even do parties so get in touch! The kids were too exhausted afterwards to even face the magical cardboard city building that we'd stuck on the agenda next, but seeing the vast kid-crafted cardboard kingdom stretching across the floor was pretty magnificent. Then it was off to get amazing churros and visit the baby animal petting zoo, cleverly avoiding the face painting…

Why can't half term be every week???