Tuesday 26th July

Money is tight with me being on Maternity Leave so I am trying to find as many cheap mornings/afternoons/days out as possible. I also need to find ways of getting around easily with the Ava's pushchair.

Today we went on a magical mystery tour of the train lines of East London. I should point out that Sam is a train fanatic so is quite easily pleased with riding on trains.

We started off at Walthamstow Queens Road, one of our local stations. It's a good station as there are no steps to navigate and it's on the London Overground line that goes from West to East London. We travelled to Barking then from there got the District Line to West Ham, where Sam enjoyed a spot of pole dancing - not sure our fellow passenger was impressed.

Then from West Ham we went one stop on the Jubilee Line to Canning Town

Then we joined Sam's beloved DLR train to Pontoon Dock, the stop that takes you to Barrier Park. Barrier Park is one of the less well known parks in London, but I think it's fab. It's got a good playpark, views of the Thames, beautiful gardens and sometimes they have the water fountains on so the kids can splash about in them. It also has a nice cafe (a must for the sleep deprived mum). Oh and it's near City Airport so kids can watch the planes take off quite close up.

After a long play in the park and cappucino and ice lollies in the cafe we made our way home back the way we came.

The journey was so easy as all the stations had lifts and I used my Oyster card to travel with which meant the whole journey only cost £2.60

What struck me about the afternoon is how much you miss when you are a regular commuter, travelling with a young child makes you see things that you would usually ignore. We even took along an old school ISpy book, I am not sure who had more fun filling it in!