The Last Hurrah!

Last Tuesday was the last day of Sam being at home before he started school. I wanted to make it a special day and thanks to a friend who looked after Ava for the day I was able to take him out and about anywhere I wanted.

We started off getting the underground to North Greenwich, going via Stratford was interesting - I couldn't work out why there were so many people on the train, then I remembered that Westfield was opening that day! At North Greenwich we caught a Thames Clipper boat and headed towards the London Eye. At first Sam said he didn't want to go on a boat but as soon as he saw it he was really excited. It was a great journey and I can highly recommend it. It costs around £5 (depending on if you have an Oyster card or a travelcard or not) and takes you past lots of interesting sights. There is even a Costa Coffee on board!

We got off the boat at the London Eye and walked down to Giraffe which is one of Sam's favourite restaurants just because they give kids little plastic giraffes with their meal. I think the food is nice but is overpriced. When we got their it wasn't very busy but they seated us in a dark corner with no view out of the windows so I moved us to one of the other empty seats (I find the staff can be a bit moody too). Sam had a burger and an apple juice and I had a meze plate and a cranberry juice (another complaint is they don't offer ice in their soft drinks)

After we'd filled our boots we walked down the South Bank and went to Namco which is an indoor arcade and games place in County Hall. I'd seen they had a small bowling alley and Sam loves playing bowling on the Wii so I knew he'd enjoy it. It was £3 per person per game and the best thing is you don't have to wear those horrid bowling shoes! Obviously I won but I cheered Sam up with a few arcade games where you win tickets which we swapped for a bag of sweets.

Next on our journey was the bit I'd been looking forward to - The Ice Cream Parlour at Fortnum and Masons! We took the tube to Green Park and dashed into Fortnums to avoid the rain that had just started. We found the Parlour Restaurant and were presented with a mouthwatering menu of ice creams and desserts. Sam decided to go for a banana split from the childrens menu and I went for a Rota Plaustri which was three scoops of ice cream (chocolate, rocky road style and strawberry cheesecake) it came with a small jug of melted dark chocolate too. The Weightwatchers points for that day were used up in one go! The funniest thing was when Sam turned to me and said "there are a lot of old people in here mummy" :o) After the ice cream we had a look around the food halls and drooled over the vast array of lovely (and very expensive) things.

Our final port of call was Hamleys where Sam got to choose a toy which he had earned from a reward chart we'd been using over the summer. He went for a couple of Cars 2 toys and I avoided the hard sell from one of the staff telling him to put stuff on his christmas list and then saying to me "it's only £50 mummy" - "yeah only......"

We had a fabulous day and it was so nice to spend time with him and not have to worry about travelling about with a pushchair. It was a great end to a great summer and the next day we waved him off to school and managed not to blub....... just