Sorry we haven’t posted much on the blog. We’ve been in Cornwall without Internet access so I’m now posting all the stuff that we have done for the past five days. Also enjoying everyone’s comments!
We had been planning to spend the Tuesday (Sep 4) in London, but a strike on the Tube caused a change of plan. Although the Piccadilly line was open, we figured it would be packed with annoyed commuters.
So we looked around for things to do in Muswell Hill and environs. Firstly we went to Highgate Wood. Ross dropped us off at the gate. It’s a wonderful beech forest, apparently the sort that would have covered much of London originally. It was just a delightful place to wander around – more squirrels to spot. It also had an extensive playground. The girls had a great time with some of the local children. We noticed lots of nannies out with the kids, as well as the mothers. We had lunch near a wide open sportsfields – a cricket pitch and soccer ground. The poor groundkeeper was trying to mark up the pitch around a group of under 5s who thought the string made an interesting plaything. It was a lovely sunny day – quite warm out in the open but cool once you were in the wood. We then walked back to Ross’s house via a parkland trail, which follows the route of a railway line that was decommissioned in 1954. The trail was opened in the 1980s. It follows the top of the ridge past the back of the Muswell Hill shopping centre and has magnificent views across London. Bonny later told us this was one of their favourite vantage spots on New Year’s Eve as they could see the fireworks across all the boroughs of London. The trail comes out at the bottom corner of Alexandra Palace gardens – basically at the top of Ross’s street.
In the afternoon we went ice-skating at Alexandra Palace. It was lots of fun as E&K hadn’t been before – E did a great impression of ice dancing, K tried a couple of times to go a bit faster and ended up on her behind.
That evening Ross and Susanna hosted the ‘family dinner’ - a tradition they started when the kids moved out. Susanna’s former husband Simon and his wife Haisheida, Bonny and her boyfriend Stefan and Jacob came along. The girls were again excited to be meeting another cousin and also had several questions about how everyone was related and how they were related to everyone! It was a great night – good food, good wine, good talk.
Carlene
We had been planning to spend the Tuesday (Sep 4) in London, but a strike on the Tube caused a change of plan. Although the Piccadilly line was open, we figured it would be packed with annoyed commuters.
So we looked around for things to do in Muswell Hill and environs. Firstly we went to Highgate Wood. Ross dropped us off at the gate. It’s a wonderful beech forest, apparently the sort that would have covered much of London originally. It was just a delightful place to wander around – more squirrels to spot. It also had an extensive playground. The girls had a great time with some of the local children. We noticed lots of nannies out with the kids, as well as the mothers. We had lunch near a wide open sportsfields – a cricket pitch and soccer ground. The poor groundkeeper was trying to mark up the pitch around a group of under 5s who thought the string made an interesting plaything. It was a lovely sunny day – quite warm out in the open but cool once you were in the wood. We then walked back to Ross’s house via a parkland trail, which follows the route of a railway line that was decommissioned in 1954. The trail was opened in the 1980s. It follows the top of the ridge past the back of the Muswell Hill shopping centre and has magnificent views across London. Bonny later told us this was one of their favourite vantage spots on New Year’s Eve as they could see the fireworks across all the boroughs of London. The trail comes out at the bottom corner of Alexandra Palace gardens – basically at the top of Ross’s street.
In the afternoon we went ice-skating at Alexandra Palace. It was lots of fun as E&K hadn’t been before – E did a great impression of ice dancing, K tried a couple of times to go a bit faster and ended up on her behind.
That evening Ross and Susanna hosted the ‘family dinner’ - a tradition they started when the kids moved out. Susanna’s former husband Simon and his wife Haisheida, Bonny and her boyfriend Stefan and Jacob came along. The girls were again excited to be meeting another cousin and also had several questions about how everyone was related and how they were related to everyone! It was a great night – good food, good wine, good talk.
Carlene
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