A Simple London Weekend (with little kids)
It was a cold weekend and today it snowed, so our outdoor options were limited. But it was ok, as we were all up for a simple enough weekend here in London. We had a little bit of opportunistic shopping, catching a few sales and promotions as we wandered around a bit.
Saturday
I, for one, was off to a slow start on Saturday after we had a good night out at the Paramount Club. Paramount (warning: useless, annoying flashing graphics on their site) is on top of Centre Point and offers maybe the best views of all of London in all directions. It’s a members club, so find someone to invite you for a drink if you can! Food was good, service good and it came in around £75/person all-in. So probably a little expensive, but less of course than it would have been when the pound was, ah, yes, worth more…
We finally got moving and out of the flat and then over to the usual Saturday morning at Spring Health where they finally finished renovating the gym. New area looks good enough and they have some new machines and other equipment. Main attraction there still for us is the creche, where we drop the kids for a couple of hours while we workout, although our 5-year old is the oldest one there and maybe it is time to find her something else to do on Saturdays?
Then a quick provisioning run at the butcher’s on Englands Lane, Barrett Brothers. It is a great place to shop for meat, really there are not so many old-style butchers around any more (especially after Steele’s closed up on Flask Walk in Hampstead).
After lunch we decided to take a walk in Soho and hit a few shops on various missions. It was busy as usual in the Centre of London. I am on this thing to get my daughter making stuff–so I remembered walking passed Creative Beadcraft on Beak Street, which seemed liked something sorta interesting in picking out beads, making necklaces. They have all the stuff you would need. Later we made a necklace which was a fun activity.
Then over to collect more art supplies at Cowling and Wilcox ( around the corner Cass is also a good spot). They always have lots of deal for art students–especially the 3 pack canvases and acrylic paint sets.
Final stop at Aquatic Design Centre to restock the tropical fish tank. We lost a bunch of fish over the last few months, despite cleaning and upgrading the pump. We had a great sales person in the store who knew maybe more than anyone I met in a fish store before about fish. He thought the main issue is the hard water here in London. So recommended that we put a piece of wood in the tank to soften it. We can also buy their filtered water to load the tank up if we bring a big container. Let’s hope the wood helps!
After making a necklace and getting the fish into the tank, and getting the kids down in their beds, I fired-up the iron skillet and got the two steaks from Barretts sorted alond with a nice bottle of red (my dinner was £20/person). We turned on the tube and flipped around, finally picking a Virgin OnDemand Movie–Sex and the City. It which was about as interesting as the tv show, so your pick on whether that is worth watching or not. But one observation is that there is a lot less sex in the movie than the tv show. It seemed to be mainly about whether or not women should forgive men. At least at £3.99 to watch it, it is sort of a good deal.
Sunday
We were on a mission to go ice skating and decided to try our luck at the Queensway Ice Skating in Bayswater (see skating options). For some reason of my own confusion, I thought this was located in the Whitley Center which is wrong, but at least Queensway is only about 5 minutes walk south. Whitley has a very nice parking though at £1.50/Hour.
On the way down Queensway, we stumbled into Travelzone (which is marked Surprise Surprise shop) as we noticed these cool Troop London canvas bags–all looked great and we bought 2–one is my 5-year olds first carry bag, big enough for a selection of art supplies and jewelry! There are all kinds of little, random and other foreign products shops on Queensway. We wandered into a Russian shop which had pickled tomatoes and herring, and of course wide selection of vodkas.
Queensway Ice Skating was really nice and a zillion times better than Alexandra Palace, although smaller. And Queensway has bowling as well as noisy arcade games. Kids love air hockey, but rest of games for little kids are either kinda worn-out or too sexed-up/violent.
Dim Sum at Kam Tong (59-63 Queensway, London, W2 4QH) – +44 20 7229 6065. Food was very good, service quick and friendly (£45for 2 adults + 2 kids).
Across the street from Queensway is this most excellent asian supermarket — Oriental City, (26 Queensway, Bayswater, London, W2 3RX). I love all the asian ingredients and they are so, so much cheaper than Waitrose it is shocking. 500ml of Soy is £1.10 and Ocado sells 250ml for £1.35 . There is all kinds of sauces, dried mushrooms, spices (star anise 200gm for £1.99 and Ocado is £1.29 for 15gms! ), noodles, weird unknown stuff. We got a big bottle of aloe water.
Last stop of the day was local at Amy’s (13 Harben Parade NW3 6JP, Finchley Road) to pick-up some kitchen stuff. They were also having sales on top of their normal discount prices. I bought 2 new woks so I can make good use of all the new spices and sauces.
