London day out

Xavier and I went into London to buy Tom’s birthday present. We also visited the National Portrait Gallery. Although I would have dearly liked to have seen it, there was no point in spending money on the Hockney exhibition as a toddler tantrum could have made the visit very short-lived. We did however have fun looking at some of the (free) permanent exhibition. The Tudor gallery is one of my favourites – amazing to look at paintings that are 500 years old and still look wonderful. Xavier enjoyed rushing from gallery to gallery pointing out things to me – one of my favourites ‘Look Mummy, flying babies’. We also took a few minutes to participate in a Big Draw activity – contributing a drawing to

make a large-scale alternative version of the Beatles' 'Sargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' album cover using drawing of historical sitters from the collections.

I cheated here as Xavier wanted me to draw him – not Queen Victoria. Anyway maybe whoever pastes the drawing in will think it’s one of those flying babies.
The simplest things in London can entertain a three year old, so we then looked at the fountains and lions in Trafalgar Square, had lunch at the nearby Spaghetti House and caught a red bus back to the train station. All of which, were enormous fun for Xavier. As I put him to bed I asked him what was the best thing about today – he told me it was the vanilla ice cream he had for pudding.