- Jul 1
Back to London for J's Midsummer picnic in Greenwich. Train service between Manchester and London is spotty on Sundays, so we decided to make a weekend of it. On arrival we went to the new V&A East. Longish walk through an outdoor mall and past the aquatics center and several other buildings repurposed from the 2012 Olympics. I'd watched a show on iPlayer called Twenty Twelve, a mockumentary-style comedy where Hugh Bonneville plays the luckless soul leading assorted eccentrics through prep for the Olympics logistics. I think it says a lot about the British that their cultural response to getting the Olympics was to make a sitcom about what a clusterfuck it was going to be.
The museum website said there would be "very limited" room for "cabin sized bags" and we got there early enough that I thought we'd be OK. Maybe cabin means something different in England because none of the lockers were nearly big enough for our rollaboard suitcase. T heroically volunteered to sit in the cafe with the bag while I tried to psych the children up for exhibits interrogating the concept of function and inclusion. In the Music is Black exhibit, we got to wear headphones that automatically changed songs based on where we were standing as we moved through the exhibit. The hardware got them on board, and as I've mentioned they will stand stock still and watch absolutely any video in a museum so overall a reasonable amount of engagement. Maybe we've created some new Skepta fans? Cafeteria was v. v. good although N slightly miffed when he found out we'd palmed him off on the kids' pasta when there was smoked salmon to be had. When you're paying the bill, bucko!
I've decided that I'm now fun and chill, which meant that I said you know what let's skip the choir concept and just hang out!!! Playground 1, next to the museum, was in a hard glare. While the menfolk went on the climbing wall, I sat on a bench and eavesdropped to two women in their sixties. One pointed out where her granny's house would have been visible back in the day, and narrated the streets between her childhood home and that of said granny. The other had let one of her children use her M&S card to get herself something to eat but not for any of her friends, and the Ring camera will tell them if she tries to bring anyone over! When we got up to go, they lit those cigs so fast. Bless them for waiting! Playground 2 was near a cafe and had a splash pad, which meant it was very crowded. And then I noticed the chuck of feces on the path. A woman came along and realized it had fallen out of her child's diaper. Her half-hearted attempt to clean it made the situation rather more dire. The guy in the cafe said he'd call park security in a tone that suggested the situation would not be resolved in the short term. We left. Playground 3 was just right.
Dinner at Goddard's because it was Father's Day weekend and T had acquired a taste for jellied eel (It's eel that's in jelly.). They also have various savory pies which is what the rest of us ate. There was even a gluten-free pie, although it was only listed on the website. I suppose if you're a century-old landmark of working-class cuisine, mentioning your gluten free options kind of nukes the vibe. TBH I prefer the ones from Pieminster but I was extremely glad to have an alternative to jellied eel.
Fun and chill time was over the next morning. Unexpectedly saw J in the Sainsbury's parking lot! She must have had 68 things to do before the party, but she still gave us a lift to Greenwich Park. We skipped the pricey Observatory where you can see the Greenwich Mean line., it's not like we were going to see the toilets flush in the opposite direction or anything. The other free options were a former palace full of paintings of various royalty, and the nautical museum which had lots of interactive exhibits and activities for children. Guess where we spent most of our time???? There was a very awkward moment when we got to the nautical museum with just enough time for a speed run, and everyone just sort of took in what I'd done in organizing the itinerary thusly. Sometimes being bossy means having to own your failures.
Then the main event, picnic! Bread, cheese, fruit, hummus, snacks, and so on. Someone asked what would have been eaten at an American picnic, but I think the Massachusetts equivalent of this group would have made similar choices unless maybe a grill was involved. Maybe some Tate's cookies?
Got on our train, announcer said it was canceled. The kids remembered our long standing room only journey in April with unexpected fondness, so they were pumped. We could stay on the same train which would be used for the next departure 30 minutes later, but now we had to find seats in the unreservecd car. There were four free seats at a table but they were marked as priority for the elderly. After the April trip I assumed that combining two trains into one meant that some people would have to stand. What if someone needed to sit there after we'd settled in, and by then everywhere else was full? We moved to four regular seats and the table was taken by a group of young children whose mother and aunt sat across the aisle. They were reasonably well-behaved for the first 45 minutes or so. Then their games involved more and more shrieking, while the youngest two of the children took turns wailing whenever the other was having a turn playing cell phone games. Naturally, there were enough seats for everyone and we wouldn't have needed to move if we'd stayed there. And the train went out of service the stop before ours! Two buses later we got home. We were late enough to get all the money from our return ticket refunded but still got back at a decent hour, which at a certain point in an English train journey becomes the best possible outcome.
