Tag Archives: Premier Inn

Return to an old haunt

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At one time, London was very much our home from home as we visited several times a year to attend M’s hospital appointments at GOSH and whenever those appointments didn’t fall on a Wednesday afternoon in term-time, always tried to tie it into a few days away from home. Both G and M had the chance to stay in London as part of their school’s enrichment week residential trips, and both said no. After all, why would they go with school to a city they’ve spent more time in than sometimes they’d care to remember?

Bearing all that in mind, it could come as something of a surprise that we’ve spent the last couple of days back in this old haunt of ours – and by choice, not by necessity thanks to our success in getting theatre tickets through Kids Week London. We’ve been extremely fortunate to see a number of shows over the years and this time we decided to chat over the choices with G and M before I attempted to buy the tickets the moment the website opened. Much to our surprise, the children had very different ideas about the shows they wanted to see and so I was set the challenge of trying to get tickets for G and Mike to see “Phantom of the Opera” on the same night that M and I headed to “School of Rock”. Fortunately, I was successful and with our theatre trips confirmed for the Thursday evening, we decided to make a short break of it and visit a handful of sights we haven’t been to before.

Our day started with a 20 minute walk to our local station to catch the London-bound train. I had made it clear to both children that I didn’t want them plugged into their electronics for the duration of our journey, so M had selected a few card games to take with us and, much to my amazement, we spent the entire time playing an array of card games as well as a couple of rounds of Marvel Top Trumps.
In no time at all, we had reached London and then it was a case of trekking across the city until we reached our first destination of the day, Tower Bridge. Thanks to M’s hard work researching and planning our routes and timings before we arrived, we decided to get off the underground at Monument and then walk along the river path to the Tower of London, where we ate our picnic lunch before climbing the stairs to explore the history of Tower Bridge itself.

The climb to the top of one of the towers was interspersed with facts about the construction of the bridge itself 125 years ago and, having reached the top, were then able to walk across the walkways linking the 2 iconic towers at either side, including a stretch of glass walkway that looks down onto the road and river below. This is not our first glass walkway – we’ve ventured onto the one at the CN Tower in Toronto too – and M was quite happy to wander across, jump onto and sit down on it. G, however, was lot more reluctant, but with a little gentle persuasion and a lot of hand-holding from me, she tentatively stepped onto the odd corner here and there, though she pointblank refused to do much more than that. Walkways conquered, we then headed on to the pump house to understand how the original mechanisms to raise the drawbridge worked before stopping for a vegan ice-cream treat from the ice-cream van cannily parked in the square beneath the bridge.

By the time our ice-creams were devoured, we were all ready to head to our hotel, fortunately just a short walk away along the South Bank. We have stayed at this Premier Inn near Borough Market several times before and find it wonderfully centrally located and easy to reach as well as surrounded by a number of chain restaurants that make it easy to feed both G and M. We had just enough time to unpack bags, dig out the theatre tickets and freshen up before we headed back out the door in search of dinner and our shows. Once we had finished our meal at the nearby Pizza Express, Mike and G disappeared in one direction, whilst M and I went off in another in search of our respective theatres. It was a wonderful evening and both children absolutely loved their musicals of choice. I would highly recommend a trip to see “School of Rock” as would M, whilst Mike and G raved about “Phantom of the Opera”.

Home or away?

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IMG_0746With a trip to London for M’s GOSH appointment an unavoidable part of the Easter holidays, we decided to make the best of it and spend a few days there on our very own mini city-break.  In preparation we spent one Sunday afternoon leafing through the pages of Mike’s “501 Days Out” book, looking for inspiration for what we could do during our stay and  G and M quickly filled a sheet of A4 with their suggestions.  It was left to Mike and me to make the final cut and hone our plans and, despite desperate requests for Legoland Windsor and Chessington World of Adventures, we decided to stick to those attractions within a reasonable distance of where we’d be staying and drew up a list that felt exhausting just looking at it.

where_to_stayThis epic event was our first overnight stay away from home since M had his tube back in December and I drew up thousands…hundreds…well one very long list of everything I needed to do in preparation.  My first job, once our trains were booked, was to find somewhere to stay that would meet all of our requirements.  Usually we choose to stay in one of the Premier Inn hotels on the south-side of the Thames, be it near the London Eye or closer to Southwark Cathedral and find them a great base for walking, or using the underground, to almost anywhere we’re intending to visit.  Unfortunately, leaving the actual booking to a little late in the day meant that none of our usual suspects of hotels was available for the 3 nights we were planning to stay and instead I had to search for a suitable alternative.  Whilst browsing frantically looking for a room at the….an….any inn, I came across the option of a serviced apartment and things suddenly started to fall into place.

We chose a one-bed apartment in East Aldgate, not too far from the Tower of London and easy walking distance from the nearest tube station.  The benefits seemed huge:

  • with a separate bedroom and pull-out bed in the living area, G would be able to go to sleep at a reasonable time, whilst M played his usual night-owl games
  • there would be plenty of space to store all of M’s medical gear as well as the supply of safe foods for both him and G that we would take with us
  • having a kitchen meant we could easily prepare M’s feeds, make packed lunches and even cook dinner, thereby covering every possible meal-time option we might face
  • it also meant we would have a fridge to keep cooked meats, cheese for G and M’s feeds in overnight without the need to request one beforehand and then keeping our fingers crossed it would be available when we checked in
  • finally, we would have a quiet place to retreat to when things got too much or the children needed some down time in the middle of the day

So it was an easy decision to get that apartment booked.  The days flew past until finally I had no choice but to tackle the task of packing for our trip.  By the time I had everything I needed for M in the case, plus our supply of safe foods for both G and M, I was beginning to wonder whether I’d have room for any of the clothes the 4 of us would need for 4 days in London.  With some canny packing and careful choices about exactly what was necessary, I just about squeezed everything in and we were ready for our next big adventure.