When I was working in town (central London), my lunchtimes more often than not involved a stroll in one of many directions. I always tried to head somewhere new but after seven years, there weren't many different ways to go. Coupled with the fact that you could only set off for half an hour in any direction before you needed to turn back again.
The trick was to look at something familiar through different eyes, and you'd be surprised how much of a difference it made. This is, however, far easier to do than if you are in a car, particularly so if you are the one doing the driving.
For example, the other day, we were all heading out to do some shopping - stay with me, stay with me - and while sat at a red light, we looked at a huge church sat a little way back from the road.
"Why have we never been into that church?" I asked everyone. "That's the sort of medieval church / castle we'd pay to go in and see if we were on a break somewhere. It's got 'middle ages' written all over it".
Joseph and Annabel are currently looking at British history, focussing on the Tudors, so they too were interested.
The light changed to green and we drove off. Whether we'll return to the church I'm not sure. I'll let you know if we do. But it made me think.
Last week, the classes on our top corridor (Years 5 & 6) went to the National Maritime museum in Greenwich, and jolly interesting it was too.
I grew up approximately 2 and a half miles from Greenwich Park and Blackheath and we spent a lot of time there as a family, be it my brother and I cycling around Cowboy Valley, crashing on my skateboard and ending up in hospital thanks to losing rather a lot of facial skin, playing for as long as our folks would allow in the swing park or chasing squirrels and feeding the deer, riding the donkeys or running to the ice cream van - it was (and is) a beautiful place.
However, in all those years, we never once visitied the museum, or the Royal Observatory.
Man, it's where the world's time is calculated from (for now), how did we never go there?
Regardless, last week we went and a very interesting place it is too; the revamped museum at the bottom of the hill, the 28 inch telescope at the top of the hill, the incredible view of central and City of London, the fact that there is that much beautiful green space in the middle of a very busy part of the capital ...... just go and see it. If you're feeling flush, take a trip there on a London Clipper.
It can only add to your exciting and memorable day out.
No comments:
Post a Comment