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Monday mayhem
Feb. 14th, 2012 02:58 pmYesterday we had a heckuva day. Emer and I got into a taxi at 08:10 to go to the hospital for her eye test, while Rob stayed home with the other two girls. Later Maria came to babysit so he could work from home for a bit. Then he brought the two girls to meet me and Emer at Reading train station and we all went to London together.
It was the first trip to London since the awful Princess Di Memorial Fountain swimming expedition in March last year. But it went without a hitch. We just went to see Google and eat their food, and then came home again. It was fine. It proved it can be done, and next time, we'll go to a museum first.
Google was as... it was more or less as I expected it to be, except that the rooms and spaces were smaller and the facilities laid on for staff were much more lavish than I had thought. The girls played on a hammock and in a boat, and we ate in one of the many restaurants, and snacked in minikitchens, and used lots of different toilets. The minikitchens were wonderful - everything is in packets with full ingredients lists, so there's no risk element to eating at all. The restaurant was less wonderful in terms of intolerance-management; most of the dishes were described on the menu and had a few little icons to show whether they had soy or wheat or so on, but none of the extras were labelled, and the dishes weren't necessarily as described on the menu anyway. Rob heroically leaped up and down from the table checking things, our intolerances are not serious allergies, and I am accustomed to never eating bread when out of the house and not getting any dessert, so I was pleased that there was not just the ubiquitous "unadorned low-grade fruit salad" but also pear poached in mulled wine. I might poach pears in mulled wine myself one day, and serve them with oat cream or icecream or similar. The spices would benefit from something to mitigate them a bit. It was lovely that there was something I could have though.
I loved that the children finally saw where Rob has been spending most of his waking hours since a little before Astrid was born, too. She's over one and a half now. It was About Time.
It was the first trip to London since the awful Princess Di Memorial Fountain swimming expedition in March last year. But it went without a hitch. We just went to see Google and eat their food, and then came home again. It was fine. It proved it can be done, and next time, we'll go to a museum first.
Google was as... it was more or less as I expected it to be, except that the rooms and spaces were smaller and the facilities laid on for staff were much more lavish than I had thought. The girls played on a hammock and in a boat, and we ate in one of the many restaurants, and snacked in minikitchens, and used lots of different toilets. The minikitchens were wonderful - everything is in packets with full ingredients lists, so there's no risk element to eating at all. The restaurant was less wonderful in terms of intolerance-management; most of the dishes were described on the menu and had a few little icons to show whether they had soy or wheat or so on, but none of the extras were labelled, and the dishes weren't necessarily as described on the menu anyway. Rob heroically leaped up and down from the table checking things, our intolerances are not serious allergies, and I am accustomed to never eating bread when out of the house and not getting any dessert, so I was pleased that there was not just the ubiquitous "unadorned low-grade fruit salad" but also pear poached in mulled wine. I might poach pears in mulled wine myself one day, and serve them with oat cream or icecream or similar. The spices would benefit from something to mitigate them a bit. It was lovely that there was something I could have though.
I loved that the children finally saw where Rob has been spending most of his waking hours since a little before Astrid was born, too. She's over one and a half now. It was About Time.