Saturday 17th December

After the appalling behaviour of yesterday, the plan for today was to divide and conquer.  At home the kids spend time away from each other with things like kinder, grandma days, dancing class, but for the past 2 and bit weeks they have been living on top of each other 24/7. It would be enough to drive me bonkers (who am I kidding, it IS driving me bonkers). Not only are they not getting any time apart, they are also sharing a room, so they don't even get their own space at the end of the day.

Adam was keen to go to the Imperial War Museum, I was not. So that's where he and Xavier headed off to. The bride to be had seen the kids owl hats and requested one of her own, which was perfect, as I was getting rather restless with idle hands for so long (At the last minute I decided to not bring any wool or crochet hooks with me), so Stella and I headed off to a place called Hobby Craft. Think a combination of Riot Art and a small Spotlight, very small spotlight. To get there we had to get a bus to the station, then a train to Wimbledon, then a 'tram' (whatev's) to Croydon where the nearest Hobby Craft was. Well technically it wasn't the closest, but using public transport it was the easiest to get to, still took just over an hour though. Stella was an absolute dream child the entire trip. She sat in the pram, played with her iPad and made the odd amusing comment every now and then.

I stocked up on wool and bought me a crochet hook and yarn needle, we also picked up some felt doll kits (must learn blanket stitch) and some new pencils for Xavier and Stella. The stop before we got off to Hobby Craft, was where we could have gotten off to go to Ikea. Clearly I have no reason to go to Ikea in a foreign country, but I had decided that if we couldn't find somewhere nearby for a tasty lunch I would use that as an excuse to stop at Ikea and indulge in some meatballs. Thankfully/Sadly there was a TKMaxx next door (they sell discount name brand stuff and have a cafe) so we grabbed some lunch there, used their loos and had a look around before making out way back towards home.

Adam messaged several times during the day to tell me that Xavier was also being perfectly behaved and that they were done at the War Museum and were going to check out the Science Museum.

There were plans for social drinks at the local pub with the nearly weds from 4:30pm, and Adam and I agreed that it was probably easiest for us to just meet up there. Stella and I arrived back in Kingston around 3pm, so I decided to stop at the supermarket to pick up a clothes order I had placed online (weird hey) and to grab some apples and bananas at the request of a small girl. We could either arrive at the pub really early or grab a coffee in Kingston. We chose the latter. We had hot chocolates with marshmallows, until it was time to get the train to the station near the pub.

Stella, for some reason, had decided that she didn't like uncle David anymore, and spent the evening shooting him filthy looks, but she chatted happily to others there. Adam had lost track of time and got the pub at least an hour and a half after we did. On seeing each other, Xavier and Stella only had eyes for each other. There were cuddle and kisses, and racing around. Chatting, and giggles and Stella sharing her juice. It was exactly what they needed, time apart. We grabbed some dinner, before heading home for the night.