Warming Up

A lovely Spring day out with the kids. We went to London Zoo.

On the drive down Catie listened to a comedian's audiobook that suddenly had a spate of swearing. We explained that comedians sometimes said bad words and that the kids shouldn't repeat them. Ernie said, “I like comedians.”

I felt pleased about that. I know how much he looks up to me. “I'm a comedian,” I told him.

“No you're not.”

“I am.”

“You can't change colour,” he replied in deadly earnest.

Well, maybe he will look up to me despite me not being a fancy lizard.

We ambled round the zoo and saw gorillas and monkeys with red bums and a tiger lying right up against the glass, just centimetres from our faces. Ernie kept saying that animals that were lying still were dead. It would be a macabre tourist attraction if they decided to leave dead bodies in there. It would save buying new animals. Though even I wasn't sure about the Komodo dragon.

Afterwards we walked up to Primrose Hill for lunch. I like living in the countryside, but if I was suddenly given 20 million pounds this would be an amazing place to settle down. In walking distance of most of central London, right by amazing parks and yet it feels like you're in a small town. Plus Paddington lives here, so you'd see him in the street and find out if he's cool in real life as he appears on screen. We went to look at Paddington's house, though I was more excited to be outside Alan Bennett's house. We resisted the temptation to be rubes taking our photos in front of these premises.

My daughter couldn't believe people lived there and said they shouldn't use their toothbrushes. She was very affected by the scene where Paddington uses the Brown's toothbrushes to clean his ears.

It's all very Bohemian here, though you're aware that the Bohemians who actually live here are mainly ridiculously wealthy. I noted that they didn't seem like they were dead behind the eyes and unhappy like all the rich people I am watching in TV dramas. They seemed pretty happy with their lot. As they should be. 

Paddington's house might be the best place to live in London - though it must be annoying to have idiots taking photos outside all the time.

We had lunch in a ludicrously busy Greek restaurant staffed by irritated waiters and bought ice cream from a lovely little ice cream shop. It was the closest I've come in five years to regretting moving out of London - even though we wouldn't have been able to afford to live here and I would have quickly got annoyed about where I parked and charged my car. 

As nice as it would be to run up and down Primrose Hill every day and be able to stroll to the zoo and drink coffee on the alfresco tables outside the cafes and watch the world go by. 

I daydreamed about it for a while. It would be a nice existence for a single person or a couple without kids, but I think where we are is the best for a family. Even if we don't get to see Paddington and Alan Bennett getting pissed in the local bar together,