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You have to register your child in the borough in which he or she was born, so today we travelled with our family to Chelsea Town Hall to make Ernest's ridiculous/cool name official. A bit like Mary and Joseph. I am not saying my son is Jesus. That is for other people to say.
Obviously the kids both needed to come with us too. Some might call it foolhardy to attempt to journey into London with two children less than three weeks after one of them was born. I was one of them at about 2pm. But we were actually more fuckingidiothardy as we also planned to meet up with Catie's brother for lunch, do some shopping and then go to the Albert Hall to see “My Great Orchestral Adventureâ€. This was a full on day. But we've taken on so much this year that only challenges will do for us now.
As it was several stop offs and all in south west London we decided it would be easier and probably cheaper to drive. And the idea of taking a 2 and a half year old and a pram on to the tube in the early morning was too much to countenance, plus everywhere we were heading was a good thirty minutes from any train stations. And the drive was OK. Tragically, I nipped into a tiny corner of the congestion charge zone like some kind of rube, so that cost me £11.50 and the bother of paying for my glorious 90 seconds amongst the inner city elite and of course parking was a bugger, but I think we made the right choice.
It looked like parking off the King's Road was going to be tricky, but on our second loop a space had become available and it was only £5 for just over an hour.
Ernie got his birth registered as his sister watched on. I am pretty sure we had the same registrar who had signed Phoebe into the grid too. So far it was a fun day out.
Then we drove over to Kensington High Street which is as posh as it fucking sounds and full of beautiful people wearing expensive clothes and where the police have machine guns. We parked up in a car park underneath a posh hotel. It was pretty expensive, but I figured we'd be better off leaving the car here for the rest of the afternoon, rather than try to park nearer the Albert Hall. Would we get back in under 6 hours and only have to pay £30 or skip over to the £40 mark. Eye-watering prices, but still cheaper than the cabs we would undoubtedly have had to take.
We had lunch at Wagamamas and then headed to Boots where we picked up a stupid amount of nappies and the like and trudged slowly back to our car. At this point I thought we'd probably taken on too much. I was sweaty, we were exhausted, the baby was crying. I did not feel like going to see a concert.
After dumping our stuff in the car we put the baby in the sling and headed away from the Morlock depths to above ground where the norms live. We needed to change the baby and as we were paying for the car park I didn't feel too bad about gatecrashing the hotel lobby, but was too embarrassed to ask where the loos were in case we got thrown out. So we walked up and down the lobby twice with a screaming baby and Phoebe deciding she was going to act up too and need to be dragged along whilst protesting. It was the perfect crime. No one was going to spot us.
But we got away with it, because polite hotels are too polite to question whether you belong there and then jumped on the bus, like no one who has ever stayed at that hotel.
And the event was brilliant and we were treated like the kind of people who were staying at the posh hotel, with a pre-show drinks reception with mini burgers and sparkling wine and members of the orchestra showing their instruments to the kids and then up to a box for a bird's eye view of the orchestra and choir. Not too shabby a first theatre trip for Ernest Herring.
Phoebe seemed to like it too, though whilst they were playing Clair de Luna by Debussy (a piece that you may know resonates with me as it was my grandma's favourite) she did declare that it was boring. But she joined in with lots of the dancing and holding cards up and it was a brilliant introduction to the orchestra for kids. My wife felt all proud of herself for being familiar with the first piece of classical music and then realised that it was the theme to Jurassic Park. But that will be classical in the future I am sure.
It all went on a lot longer than we'd anticipated (but we just snuck inside the £30 car parking fee, which somehow felt reasonable after all we'd done) and the journey home was a bit fraught, as we were way past bedtimes and with both the kids in the pack it was impossible to console a crying baby, so we had to pull over a couple of times. In one lay-by a man appeared and wheeled a motorcycle up beside our car. He wasn't wearing a helmet (or the proper motorcycling clothes that I know so much about) and we seemed to be a long way from anywhere for him to have walked here (plus on a main road without a pavement). He was almost certainly up to no good and a bit scary, but not as scary as trying to get back into the fast moving traffic in the dark.
But somehow baby was placated and we made it home and I had to try and shift the deadweight of my suddenly huge toddler out of her car seat. She was out for the count and I couldn't get her out without waking her. Which is a shame, because being carried half sleeping into the house from the car is one of my favourite childhood memories (I occasionally pretended to be asleep to get this VIP treatment).
I don't know how we did all this on next to no sleep. But I am glad we did it. It was a victory, only sullied by that congestion charge. I mean we got free tickets to the concert, plus loads of free food and drink. But that unnecessarily spent £11.50 will hang over me like a cloud of shame. And if I am one day starving to death and all there is to eat is a sandwich that costs £11.50, I am going to rue this day.
After a huge delay between series, season 12 of RHLSTP started today with a fun interview with Ellie Taylor.
It's here on video
vimeo - https://vimeo.com/239773511
And here on audio
