I'm no expert and nor are you!

It's always been important to us that Man Cub learns to enjoy or at least tolerate days out, especially in Central London. There's such a wealth of fantastic (and free) things to see and do, all within easy reach of where we live that it would be a waste to never take him into town. Personally, I think we're doing pretty darn well. He's been into central London quite a few times now, twice in the last week! We started him off on Grand Designs Live and MCM ComicCon in May, both of which went down really well despite them being quite busy and quite long tube journeys.
Last Saturday was the City of London's 'Celebrate the City' event which was brilliant, predominantly free and open access to a lot of places you would normally bypass. We visited the market outside the Guildhall, via the Cheapside Fayre of course, where Alfred got absurdly excited about the blacksmiths who had street furnaces and were demonstating their skills very well. The market itself was worth the journey alone, free ice cream, bargain fruit from Kent and other people with their babies in slings!! It sounds mediocre but where we live we get nothing but strange looks and snide comments about the fact I carry my baby. I do of course then sit smugly as those looking at me with such disdain cannot board the first, second or third bus they need because there is no space or are struggling to get through shops and along busy pavements, we stroll past with our Moby all snug and hands-free and a million times more portable! It's sad that it's only in central London we see other baby carriers, even then I've never seen another Moby lots of Asian mothers with Mei Tai carriers and more Baby Bjorn carriers than you could shake a stick at, so maybe we're still a minority. Carrying Alfred on Saturday meant that we were able to get around the Clockamkers museum and the Guildhall Library, where we saw Shakespeare's First Folio and his genuine signature. We also breezed around the amphitheatre underneath the Guildhall Art Gallery and marvelled at John Singleton Copely's
'The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782' which is giant and beautiful. We also got to go through the Founders Company Exhibition at St Lawrence Jewry, which is single handly the msot beautiful place I have fed Alfred so far, I wish everywhere we stopped for food had such a glorious things to look at! What was even nicer here is that the vicar came up and asked if we needed anything and offered to find a space to change Alfred if I needed to. It's little kindnesses like that that make the day better! The best bit of the day was the tour of St. Brides' Church, Crypt and Charnel house, perhaps the strangest place Alfred's ever eaten. All in all everyone had a good day, especially Alfred.
Yesterday my Dad and I went up to London for an Auction and general wander. This is where someone announced, quite loudly as I got off the train, how unwise it is to bring a baby into London. Is it? Is it really? We always get on at the end of the line so we're seated, he's always in his sling so we don't take up any extra space and he's effectively harnessed the entire time, in any case he thrives off the attention and adores watching the world zoom past. So why exactly is it unwise to restrict my child's access to the capital? Should I wait until he is older and all the loud noises and smells are strange and scary? Perhaps I should only let him see things in books or on TV? I don't think so, Alfred loved the National Gallery yesterday, thank you Titians exhibition curator!, and cleary enjoyed it more than he does looking at pictures in books. He's four months old and has already seen Buckingham Palace, fabulous hidden city gems, artworks by Van Gogh, Monet and some of the most famous renaissaince art works in this country. So no, badly dressed office worker lady, it not unwise to bring a baby into London. It is stimulating, educational and fun and keep an eye out because we'll being doing it a whole lot more!!