We made two visits to Crystal Palace Park this weekend - one unscheduled one and the other planned for.
Hubbie took the boy on Saturday to an activity called Diddy Dinos that is a stay and play session at a children's centre right next to the park. They've been before and enjoyed it so much they decided to go back and spend some time exploring the park as well.
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| The dinosaurs are this big |
There is a dinosaur theme to Crystal Palace Park with big sculptures of them dotted around the park which we spotted when me and Hubbie ran 10k there a few years back. I was already flagging by the time we saw them so his enthusiastic, 'look it's the dinosaurs !" was met with an ungrateful grunt from me as we still had the final - uphill - mile to complete. The dinosaurs date back to 1852 and they were the first dinosaur sculptures in the world. They also pre-dated Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species by 6 years !
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| The mystery of the bell |
There are plenty of odd things in the park like this bell that has absolutely no explanation of what it is for or why it is there. It is nice to look at though. The park is - of course - also home to a sports ground that is well used and we did spot a lot of athletic looking types wandering round too.
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| They call him the wanderer |
Our boy loves open space so a park this big is just perfect as he can run around and we can see him from a long way off usually.
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| Safety first |
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| Scooter buddies |
On Father's Day we went on an unplanned visit to the park again as we had some time to fill between brunch and swimming. The boy wanted to go to Diddy Dinos again and was not persuaded by either of us that it was not open on a Sunday, however we won him over by saying he could scooter round the park this time. He didn't need to be asked twice. On the way to the kids play area he made a friend on the path so the two scooter buddies went on ahead and we plotted heading off for a sneaky pub lunch with the other boy's parents while they kept each other company.
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| Spidey enjoying the play park |
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| "Run faster Daddy !" |
No such luck though and Daddy was roped into doing some hard work spinning the roundabout and even had to carry the boy back to the car park while I carried his scooter as he'd tired himself out so much. I did have some flashbacks to bits of the route we ran as we followed our speedy scooter riding boy on his mobile adventures. It was strange seeing the park through my son's eyes instead of as the punishing ordeal it was for me on my previous visit.
The coda to this story is that we spent Sunday evening at A&E as the boy has an ear infection that we realised very late on was causing him a lot of pain. He's on the mend now, but we'd kept him so busy he barely realised he was poorly over the weekend.
This post is being shared as part of the lovely Coombe Mill linky #countrykids
With the exception of the visit to A & E it sounds like you had a great day out at Crystal Palace and your son enjoyed the space and freedom as well as meeting a new friend! Thanks for linking up and sharing your fun with Country Kids.
ReplyDeleteIt always surprises me when people say there are no open spaces in London - there are plenty if you look for them.
DeleteYes we could have done without the visit to hospital, but he is on the mend now :)
I've passed the dinosaurs many times on a train, and now think it's time to get off with my 3G and have a look around. Looks like great fun - the park anyway!
ReplyDeleteEver thought of asking Robert Elms on bbcLondon about the bell? He does a notes and queries section on jus show on a Wednesday.
It is a lot of fun and well worth a stop off I think. I do find Robert Elms' show very interesting and was featured as a London Weekender on it a while back actually.
DeleteI've looked it up and it appears the bell is a memorial to merchant seamen who lost their lives in the second World War.
Thanks for reading :) xx