"Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity."

Mid last week I just assumed that the coming weekend was going to be a quiet one. I knew Seth wasn't going to be with us (which is depressing enough) so I though it was just going to be a chance to go out walking and maybe sort the gardens out. By Friday morning all that had changed , Mrs M had some work to take care of on the Sunday in London and me and Opeie were going a long for the ride. We're lucky enough to have two great friends that live there so it gave us the perfect opportunity to catch up with them and go adventuring. So on Saturday morning we headed out on our adventure. The journey down was fine until we hit tooting and sat in tragic for an hour but once we got through it it was time for fun.

We had a drink and some lunch and then headed out to the museum of childhood. I'd not been to London for about 10 years and I forgot how busy it was. These days I'm used to just jumping in the car, easily finding parking spaces and going about my day so the thought of a bus and two tube journeys seemed a little daunting. Thankfully though we had the best tour guide and the journey went quite quick. Mrs M was stressing out about Opeie being on my shoulders walking about the underground, but as always he was safe and had big smiles on his face.

The museum of childhood was amazing, crammed with some amazing toys, many from my childhood and some that I still owned until recently. It was great to see some of the old toys I used to play with as a child. I'd have loved it even more if you could have got into the cabinets to play with them.

Opeie was really excited while we were there and was loving investigating. There was a giant vintage style wind up robot which was amazing and Opeie kept saying 'Seth would love this'. There was such a great selection of toys, games, puppets and play things. Opeie even got to give us a Punch and Judy show with mommy.

Although ive never read any of the books i loved the Jacqueline Wilson exhibition it was so colourful and fun...

After an hour or so taking in the sights we headed back to Sam and Jamie's but Sam took us home a different way so that she could show us the view across the river from blackfriars station. It was a lovely sunny day and despite the enormous escalators that had stopped and me carrying Opeie up on my shoulders and feeling like my legs were going to give way it was well worth it. It was a great view.

The journey home seemed a lot quicker and before we knew it we were sitting around the table tucking in to Jamie's lush food that he had be preparing while we were out. It was so nice getting to have a  meal with friends and sit around chatting and opeie was joining in and entertaining us. Opeie dropped off within an hour or so and we all sat up chatting and swapping funny stories. It was a great end to a fun afternoon with friends.

I slept like a log and everyone woke with big smiles and high spirits. Mrs M had to work on the Sunday so to fill our afternoon me, Opeie, Sam and Jamie headed off to the Museum of natural history. Although I could never live in London (far to many people for my liking), visiting is a lovely change and I love how there's so many free things to do. The walk to the museum from Mrs M's convention was a fair treck but was really nice as the sun was out and it was early so still fairly quiet. Opeie was desperate to see dinosaurs and when we arrived he was very excited.

 Opeie was hooked from the moment we walked in, there's something interesting everywhere you look. Even the escalator in to the Museum is lots of fun...

I'm not really one for taxidermy but the animals on display were really quite beautiful. 

We finally got to the Dinosaurs and Opeie's eyes were wide open, he had been talking about dinosaurs all the way to the museum. Surprisingly this is the first time Ive seen dinosaur skeletons in a museum and it was great. There was a huge amount of fossils to look at that was really interesting. Although i was talking to Opeie about the dinosaurs and he looked excited, it will be great to take him somewhere like this when he is a little older so he fully understands whats going on.

We soon stumbled upon the gift shop and Opeie made it quite clear he had a pet dinosaur on his mind. Sam and Jamie were so kind and bought Opeie some cute dinosaurs and Seth some create your own dinosaurs. Opeie has been taking his new friends with him everywhere we have been since the weekend. We stopped off for a snack before heading back to pick up Mrs M. We didn't get to walk round a lot of the Museum but that just means there's plenty to explore when Seth is with us next time.

 Sam being the great friend she is did some research for Mrs M's work, tracking down vegan friendly munchies and documenting her findings with fun pictures. Vegan friendly popcorn, yum.

 We had such a great weekend with Sam and Jamie, not having an extended family on my side its weekends like this that make me realise how important our amazing friends are. I feel so lucky to finally be at a point in my life where i am surrounded by genuinely kind and thoughtful people who love the boys and treat us like family.
 

Thanks Sam and Jamie for an amazing weekend xxx