Mudlarks!

A Visit to the London Docklands with Grandchildren

In May we had a rather complex arrangement for looking after grandchildren. I shall not bore you with the explanation of how it all came about (although the start of it is revealed at the end of the post on 23rd May), but a train trip to London came about when we had to return one London-based grandchild to her home while entertaining a Hertfordshire-based one and collecting from London their mutual older cousin who lives in Peterborough and had been staying with the London one's sister ... (are you still with me?).

The right socks for the right train!

Railway-wise this was all quite simple: we needed two return adult tickets for ourselves and two child return tickets, but one of the return halves would be used by a different child. Rather than just do the child delivery and exchange we planned to treat the younger two to a visit to the "Mudlarks" activities at the Museum of London Docklands, so we used Thameslink trains, booking our returns to Farringdon, from where we could take the Elizabeth Line to Canary Wharf for the museum visit. We used our Oyster Cards for onward travel and the children were young enough to travel without charge on TfL services. We just needed singles all round for getting to Peterborough from Stamford as we had an alternative means to get home.

We were in good time for their booked activities and had a a chance to look at some of the museum exhibits first. They love looking at museums and one in particular has a tendency to drag us into every museum he sees - museums are so much better than many of those I had to tolerate when I was their age. When they had finished playing we whizzed through the gift shop before they wanted everything in sight and went back to catch a westbound Elizabeth Line train as far as Paddington where we changed to the Hammersmith and City Line - it is quite a long walk right across the main terminal at Paddington and I wish I had played this interchange differently, maybe getting the District to Edgware Road and changing again, or something. I'll think about it. 

So, a London child exchanged for an older Peterborough one we made our way back on the Hammersmith and City to Farringdon for our Thameslink train to Peterborough. Travelling at the very rear of the train we were able to use the rearmost First Class section which is always - and this is advertised on the Thameslink website - available for Standard Class ticket-holders to use. That we we get a table for the children to play on (and on other trips for us to set up a picnic if we need to eat on the train) as well as better device-charging options. At Peterborough our adventure ended: we were met by car and taken for dinner at Peterborough child's home and later driven home to Stamford with remaining Hertfordshire child.