Early start to be up and ready to catch the 8.25am train to London from nearby Chippenham. Carole has pre-booked cheap tickets. £17 return each for us and £8.50 for Ben. It's about a 75 minute trip in and we spend some of it trying to decide if the London Dungeons will be too scary for Ben. Ben has the final say, and its a no. So as we alight in Paddington we need a new plan.
It's a drizzly day which rules out a lot of things including Ben's requests of Buckingham Palace and Big Ben (of course) so I make an executive decision and we head to the (free) science museum. The South Kensington tube stop is busy with families making their way to the nearby museums so it seems like a good choice and it turns out that way. Rightly or wrongly we feel sorry for the kids being taken to the natural history museum as we carry on to the science museum. It has loads of interesting and often interactive exhibits but there are also shows you can go to. There was one about Christmas that included exploding snow, how crackers work and how Santa gets around the whole world in one night. There was a bubble show with cool effects like bubbles inside bubbles, square bubbles, bubbles large enough to fit 2 people inside. It was all very good and had Ben completely captivated. He volunteered to go up and hold some sort of chemical bubble.
I leave Carole and Ben there and head off to meet Micky for a beer at the Duke of Edinburgh near the West Ham ground but Micky is having a transport nightmare so I have a feed in the kebabish across the road. Order the house specialty which turns out to be several different types of meat blended or puréed into something that looks like poo but tastes pretty good when mixed with rice and slathered on naan bread.
Micky finally turns up 15 mins before kick off and we scamper into the ground.
Everton are a team without stars but are always very hard to beat and their manager David Moyes gets the best out of his squad. Their 6'5" gollywog Marouane Fellaini is suspended after head butting and punching incidents in his last game which we hope will blunt their scoring chances. Everton have what looks like a fair goal disallowed and we immediately head up the other end where Carlton Cole buries the ball in the left corner and its one nil to the cockney boys. I grab Ben and we start jumping and dancing around celebrating. We make it into half time 1-0 up and we start to think about the 3 pts. Unfortunately Everton are used to coming from a goal down and they eventually score a goal via a looping header and it's all square again.
Not long after the ref makes a massive cock up and shows Carlton Cole a straight red card when he goes for (and gets) a ball just as an Everton player ducks his head in from the side. Free kick, yes. Yellow card, maybe. Red card never in a million years. Both sets of players are stunned by the decision and Cole trudges off. Everton have the momentum and go on to score a 2nd. The home fans all sing "2-1 to the referee". In injury time the ref sends off an Everton player to even things up but it is another over-reaction and dodgy decision and both sets of fans unite to sing "you don't know what your doing".
We have chances to snatch a draw but its not to be and we traipse out of the ground with a bitter taste in our mouths. Micky is heading to the Duke but we need to get back for our train so we join the tube line that I'm not exaggerating when I say is nearly a kilometer long. But once we get to the end of it,it moves pretty fast. Hammersmith line to Paddington and we've got time for a quick pint and a feed at the Mad Bishop & Bear. We head down to find our train but the board informs us our train has been cancelled due to a crew shortage. Outstanding. The staff tell us the next train is 30 mins later at 8pm but of course we no longer have reserved seats but we manage to get on and sit together. It's been a very long day and we are very glad to finally get home to our little cottage.
It's a drizzly day which rules out a lot of things including Ben's requests of Buckingham Palace and Big Ben (of course) so I make an executive decision and we head to the (free) science museum. The South Kensington tube stop is busy with families making their way to the nearby museums so it seems like a good choice and it turns out that way. Rightly or wrongly we feel sorry for the kids being taken to the natural history museum as we carry on to the science museum. It has loads of interesting and often interactive exhibits but there are also shows you can go to. There was one about Christmas that included exploding snow, how crackers work and how Santa gets around the whole world in one night. There was a bubble show with cool effects like bubbles inside bubbles, square bubbles, bubbles large enough to fit 2 people inside. It was all very good and had Ben completely captivated. He volunteered to go up and hold some sort of chemical bubble.
I leave Carole and Ben there and head off to meet Micky for a beer at the Duke of Edinburgh near the West Ham ground but Micky is having a transport nightmare so I have a feed in the kebabish across the road. Order the house specialty which turns out to be several different types of meat blended or puréed into something that looks like poo but tastes pretty good when mixed with rice and slathered on naan bread.
Micky finally turns up 15 mins before kick off and we scamper into the ground.
Everton are a team without stars but are always very hard to beat and their manager David Moyes gets the best out of his squad. Their 6'5" gollywog Marouane Fellaini is suspended after head butting and punching incidents in his last game which we hope will blunt their scoring chances. Everton have what looks like a fair goal disallowed and we immediately head up the other end where Carlton Cole buries the ball in the left corner and its one nil to the cockney boys. I grab Ben and we start jumping and dancing around celebrating. We make it into half time 1-0 up and we start to think about the 3 pts. Unfortunately Everton are used to coming from a goal down and they eventually score a goal via a looping header and it's all square again.
Not long after the ref makes a massive cock up and shows Carlton Cole a straight red card when he goes for (and gets) a ball just as an Everton player ducks his head in from the side. Free kick, yes. Yellow card, maybe. Red card never in a million years. Both sets of players are stunned by the decision and Cole trudges off. Everton have the momentum and go on to score a 2nd. The home fans all sing "2-1 to the referee". In injury time the ref sends off an Everton player to even things up but it is another over-reaction and dodgy decision and both sets of fans unite to sing "you don't know what your doing".
We have chances to snatch a draw but its not to be and we traipse out of the ground with a bitter taste in our mouths. Micky is heading to the Duke but we need to get back for our train so we join the tube line that I'm not exaggerating when I say is nearly a kilometer long. But once we get to the end of it,it moves pretty fast. Hammersmith line to Paddington and we've got time for a quick pint and a feed at the Mad Bishop & Bear. We head down to find our train but the board informs us our train has been cancelled due to a crew shortage. Outstanding. The staff tell us the next train is 30 mins later at 8pm but of course we no longer have reserved seats but we manage to get on and sit together. It's been a very long day and we are very glad to finally get home to our little cottage.
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