A cheapie London micro adventure with kids.

Sounds terrible, but I can't remember if we'd already taken Augs to #London or not. Apart from visiting a family friend in Tooting, I'm pretty certain not unless it was when he was a teeny tiny. He's getting to that age where he could potentially be interested in some of the #London attractions. I was thinking particularly the Natural History Museum as he goes into his first year at school, although he's never really been that interested in things like dinosaurs. So, I'm taking a bit of a punt on that one. London is notoriously #expensive for a short breakaway and at the same time I've got no annual leave left.

Only one thing for it, use our time creatively and have an ultra-low budget, or at least try to create a little #london #microadventure. I'm really lucky with work in the sense that we do have the ability to work flexibly. I love that we are trusted to do a good job I will put the hours in to make sure that I am delivering (whenever those hours may happen to be). It works in all directions. Putting in the time has never been a concern for me. If it means doing a “split shift” so to speak and starting at 5:00 in the morning, picking things up late at night to get the job done then that's what I'll do. The upside of that is some flexibility in the middle of the day, especially during school holidays, and I feel pretty strongly that if more leadership teams took that approach they would get a whole load more #productivity and #loyalty from their teams.

I looked into train fares with the prospect of a day trip but they were extortionate. A quick perusal booking.com and a ‘filter by price” price threw up an absolute bargain. The Bridge hotel in Harlesden, one of the NW suburbs not too far from Wembley. 33 pounds a night for a double room and shared bathroom. I could upgrade and for 37 pounds we could both have a ‘good’ breakfast (to be contested by my guts the following day), so that's what I did. The hotel had free parking, again another bonus in London and therefore it's just the petrol cost, albeit at the minute eye wateringly expensive to go on top of that.

The location of the Bridge hotel is just off the London circular and really easy to find. You park up at the back and register your car reg with the friendly receptionist. The hotel is in an interesting art deco style, in need of a bit of TLC but quirky, and clearly just refurbed nevertheless. On the inside it looked like it had been recently re decorated in the common areas and was a really nice environment, certainly one that we felt safe and comfortable in. The staff are really friendly and showed us to our room that again was in need of a bit of TLC, and of questionable cleanliness (I certainly wouldn’t have walked barefoot on the cotted carpet) but perfectly serviceable and excellent value for money for the price. We arrived at 4pm in the afternoon, and still there was time in the day to make use of.

The nearest tube was #Harlesden and, in the interests of saving money I experimented with the options for the underground day travel pass. A grey area over child chargeable ages gave me confidence that it would be fine to travel just with an adult ticket, therefore saving ourselves £14.00. It's just a shame that the day travel passes don't actually span for 24 hours and expired at the end of that given day.

Harlesden station is on the #Bakerloo line which provided a direct connection down to #Embankment. I didn't really have a set itinerary apart from to try to somehow incorporate some of the many things that can actually be enjoyed for #free in London. Viewing of some of the tourist sites like Big Ben, Westminster, the Tower of London, all of which could connect to some of the things that August is going to be learning at school over the coming year.

August also loves anything animal related and so I really wanted to try to incorporate the #Horse #Guards and the changing of the guard if possible whilst there. As so many of the national museums of free admission, this is also a big win for those seeking a low-cost visit to our capital.

Epic fail on that one though, at the minute even though it's free admission, you have to pre reserve a timed ticket. I was disappointed that there weren't any slots until 4:00 PM the next day which is when we would be well and truly back at home.

Getting off at Embankment and crossing the Thames took us to the lively South Bank area, which is somewhere you can easily while away a number of hours just people watching, and importantly something that spoke to August’s interests, skateboard stunt watching. We had an ice cream, that wasn't particularly low budget. My dad's eyes would have watered at the cost of a Mr Whippy with a flake, he moans about them being £1.50 in Nottingham. Sorry dad but you'd be sorely disappointed if you needed an ice cream in London. I really thought he was going to charge me more for strawberry sauce and sprinkles.

Augs enjoyed watching the stunts and it was hard to tear him away from them even though I was also enjoying the scenery. We were literally there for less than 24 hours, and so again being the first time that August could potentially remember being in London I wanted to pack in as many things and sights as we possibly could at as cheap a price as possible. One way of course to do this is always the open top tour bus. I have a natural preference for a self guided walking tour but also need to be mindful of little legs.

Something to bear in mind that I wasn't aware of initially. It is entirely possible to barter for the cost of a ticket on the open top tour bus. We used Toot bus, no particular reason why I approach these but perceived they would be the cheapest of all options. After some negotiation I bagged us both a 2 hour timed ticket for 20 pounds which was quite a bargain I thought. This enabled us to at least see the sights, although in true style Augs was bored and wanted to get off within about half an hour. We still however managed to hop off, have a quick walk around Chinatown, grab some delicious noodles and dim sum and then unfortunately hot Jasmine tea, not what August ordered or wanted, and make it back on to the bus for the remainder of the route before our two-hour ticket expired. It was really enjoyable to see sundown over the city.

It was quite late when we got back in, August was knackered. Of course, the tube back to Harlesden contributed to that somewhat. The next morning, we got up early and enjoyed a “hearty breakfast” of flaccid, unporky pork sausages (most likely Richmonds) at the Bridge. They allowed us to keep the car in the car park until lunchtime and didn't cost us anymore to do that, so we hit the tube and headed back into the city, the intention being the Natural History Museum and Horse Guards’ Parade. On discovering that we needed a timed ticket, and even more disappointingly would need an additional timed ticket to see Dippy the Dinosaur, we focused just on catching the Horse Guards and enjoying St James’s Park. Rather disappointingly for me August’s self-declared highlight of the trip was climbing up a “dirty mound” in Saint James’s Park, trying to summons a squirrel, and chasing a pigeon. Great success! The place where memories are made hahahah.

After some hanging around, we did manage to see the changing of the guards and returning to the #HorseGuards Parade, timed it right to stand there and enjoy the British weather returning at its finest, getting soaked as we watched the changeover. Something I haven't actually ever seen before personally; this was really great.

Already getting pissed off with the rain we hot footed it back to the tube station at Charing Cross along the Bakerloo line and back to our car arriving like a pair of drowned rats. We were home again by 1PM having done and seen such a lot in a short space of time.