What’s the best way to spend a bank holiday with twins? I recommend taking them to your local National Trust property. By the way did you know that wherever you are in the UK you are only 40 miles from one?
I digress - why is it so good? There are usually plenty of ramps, wide doors and entrances, clean baby changing facilities (or at least a disabled toilet you can commandeer) and a decent café. What more do you need for a day out with babies?
We went down to Chartwell (Winston Churchill’s family home) on Monday. I had stupidly believed the BBC weather forecast (warm, overcast but dry) and cursed (inwardly of course) as it started raining as I drove there. There was no way we could picnic outside and I didn’t exactly fancy picnicking in the car either. The girls were due to eat – they seem to eat every couple of hours now, it must be like a permanent holiday for them – so we decided to take them into the café.
Well, the girls absolutely loved it. We sat them in (handily provided) high-chairs and positioned them so they could face our table but also see everyone coming through the door. G took it upon herself to act as hostess and everyone was greeted with a beaming smile and a little chatter. NT places are usually frequented by (how can I put this?) the more ‘mature’ end of the population, many of whom have their own grandchildren and were happy to smile and wave back. G looked as though she was to the manor born.
R adopted her usual role of assessing everyone with a quizzical look as they approached and busied herself with the little bits of scone (bad mummy!) with jam (quick! Get the food police!) I fed her. As we were getting ready to leave, two elderly couples came over to speak to us. Apparently they had been watching the girls while they were having their tea and thanked us for providing the entertainment!
The weather didn’t show any signs of improving so we went for a pub lunch. I thought R was going to faint with excitement when she was put into a high chair and pulled up to the ‘grown-ups’ table. G was even happier when she was put into a booster seat on an actual grown up chair. We fed them their lunch while we waited for our food and they helped us with titbits of the healthy bits of our food. I kept feeding R bits of salad and she stored them in her cheeks like a little hamster as she worked on gumming them up! G was a little distracted by the waiters and other children sitting near us.
It was the first time we had attempted to take them out for lunch since Nando’s-gate a few months ago. It’s a much nice experience now that they can sit in a high chair and eat some of our food and we’ll definitely do it again soon.
I know I whinge a lot, but so many people make a point of telling us how happy, smiley and well-behaved the girls are that I can’t really complain when they get grumpy with us.
