Toy Story

Can you believe that it’s already our fifth day – we’re travelling back to Saudi tomorrow.  Where has that time gone?  After yesterday’s late night spending spree, there were a few tired bodies this morning.  It took more than a few knocks to wake some of the children: we had to get a spare key to wake up Humza, Kareem H, Ibrahim and Adam’s room.  Some were more sprightly: Charbel was singing like a lark in the shower!  Tuneful?  Jury’s out on that one.

When we left the hotel this morning, we had our first rain of the week.  Which immediately gave us a 20 minute delay as a large number of children had to go back for their waterproofs.  First on the agenda today was a cruise on the Thames, where we were royally entertained by one of the crew members.  Describing the South Bank Centre, he commented thus: “Some people say it’s the ugliest building in London.  Me, I think it’s the ugliest building in the world.”  The rest of his commentary was along a similar vein.  On top of the boat, with some of the city’s greatest sights around us, most of the children were only interested in the shop below deck.  Tara tried to buy an 80p bag of crisps with a £50 note – the value of money has not been quite learned yet.  The biggest treat was seeing a Dutch sailing barge pass under Tower Bridge, for which they had to raise the bridge.  They must have known we were coming.

Upon arrival at Greenwich pier, we were met by Mr. Suter’s Dad, who had recced our visit to Charlton in advance for us.  He promptly directed us to a double decker where the children quickly filled the whole of the top deck.  We required very patient fellow passengers as we boarded and exited. Excitement mounted as we entered the stadium, and then we had a fantastic afternoon at the Valley.  There were 18,000 in the stadium, and you could still hear our children.  At one stage, the passionate home support in the really diehard end of the ground stopped their singing quite abruptly.  Andy, still singing, turned to them, arms aloft, and shouted, “Come on, help me out here!”  The final result was 4-1, which gave us plenty to shout about, especially given it was 0-0 at half time.  At half time, Hala wanted to know if she would be allowed to go into the home dressing room to see the players.  Ahmed K asked to move down to the front row next to the pitch; it later transpired that he thought the players taking the throw in would be able to turn around and give him a quick autograph before they took the throw in.  At one stage during the match we had hailstones, but that did nothing to curb the children’s enthusiasm.

We had our only stressful moments of the week en route to our evening meal.  We got out at Oxford Circus, and facing us was just a seething mass of humanity.  At a snail’s pace, we crawled along Regent’s Street, and it was with some relief we got all the children sitting down to dinner.  Fish and chips tonight – lots of clean plates, again.  From there to Hamley’s Toy Store; we blocked the doors and let the children loose!  Six floors of toys – there are now several very full suitcases.  Ibrahim did best, buying a boxed toy that is actually bigger than his suitcase.  We haven’t quite worked out how he’s going to pack that yet.

And so to the hotel.  The children had to pack before they went to bed. At a conservative estimate, there are about 400 empty plastic bags scattered over the floors of the rooms of this hotel.  Quite how we’re going to get all that extra stuff packed….