Peter Callum Pan

Kids are such wonderful funny creatures. A few months ago Callum saw Peter Pan for the first time. He spent the next couple weeks going round singing Never Smile At A Crocodile and calling Daz Tinkerbell and me Captain Hook, well untill Daz put him in his place and I (quite rightly) became Tinkerbell. Then leading up to Christmas he became enamoured by Dr Who, mostly down to the fact that his cousin Alex is mad about Dr Who. One day we were in Woolworths and Callum saw a black Dalek costume and asked for it. I suggested he wait a little while until after Christmas and we'd see if it would be in the sale because jeez louise those things are costly! Much to Callum's delight a couple weeks into the New Year and we found one, this time a brown/gold one, in the slaes for £8! Bargain! It seemed that Callum's phase of the builder, policeman, fireman costume had gone to the next level... and the more expensive level. But hey he had fun showing the Dalek to his cousin Alex who has a Cyberman costume and they caused havoc together.

Now we come to Friday just gone. It was the last day of half term and we decided to go and visit Daz at work, from the new house it's a ten minute bus ride and there are plenty of shops in Ilford. Callum was over the moon to be going to see Daddy at work and added bonus that Grandad "Grumps" Steve worked there too. After a while of Callum terrorizing, hell who am I kidding, wooing over more like, the girls at the office I took Callum off to look in Woolworths at the toys. At the top of the escalators, before we get to the cars there are the dress up costumes. Callum asks is we can look and asks for a Power Rangers costume, but he's on a Power Rangers ban at the moment so I said no. Then the two of us at the same time spied the Peter Pan costume. It was a must!!!

Now here is the funny thing about Callum, unless it's a toy car he won't have any interest in the item once it's bought until a day or two later, he isn't one of those that always wants to rush home and put the dress up outfit on. It's like he has to spend a day at least thinking up a cool story/game to go along with the new outfit. So it wasn't until Saturday afternoon that he donned the Peter Pan outfit, except he wasn't Peter Pan he was Peter Callum Pan. And what does every hero need? Yep that's right an arch nemesis which turned out to be Mummy Hook with her gentleman's umbrella (one of those that has the curly hook end). While Daz was out getting beer supplies the battle of all battles was had. Peter Callum vs Mummy Hook (who occasionally became Mummy Wendy so as to refix the costume to Peter Callum). That Peter Callum showed that he was no coward custardly yellow hero but a fighting spirit one. We battled and chased all over the house and until that Daz came home and became Tinker Daddy I was holding my own.

Needless to say lots of exhausting fun was had and I even managed to get Peter Callum Pan to pose for some photos.

Commuter Cam Challenge

Along with others I was set a challenge by Tyler at General Admission to photograph and blog about my commute to work. Seeing as how my job is Full Time Mum I don't really have a commute but I do have a school journey. Alas though that would have a few difficulties as in this day and age in England (and I assume it will most likely be like this elsewhere in the world) you have to be very careful of what or to be more precise whom photos are taken of. It would cause a big problem to take photos on the bus and near Callum's school. On Friday Callum had the day off so I commuterblogged us exploring our new neighbourhood, hey it's still part of my job and I did try as best I can to get in photos of part of our commute to school. Also Tyler Blogs about others commutes that you can read about here and has links to others blogs.

First of we need to get ready to go out. Callum chose his outfit himself so hence the green and blue mixed together. Here he is taking a break from the exhausting work of putting your socks on.





Once dressed it was time to head on out. Next to check the weather as snow was predicted. Even thought it was beautiful blue skies it was freezing cold.



Now we're off... no we're not... yes we are. Those with kids will know how they are, we had to make sure we had the correct toy car with us for our journey.

Our New Home, yep it needs a paint job! Oh and we have a King's Head above our front door, they alternate down the road between Kings and Queens.


Yes and the windows need cleaning. Anyway back to our journey. I don't have a driving licence and if I did we don't have a car so we do lots of walking, using of buses and when I'm brave enough I'll get on to using the trains. Our new road is a long long long road which is a shock to before as we lived in the middle of a town centre five seconds walk from everything. Here is the long long long road.


You'll notice a few road/street signs posted on this commute. That's down to Callum it's his new thing I have to tell him what they all mean and explain it all to him. This one is just down the road from us. Callum also said we had to take a photo of it to show Daz and to explain to him about it all and the usefulness of it.


An important part of parenting is knowing where the nearest park and playground is. They are a life saver for energetic kids and if it's a quiet day you can always have a go yourself.

Right at the end of the road here is a green gate to the park. We didn't go this day, like I said it was very cold and we were on a mission to find the nearest sweet shop and buy sweets. But we did go the other week and even though it wasn't quiet it didn't stop Joyce my mother-in-law from going down the slide herself, you'd never guess how old she is.






More signs and a very smashed up car, which Callum was convinced we would be allowed to fix ourselves and then keep.




And so our journey continues. People find the strangest of places to park their bikes, more street signs, the park, plus we pass the bus that Daz gets to work, well home too.






Right so what was our mission on this journey? Oh yes, SWEET SHOP!! We found it. Also it turns out it's the Off Licence that Daz has been going to, the reason why? If he times it right he can jump on the bus (photographed above) there and back and cut his journey by ten minutes! I didn't get a great photo of the shop because I had a Callum monkey monster who had had his sweets bought and didn't want to wait around for photos being taken. The shop did however sell Halal sweets which I never really thought about before.




That road is as long as our road and leads all the way down to the High Road, I won't bore you with a million photos of it and I can't show the photo of the personal number plate as just as I clicked someone walked in front of it. No names mentioned.... CALLUM!!! And by that time I was worried the owner might wonder why some strange woman was outside photograhing their car. However I should show a photo of our mode of transport for the day. Spider-Car! And actually I changed my mind and I'll show the personalised numberplate.






Eventually we enter the High Road! To the right we have Seven Kings Railway Station. Next to this station you have a pub called The Joker and over the road you have The Shannon Center but it may be a different name now. As you can probably guess from the names both Irish entertainment hot spots. So much for the love of the Irish these two places were well reknowed for at the end of the evening both spots emptying and huge brawls happening.



A glance through the wooden panels shows the train track. When I worked up London this was the line that I used to get to and from work. Then we spot our bus that we get home, the good old 86 bus, this bus has been on many an occasions a life saver.






And because it's time for me to put dinner on and my backside is aching from sitting on the floor for so long typing this up here is a bunch of the rest of the journey. I'll edit and update this entry later on but for the time being you'll have to just do with the photos.