seventy-seven

stereotypes

We went to the Tate Modern on Saturday.  It was a glorious sunny day - perfect for a stroll along the Southbank and a visit to the Tate.   It's a great place for children - lots of activities for them to do and some great pictures too.   The children chose their favourite picture from what we had seen that day.   My sweet, gentle sensitive son choose Andy Warhol's Gun 1981.   Boys do seem naturally attracted to such things.   I grew up in Northern Ireland  in the 1970s and so not surprisingly am anti-gun.   I was keen to not to have toy guns introduced to my children but it does seem that boys can turn anything into a weapon - a stick found in the woods, the floor brush or a wooden spoon.   I have become less anxious about the whole gun as toy thing and I think that's partly because the children are old enough to talk to about my childhood and my views on guns.  

 I still feel uncomfortable about J's choice though.

those magnificent men in their flying machines

We had a lovely day on Sunday in Victoria Park in East London.  My favorite steam fair Carter's was there as part of a bigger shindig called Paradise Gardens.  However the best part of the day was a show we caught just by chance from a theatre company called Hoodwink.  The show was called Leap of Faith and was (in their own words) a celebration of the human aspiration to fly: paper wings, balloons, feathers, and flying monks.   The children from aged 2 to 12 and all the grown-ups were engaged for the full 45 minutes.  There was a even a monk fired from a cannon - honest!

I couldn't write about the day without a picture of the merry-go-round.  

P.S.  The title of the post comes from a song I remember from my childhood but I must point out for the sake of vanity that the film from whence the song came was made BEFORE I was born.