We basked this weekend in the snap of azure skies: rifled through beetle collections and alphabet stones with magnifying glasses at the House of Fairy Tales, and was left slightly out in the cold by Victoria Park’s Midwinter Fair, and below par fare at the Royal Inn on the Park – which seems to be resting on its laurels as the local revellers’ pub for whatever happens to be going on at the park – which of course, right now is Winterville.
By far the best attraction, when we went with the kids on Saturday morning, turned out also to be the cheapest. The old curio wagon at the House of Fairy Tales contains all manner of fascinating-yet-creepy dead things, some of which perform clockwork dances, which kept Ava and I occupied for a full ten minutes, but testament to a lifetime’s dedication to the weird and wonderful. Jonah decided it was all too cramped for him, and was keen to get onto to the rather more expensive business of rides, at several pounds a pop. We made sure we donated at the free to enter gypsy caravan (is it PC to call it that?) although many people who went in didn’t seem to, but a coupla quid seemed a small price to pay considering the typical rip-off fairground fodder – the Skyride was magical – thankfully no crashes in the calm skies above Victoria Park, but we thought the inflatable slide would be the best value, allowing the kids to burn off the pizza slice they’d shared from Voodoo Rays. However, the cunning, if rather sadistic operators had piled snow and ice around the bottom, meaning kids were coming down screaming with cold and wet-socked feet. Our two, and Reprobate Linda’s Ronnie lasted all of five minutes before coming off howling, putting paid to our appetite-warming stroll around the vill-hage fair, just a few minutes away.
Good ol’ Tom went home to pick up some socks, while Lin, the kids and I holed up at the Royal Inn on the Park to refuel by a roaring fire. But the pub was full, so we managed to grab a table in the draughty restaurant area where the friendly chaps flogging pricey Christmas trees outside (yes, we bought one from here, but were disappointed when we got home to find our £32 quid table-topper was lopsided with a large number of branches trimmed and leaking sap) kept tramping in and out. And the sometimes sour-faced waiting staff serving several Christmas parties at once couldn’t do little enough to help.
Struggling to get served at the heaving bar, the food, when it arrived, was pretty awful: anaemic fries, deep fried mac and cheese bites (whoever thought of such a disgusting dish?- we thought we were ordering pasta!) molton jambon croquettes which bit open to pour cheesy lava onto one’s tongue, and a squalid veggie shepherd’s pie that was grey with lentil sludge and floury, not crispy, potato on top. Linda returned it, and as a local face (she used to run a shop nearby), got a couple of glasses gratis, which salvaged what was beginning to turn into a classic Christmas moan-fest.
We wandered latterly round the depleted fair, which despite the best efforts of the still-committed traders had no Father Christmas (as far as I could see, although we saw hundreds on the way to Santacon on our bus ride to Winterville), no Christmas trees above the shops – the only decorations Jules Pipe would stretch to in days of yore; now in these days of austerity, we make do with fairy lights wrapped round street lamps that never come down, hardly any stalls run by locals (one of the mums who usually runs a cake stall was now serving in the pub) and barely as many punters as in previous years when Winterville wasn’t drawing trade. So we consoled ourselves at the always welcoming Victoria Park Books with freebie mulled wine and a natter with some local faces, before heading back on the bus to put on cheesy Christmas songs, make more mulled wine and decorate a tree we had to denude again in the morning due to broken lights.
***
But by far the best freebie we availed ourselves of this weekend was Paddington – The Movie at the Hackney Picture House, to which we got free tickets as Barclays Premier customers – a relic from Tom’s days as a trader, and ironic in the sense of giving freebies to the already wealthy, but hey, isn’t that how the system works isn’t it?
Not one to look a gift bear in the mouth, with or without moral objections, we went along bright and early on Sunday morning having got Jonah to do two jobs (shine my shoes and clean bird shit of a window) for his “help in the home” Cub badge” which was nothing short of a miracle. The smalls were promptly rewarded with a low sugar Fruit Shoot and a fun-sized tub of popcorn (sorry kids), and a heart warming 95 minutes of tourist board approved London (quite literally – it’s sponsored by Visit London). What is it with the ridiculously whitewashed version of the capital presented by films that have tube stops as titles? It was all wide-angle shots of ice cream coloured Notting Hill terraces, faux retro sets and dubious sightseeing taxi ride montages – at least hilariously acknowledged by cockney cabbie Matt Lucas, alongside the usual coterie of go-to British character actors such as Imelda Staunton, Jim Broadband and Julie Walters in a fabulous turn as whiskey drinking Scottish charwoman Mrs Bird. But the well-loved story, forever synonymous with the unctuous tones of the avuncular Steven Fry, was updated for the big screen and the modern age in glorious Technicolor, including a rich and entertaining back story sequence, as well drama provided by icy taxidermist Nicole Kidman, who did a good job of scaring small children witless with her ruthless ploy to skin and stuff Paddington – the bear, not the station-as a rare Peruvian specimen.
The biggest groan was reserved for a hackneyed Oreo product placement, shoehorned slap bang in the middle of the film (which was almost as bad as the Victoria’s Secret advert which sashayed into our cosy Sunday evening family duvet gathering at 5.00 pm wearing nothing but scanties. Call me a prude, but we were in the middle of watching the family friendly (though admittedly slightly sexist) Stardust – whoever said we are a nation of couch potatoes?) But it was so awful – the product placement – that one hopes parents refuse to buy the cream-filled valve blockers on principal. In any case, the kids were so engrossed in the brilliantly rendered chaos wrought by the unlikely bear, it may not have left a lasting impression on their fragile psyches or their already sophisticated ability to plea bargain sugar.
Far more disruptive was the insufferable mother of a two year old who quite naturally lost interest halfway through the film, only for his mother to provide him with a whispered running commentary in an attempt to regain his interest, growing in volume at every stern glance backwards I elicited, until I actually had to turn and tell her to shut up, at which she huffed dramatically and gave me her best death stare, to which I responded by tweeting passive aggressively about the incident. Sorry love – we’ve all been there with the over-ambitious parenting, but if your kid’s too young to watch a whole film without wetting himself, he’s probably too young for a PG.
The classification was a bit strange – there was nothing untoward (with the exception of the Oreo placement) except a comic sequence of mild cross dressing from Hugh Bonneville, a few murderously seductive glances from Kidman, and her expert wielding of a range of skinning tools, and a lot of mild peril. It was, in sum, a lot of fun, and we emerged blinking into the midwinter sun, feeling as though we deserved a slap up brunch to round things off.
The Picture House, a much-loved, though recently introduced Hackney institution, and a big improvement on “what was there before” (a dodgy nightclub), has a deserved reputation for good value food, and we found a table quite easily with a view to filling up the kids, perhaps unwisely, on hot dogs and ourselves something rather more wholesome, in advance of our necessary trip to Asda. Tom and I ordered a spicy mess of Heuvos Rancheros – his with chorizo, mine with mushroom – which was served unwisely on a board, Jamie Oliver style, which rather spoiled my enjoyment of this Mexican delight as, with every mouthful I feared swallowing a splinter.
But it was altogether a good slap-up feed, and we managed to extract the kids to the weekly shop without too much ado, even getting Jonah to accompany me to TK MAX to assist Father Christmas with an exercise in cost cutting, although I did have to bribe him with popcorn chicken from KFC (bad Santa) and we suffered the resultant diet-based tantrum later on that evening over homework (to which I still object to the helping with).
All of which has resolved me to attempt the controversial low carb, high fat ketogenic diet on the kids – and myself, which by and large I already try and stick to, Christmas notwithstanding – and which has shown good results in treating epilepsy, and other inflammatory conditions, and as such is recommended by nutritionists for ASD, and in general for better human health – without being too po-faced during the season of overindulgence….
Wish me luck!… I will update with the results as and when.
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