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Yesterday, I had a meeting at City Hall (nearest tube London Bridge) and then decided I wanted to head on over to the RSA to do some work (nearest tube Embankment). There’s not really a super-duper easy way to get from one to the other. But there is a boat. And since I’d overshot the cut-through from the south bank to London Bridge station and the boat was pulling up and it was a beautiful day. So, even though it was the more expensive option and I’m not clear if it was the faster option, I took the boat.

And out on the back deck of the boat (is that the stern?), it was gorgeous. Beautiful views of London, Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast and the Houses of Parliament as I reached my stop (port? landing?). Oh, and I also saw a beach. On the Thames. I guess somebody from Southwark or maybe the mayor’s office has dumped a bunch of sand on the muddy banks of the Thames and opened the hitherto shut gates down to the river.

So, looks like the trip to the beach might be a little more handy and convenient. I feel the slight guilt of the slacker parent, but being a slacker parent – it doesn’t last long. Not sure how I’m gonna keep the boy out of that filthy ol’ river, though.

But what else could we do today?  I happened to stumble across this attraction in my Flickr photostream.  I picked up this brochure ages ago in the North East of England.

Seriously fun. Who doesn’t want to take their kids to a mining adventure land called Killhope. The name alone conjures up such joyous associations as silicosis and cave-ins.

And what do you get to do at Killhope? Well, play with lead. Which is great, especially if you’re worried about your kids having some annoying extra IQ points or are concerned about potential excessive fecundity. Who wants grandchildren anyway?

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This mirrors my special transatlantic relationship. But sometimes these Brits can be tricky and pretend that they don’t know that we know best. Yes, I’m looking at YOU, dear husband.

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Did the bird wake up the baby? No, he said.

Did the bird scare the baby? He considered this a moment. No.

Did the bird fly over the baby? No.

The bird ate the baby in its mouth.

And the boy flapped his wings and said the bird had a very big mouth and opened his mouth wide and said that it was eating the baby.

Oh…right.  When we got home, I showed him some stock images like this.

A positive ID.  That was the dastardly bird in question.

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Heaven forfend!

I’ve been going to Wisley for years, but we started to go more when we had our son.  As a baby, he was always happiest when being wheeled around outdoors, and it was something we could all enjoy.  As he got older, Wisley has been a great place for him to toddle around, and now, yes, he does like to run on the paths and peer over the bridges to look at the gaping koi.

Like the curmudgeonly letter writer, I too cannot abide children running amok in the herbaceous borders or plucking leaves and flowers.  But her tone suggested that their very presence was an anathema.  I was so offended that I wrote back to The Garden, explaining that I didn’t think that children’s behaviour at Wisley was generally a problem and that I hoped to have  many happy visits to Wisley with my son – helping him to learn about horticulture and the great cultivated outdoors.  Not only that, but I suggested that it would be a great idea if Wisley could introduce a designated play area for children and demonstrate how tough, sympathetic planting could be introduced to playgrounds.  Too often, municipal play areas are barren hardscapes with little injection of the natural world.

Fantastic climbing frames

Binoculars at the viewing station

Den building and blocks

My letter was never published.  But there is now a play area at Wisley.  And it’s fabulous.  No swings or slides, but there are climbing frames and brilliant use of logs and stumps – some carved fantastically with snakes and owls and the Green Man.  There’s a tunnel covered with pine logs, like some kind of insect habitat, and there are frames which children can cover with dead branches and palm leaves from the glass house and other leavings of pruning maintenance.  The planting, isn’t up to scratch yet – but it’s early days – and there are olives and eucalyptus and tough herbaceous perennials which are currently fenced off to protect them from being trod on by tiny feet.

Of course, that doesn’t address the issue of inappropriate behaviour by garden visitors.  I take a very firm line on touching the plants or stepping in the borders.  Sadly not something that every garden visitor is as scrupulous about. I saw a woman in her 50s walking around with an allium seed head yesterday. And garden visitors in England are notorious for filching seed or taking surreptitious cuttings.  I have even heard that there is occasionally some scrumping in the orchards.  And yes, I have seen children out of order in the gardens.  More could be done to help parents (and others) enforce appropriate behaviour of garden visitors large and small.  But surely play areas will help little visitors burn off the energy which might be otherwise be spent on smushing the hostas or picking the hydrangeas.

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And although I do like games,  I don’t like games in Facebook.   I hate Farmville.  I hate Mafia Wars. I hate the fish game, too.  I don’t want to receive invites. I don’t want to receive a gift of two rusty horseshoes or whatever it might be.  And I because I’m a crusty ol’ curmudgeon I don’t even like seeing it in my Facebook activity stream.   But really that’s my problem, not the problem of people who are playing and enjoying these games.  And if Farmville keeps them coming back into Facebook and telling me about their kids, pets and what they had for dinner, then I’m grateful to Farmville – but just keep it out of my sight.

Fortunately, I don’t have to see it. And you can get rid of it, too.  Here’s how.

OK.  First find the offending article.  I’m choosing Sondra’s automatic update of a fortune cookie from the Daily Horoscope app.  And I’d like to say, that this particular app never really annoyed me and Sondra is not an offender in terms of putting a bunch of rubbish content into my stream. But the fact is, I’d just spent a few minutes getting rid of the stuff that really annoys me before I thought of doing this post and this was the first example I could find in my stream which I could get rid of using the same process.  So thanks, Sondra for being an example.  The irony of removing this particular fortune was not unappreciated.

Now, hover your cursor over the top right hand corner of the status update.  An X will appear.  Click it.

You can choose between removing all the status updates from a particular person or just this app.   Note that hiding someone does not mean that you’re unfriending them – just that you’re, well – ignoring them. You’ll never see their boring old drivel ever again.  And they’ll never, ever know.  Ace.  By the way, I’ve only done this to one person.  And it wasn’t you.  No really, not you.  I promise.

Just get rid of the offending app, not your friend.

Now, no more fortune cookies. And this hides ALL instances of this appearing in your time line, no matter which friend has generated them.

Look at this poor buccaneer. The privateering life has been a bit hard on him.

He’s missing an eye, a hand and a leg.  But yet…

…Cap’n is still enjoying some success with the ladies.