A few months ago, we travelled to London to visit my mum for Mother’s Day. But the weekend was a little all over the place, which meant the actual Mother’s Day wasn’t spent with my mum, but it was spent with my little family which was lovely.
So here’s the thing, with Mother’s Day approaching, we couldn’t stay at our usual hotel spot in Hounslow Central, instead opting for Kingston Upon Thames instead. Mainly the idea of paying a couple of hundred quid for the privilege of being in a Travelodge that we weren’t going to spend much time in, seemed barmy, so we booked 2 nights at the Travelodge on the Old london Road in Kingston instead.
I’ve known Kingston pretty much all my life, the haunts, the go-to areas, places to eat, drink and visit but I’ve never done Kingston with a toddler. Funnily the whole idea of Kingston changes when evening comes. It’s no longer a where can you go and just enjoy yourself, it’s very restrictive and the information available online isn’t very helpful. Admittedly before we went up, I didn’t bother checking anything before I naively thought we could go anywhere with a toddler, but that’s not true.
Finding somewhere to eat on Friday night was a nightmare. After buying a few drinks at O’Neills, we were informed by the bar manager that Emily couldn’t be in there after 7 pm. So we quickly finished our drinks, with a few minutes spare and walked off looking for somewhere else to have our dinner. Thankfully we found the cornerstone, a few minutes walk from Kingston rail station, for a bite to eat, a Hungry Horse which allows children to be in the restaurant until 9pm and offers food for all the family, for a range of prices. The food was lovely, and it was a nice relaxed evening.
Overall spending time in Kingston was not exactly what I expected. By day it was quite nice, whilst the sun shone, we could do a little retaining therapy, walk along the river front and enjoy an ice cream or a cold pint, the downside was there weren’t many things you could do with a toddler, and definitely not after 7, which was surprising seeing as there were so many families around during the day. I get that it’s a university town, but our options to do anything were halved, and halved again by night.
The next time we’re going up to London, I think I’ll properly research where we’re going or staying!
Missy, Me & Him 