Each card focuses on a small area of London, easy walking distances for kids. It tells you the tube station you need to go to and usually includes a family friendly restaurant choice.
The house was quite breathtaking, there were tiles on the wall from Damascus c. 1520 and beautiful artwork of Leighton's and both artists before his time and his contemporaries. I loved it for it's total impracticality and elaborate artistic design. Lord Leighton was a bachelor and quite a shame I thought- that he had no family to enjoy it with him. He was part of a new style movement called "Aestheticism" that thought the Victorian style was too square and boring, so the house was bold and bright. The kids weren't so much into the art, but it was our good fortune that there was a children's art fair going on that day in the house gardens, so Richard took the kids while I wandered through the house and then we swapped.
There was no photography allowed in the house, but if you're interested you can see photos here and all the artwork displayed throughout the house.
Our plan was to go to Holland Park next, but we were running late and Richard had to be at the church at 3:00 to help clean. I decided to take the kids to the park by myself and sent him on his way. (Keeping in mind it takes an hour to get home.)
Once we got through they were quite ready for some play so we found a "Nature Playground" first. I've actually seen this at other playgrounds too, but there are posted signs saying adults are not allowed in the playground unless they are accompanied by children. It's a nice way to keep creepers out and keep crowd control I suppose.
I guess a Nature playground consists of fallen trees and stumps. The kind of playground my kids are used to when we're camping. But I suppose many Londoners don't do much camping...
Eli realized that we had left the kid's artwork back at the restaurant and he really wanted his castle mosaic so we trekked back to the restaurant to retrieve it. For Cameron's benefit I'll let the record indicate that he suggested a faster route to the restaurant but I didn't trust him (wait a minute- has this happened before?) and he turned out to be right. It would have saved us some walking.
After getting the artwork safely back in our custody we bought some drinks and snacks and found the closest tube station and began the long trek home. Miriam was so tired and insufferable on the train that when we got home I turned all parental responsibilities over to Richard for the duration of the day.