Yesterday evening Flos, Dave and Wilf joined us for dinner. We don't really have the room for them to stay, so they're in an AirBnB apartment around the corner. The plan was to put Leo and Wilf to bed as normal, with Wilf then being carried home once we'd finished dinner. It worked really well and we all enjoyed an evening together drinking and eating without too much distraction from the little ones.
We did however drink a little too much wine so this morning was pretty exhausting. Our plan was to go out to the Botanischer Volkspark Blankenfelde-Pankow, where I have a small allotment and there is lots of space for Wilf to run riot, but by the time we were all ready it was a bit late. Instead we took a walk around the neighbourhood, stopping at a couple of playgrounds and ending up at the Isreali-Palestian restaurant Kanaan for lunch.
One of the really noticeable things about hanging out with a family used to London is their surprise at how much Berlin (or at least Prenzlauer Berg) is child friendly. Kanaan has a sand pit Wilf could play in, the waiter brought child friendly Humous over free of charge, they have high chairs and were happy to heat up the food I'd prepared for Leo (something I'm told can be problematic in the U.K. because of safety concerns).
After a delicious lunch we parted ways. They went off to do a boat tour, I headed to the first official Little Music Makers class. Much the same as the tryout class we took, with the same songs and structure. The only differences being; I was now the only man in the group, there were two nannies and one granny with kids, and Leo was now by far the youngest in the class.
As the youngest Leo was the only child unable to walk, let alone crawl. Its not really an issue for him, he finds the noise and the other kids fascinating. Its a minor issue for me. Years of football and running (or maybe just idleness) have left me embarrassingly inflexible. I found the parts where we needed to sit on the floor a little tough. Note to self, start doing some stretching exercises.
We all decided after last nights exertion a quite Tuesday night was needed. Early to bed.