Rookie Mistake

The last week has been absolutely beautiful weather. 50+ degree temperatures and mostly sunny. I decided yesterday that I would take the kids on an outing.

My team at work gave me a book of 1000 Things to Do in London, and I intend to try my hand at a fair good number of them.

#647 was to visit a farm in the city. Kate of course would love this, and I'm probably a higher than average animal enthusiast so I thought it sounded like fun too.

I set off with both kids by myself. It was the first time I've braved the tube alone with the stroller and both kids. Michael has graduated to the MacLaren stroller, so it is a lot easier to push and get around. Thankfully there are some very nice souls here who typically help me carry it up and down all the stairs in the tube stations.
Anyway, so we took the tube, changing lines once, and arrived at the location. I had written down the 4 cross streets of where the farm was located, and even what number bus we needed to get there. I located the bus stop and we hopped on. The problem with the bus system here is that there is no way of knowing at which stop you are.
So we hopped off the bus at what I thought was the correct stop, and headed in the direction I thought the farm might be. Once we got off the high street, I quickly realized we might be in a rather dodgy area. It was all council housing (govt. subsidized housing), boarded up shops, & graffiti everywhere. To make the situation worse, Kate started crying that she wanted to "see the animals" and wanted me to carry her.
My rookie mistake was that I had forgot my mini A-Z London guide, so I had no idea where we were going. I stopped and studied the maps on the bus stops, and couldn't locate any of the streets that the farm was located on. We walked on for a bit further before I decided to turn around. Kate was still sobbing, and so we just returned home and decided to give it a go another day. I think next time I'll make sure that Danny is with me. Of course the first thing I did upon returning home was put my A-Z guide (it is like a tiny mapsco of the city) in my bag.