Today was all about leaving London and exploring the 100 Acre Woods. Throughout the whole trip The Princess had a constant refrain:
When is it going to be Winnie the Pooh Day?
She loves the stories and the all characters. She has seen many of the Disney movies, as well. However, I am pretty sure she likes the stories better. And, really who doesn’t like A. A. Milne better?
Before we hit the 100 Acre Woods we had to say goodbye to Queen Gram. She snuck out of the flat and left for Las Vegas before any of us were awake. The Captain got our rental car, we loaded up and drove out of town to start the second leg of our amazing journey.
Per my crazy planning, I printed out door-to-door directions for all our destinations. However, 90% of the time The Captain preferred to use good old Google Maps on his iphone. That was all well and good, until it wasn’t and then my pages and pages of print outs came in handy… However, we made it out of London driving on the opposite side of the road and using those crazy round abouts.
We stuck mainly to small side roads once we escaped London…slow, small and snakey.
Leaving London we encountered some weather. The Captain faced a down pour as he went to get the rental car. This was not good as Pooh Day was all about being in the great outdoors!
The first stop was a little placed called Pooh Corner which a small tea room attached to a shop. The Princess was dying to go the tea room because it was called Piglet’s Tea Room. We went in and lucky for us the rain had stopped and turned to sunshine. So, we were able to sit in the small garden at the back of the building. The kids ordered Winnie the Pooh shaped honey toast and I had a scone and coffee.
Then it was off to the Pooh Sticks Bridge. For those you who have read the stories, you know exactly what I am talking about. For those of you who haven’t, I’ll explain. In the books, they play Pooh Sticks. Everyone gets a twig or small stick and at the same time drops it off a bridge. The person who’s stick pops out on the other side of bridge first wins! The Pooh Sticks Bridge is the original bridge from the stories.
To get to the bridge you walk along a rather short wooded path which provides ample opportunity to find good Pooh Sticks. We, of course, played several rounds of Pooh Sticks. (Although we had to explain the rules to The Captain.)
Eore’s House
Walking back on the path we noticed Eore’s house! (Okay, it’s not really Eore’s house– but I looked just as you would imagine and the kids we thrilled!)
Our third stop was the 100 Acre Woods, it’s real name is the 500 Acre Woods, but Milne changed it for the book. I found a specific walking tour that featured different places from the map at the start of the book. We walked by the Heffalump Trap and Roo’s sandy pit. The kids also thought they found Pooh’s House and The Six Pine Trees (Although by my count there were seven. But lets not let that get in the way of imagination and excitement!)
All in all the kids had a blast!
was a dance party around the family island. We played Winnie-the-pooh music and went round and round in a dancing/marching circle to look for a Woozle.
was my bedroom. We cuddled up and read some stories.
The Booky Mom 