Living life in London

Hello!  It is me, Wilfred! 

This week, Dad and I were on our own in London, while Poppy was in Bristol doing his work.   I was sad when Poppy had to leave, but Poppy said we aren’t on holiday for six months -- we are living our life in the UK. 

                                

(my room in London)

So the week that Poppy was away, that is just what Dad and I did!  We lived our life in London.  I went to school and Dad did… Dad stuff.  

This week, two exciting things happened.  One – I LOST ANOTHER TOOTH!!

                                  

(See my missing teeth?  Also, a diagram of a zamboni...

so you know I remember Canada.)

Luckily, the tooth fairy found me here.  The second exciting thing -- I will save for the end.  First, I want to tell you alittle about life in London.

There are FOUR times as many people in London as Toronto – 8 million.  The streets are very busy – taxis, double-decker buses and LOTS of cars, bicycles, motorbikes and lorries!  People are everywhere.  At Ravenstone, we learn pedestrian safety (more another day), but the rule is always “Look right.  Look left.  Look right, again.  Listen.  And THINK!”

 8 million people living close together means everybody has to take up less space.  In Toronto, Dad and Poppy and I have a house and a yard and a garage and we live on three floors.  In London, our flat is smaller than one floor of our Toronto house.  Here we have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a reception room (which is what English people call a living room – except we eat in there, too) and a kitchen just big enough for Dad to cook.  I like our Toronto house, but I like our flat, too -- because we're always close together!

When we went up to York last week, I saw a lot of power stations on the way.  Because there are so many people, they need a lot of power.  Dad says, it is expensive, so everyone tries to use as little as they can.

In London, people have smaller refrigerators – half the size of our fridge at home.  In our flat, we have a little fridge on the top and a freezer at the bottom. 

Because the fridge is small, Dad has to grocery shop two or three times a week.  Everything in the stores is sold in smaller containers so it will all fit.   The fridge uses less power, but we also make more garbage (what the English call, “rubbish”) and recycling.

We also have a little washer/dryer to do laundry.  One machine does both jobs and takes up less space.  I like watching it spin, because it goes very fast… but it doesn’t make things so dry as we are used to in Canada.  When
Poppy does laundry, he puts socks and underwear over all our radiators!

The radiators that heat our flat attach to a little boiler in a cupboard in our bathroom.  It also heats our hot water.  In Toronto, we have a big hot water tank in our basement.  In London, the boiler switches on whenever you turn on and off the hot water tap and only heats the water you need.  There is a timer on the boiler that Dad switches on every night.  The boiler is off all night but comes on automatically at 7 a.m. to warm up the flat before we get out of bed, and then switches off at 9 a.m. so the flat is not heated while we are out during the daytime.  When we come home, Dad switches it on again. I am not allowed to touch it.

So now, the second exciting thing – besides my tooth!  Miss Moylan told Dad I got a good behaviour sticker every day that week AND I got ten out of ten on my spelling test.  Dad was very proud of me for doing so well, eventhough we both miss Poppy.  So when Dad picked me up after school, he said he would take me to the Science Museum.  

There are three big museums just a block and a half from our flat: the Victoria & Albert, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum.  I wasn’t sure if I would like the Science Museum, but Dad said he knew I would.  And Dad WAS RIGHT! 

The Science Museum is full of great machines! There are machines everywhere!  They have huge ones that actually work, running by steam.  

                                     

(me and Dad)

                                  

(I know a lot about steam engines, so 

I was able to explain them to people.)

There's a space room with real missiles.  They have a whole floor of real airplanes.  And another of model ships.  They have old cars and old trains! 

And guess what?  They actually have the first ever steam locomotive ever built -- "Puffing Billy"!  Can you even believe it? 

They also have a real space capsule, the Apollo 10, that circled the moon in 1969.  I was so excited, I knew exactly what I had to do that weekend. 

Come back again and show Poppy!

I will write again next week.  Talk to you then.  Wilfred