Mudlarks first of the fun (hopefully free) Fridays.

The little one and I have something on most days. We have a class of some description every morning except for Fridays. So my New Year plan was to try and go on baby-friendly outings, as we live on a stricter budget now I am hoping to find as many cheap or low cost things to do as possible. I have set up an email inviting my other baby friends but for my first week noone could make it. Poor us. The lack of company somewhat stifled my spirit of adventure but not wanting to give in completely we popped to the local farm.
But this week I had a friend in tow, yes just the one but a lovely one! And we headed up to Canary Wharf to the Museum of Docklands. I had done a bit of internet research and found out about Mudlarks. It is room aimed at the youngest visitors to the museum. It has a small soft play area and a range of other activities. It's really cute! Everything in the room is themed around the docks. The soft play area has a DLR with a screen playing views from the real life trains. The cushions are London buses or bunches of bananas etc and there is a very speedy slide.
There is a cool sand and water table with constant flowing water so the children can build dams and block the channels. There are big soft blocks decorated like famous buildings from the area so the children can have a go at constructing them and more!




(don't tell him he's going the wrong way.)





The toddler was a little bit little for lots of it but could enjoy most of the activities at his level. Just smushing the gravelly sand was fun for him and he enjoyed loading the boat with heavy containers even if working out how to spread the load was beyond him! I appologise for the terrible photos but trying to catch the best moments with my phone as well as hopefully enjoy it with my little one appears a bit beyond me at the moment.










Showing off his muscles!



Cool ships funnels that had different dockside smells.

You have to collect a ticket on your way in although it is free, this gives you your 40 minute slot. But you can pop out and pick up tickets for the next session so can easily have longer. They are only allowed a fairly limited number of children in and when we were there they were full but it was not too busy at all! Much calmer than normal okay spaces. Also you have to be under 1m tall to go in the soft play, perfect as much less risk of squishing. And very soon (possibly this week) they are opening a cafe just outside the doors to Mudlarks, so will be even better.

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