Mortimer’s Second Amendment

Breakfast is held in a Hammersmith café. I give Freya the Oyster card and challenge her to navigate us to Victoria Station where I plan to deposit a bag at the left luggage. The queue for dropping off bags is too long, so I decide I’d prefer to wheel our small case around the zoo, than waste an hour with busywork.

Oyster card in hand, Freya navigates us towards Regent’s Park and the zoo. After she’s grasped the idea that you need to find not only the right station, but the right line at the right station, we make good progress northwards. On the way I teach her to play Mornington Crescent. Like most novice players she stumbles at first, making more illegal moves than are permitted under a strict interpretation of the rules. I cut her some beginner’s slack, and she soon gets the hang of it, pulling a couple of devious moves, which catch me off-guard.

Up and down escalators at Warren Street, Freya locates the Northern Line, northbound. “Southbound Northern Line doesn’t make sense, Dad!”, she complains. Wait until she finds out what they’ve done to the Circle Line. I decide that a practical demonstration of the beautiful efficiency of one of the several cross-platform interchanges to be found on the tube can wait, until she’s a bit older.

By Euston her play is really shaping up. As the train pulls away, she cleverly invokes Mortimer’s Second Amendment, and I know the game is up.

Mornington Crescent!

We stroll to the zoo. There are lockers there too. I drop off the suitcase. We visit the Komodo dragons, tigers, lions, giraffes and zebras. The reptile house is her favourite. I enjoy the penguins and the okapi.

The trains and flight back home to Oslo are uneventful, as one hopes. I consider the possibility that Freya has been on a plane more often than she’s been on a bus.