to hate every single parent and child crowding up South Kensington during half term?!

[misspantomime]

I work in the area and every single evening during every single school holiday it takes me 30 minutes more to get home because a) I cannot walk down the streets as they are too crowded and (b) I cannot get into South Ken station due to crowding and also due to parents letting their kids walk down the road either on scooters or at 0.00000000005 MPH and also not knowing how to use the ticket barriers properly.

I am a Londoner and we are notoriously intolerant of people who can't use the underground properly but even so I never truly knew rage until I started working round here. There are queues all the way down the road. For the fricking science museum.

Wasn't thinking so much about what they look like, it's more what happens when they open their mouths. A little bit of me dies inside. My kids have a game we play at Heathrow, how many different moans can you count before we get to passport control?

I used to feel exactly the same when I used to work in York city centre not far from the Minster. Feckin' tourists EVERYWHERE. I feel your pain.
Slack arses who just used to pull up short in front of you making you bump into the back of them as they had a good gawp upwards at the Minster.
Or getting their maps out and studying them while walking along at a snails pace.
I fully expected them to get IN the map a'la Joey from Friends sometimes

Rural Suffolk isn't a bundle of laughs from May- September. Full of townies gawping at fields and sheep. Then they stand in the middle of the road to photograph Tudor houses, totally ignoring cars which actually need to continue doing stuff- like getting to a GP or driving to school.
Still, live and let live, eh?

Ah, South Kensington - sigh. Consumed in a cloud of nostalgia from the 1960s.
I travelled on the underground to Sth Ken from Monday to Friday in term time only for 2 years as a teenager.
Took a trip down memory lane 30 -something years later but for me the magic was not there anymore.

I live in an AONB, my PIL's live right in the middle on a farm with a public footpath running right through it. There are many hikers who for some reason have pictures of my IL's doing various activities
Someone somewhere has a pic of me & DH dozing on the sofa! We had been house sitting for the PIL's and had crashed on the sofa with hangovers one Saturday afternoon when a group of hikers peered in through the window and started snapping away! DH politely moved them on after explaining that it was a private house not Beamish...

Thanks for the tips earlier people.

Moving - I know we are mad! But only have 2 days in London and want to see other stuff as well, so both museums in one day it is ( probably sticking with the one in the morning and one afternoon plan as surely it's even madder to do two in half a day?! ) Mind you, if we visited on separate days would get in op's way twice as often! We are not likely to get to London again for years (partly due to cost and partly because i am pregnant aand even i am not mad enough to attempt it with a buggy!), so want to fit in as much as we can.

Humm..... It's irony Matchstick..... Ya know?

I am constantly tripping over tourists where I work, and having them weeble about is frustrating as they are in my way!

BUT, I do enjoy being a tourist in other cities, and weeble as well as anyone- except, of course the surging and adhesive Italians, (who do an excellent line in overheated and impatient mob as well).

So I chill out about them in my city, as every city has its own cadence and rhythm and when I'm in other cities I know I'm just as bad, because a) I'm there on hols, and b) I want to see the sights, not just shoot through like a lemon pip.

OP - I work there too. I wonder if I've ever barged you out of way!!!!

To be honest, I can see both sides. I'm a born and bred Londoner (but no longer live there due to cost of housing etc ) and I really miss London-but not the crowds!

Iam going to the NHM tomo with my DS-for a sleepover! We me are sooo excited. I have been to the NHM 4 times before but have had to leave because of the crowds in there.

I bought the sleepover for my DS as his Christmas present last year so I really hope he enjoys it.

Not enough you will love it, and so will he. We took the Cubs a few years ago and I did the adult one with friends, even better without children plus alcohol. Wandering around the exhibits at night without the crowds is fab.

I live on the South Coast and am easily wound up by dithering grockles so feel your pain OP, when we come to London we walk everywhere, I detest feeling closed in on the tube and will avoid as much as I can.

Thanks Pantah630 Like I said I'm so looking forward to it.
I'm going to have a really early night tonight as I don't think I will be getting much any sleep tomo night.
The adults only one sounds fab too, may do that next year with my husband

YANBU. If you have all day to kill, why choose a time to travel when you are going to get flustered and in peoples way and make the journey a nightmare for yourself and everyone else. I work in Oxford Circus and its beautifully quiet when I get there at 7.30am.

If you haven't gotten to grips with how a ticket barrier works, go in to London at a quiet time so you can swipe your Oyster 35 times without a queue of 20 people behind you wishing you would just fuck off.

Same with getting to the platform and just standing there blocking the entrance. There are opportunities to hang about in inappropriate places when there aren't busy people with places to go trying to get past you without knocking your child in to an oncoming train.

Didn't top up before you got in to central London, huh? The absolute best thing to do is to um and er over an Oyster machine for several minutes pressing cancel over and over again. Fumble with that cash some more, its really endearing.

FWIW, we go to the museums a lot but never in school holidays.

YANBU. How do people manage to raise children but not grasp the idea of getting their ticket out ready for the ticket machine?!

I don't know when you expect them to go! We always went in the school holidays-no other time.
It isn't a unique problem-it is very trying living in Cornwall in the summer.
I could make a huge list if I had the time.
You work in a tourist area-you must have know that when you started.
I take it OP always stays at home and never inconveniences the locals elsewhere.

tywinlannister Just out of interest - do you ever spend any of your leisure time in other cities of the world? If and when you do, do you always know exactly how the public transport systems operate, and how you, as a tourist in that place, should behave? Any city in the world - pick one that you have visited (as a newbie) and feel 100% certain that you have not annoyed a resident/Very Important Worker during your stay.

Not every visitor to London knows about Oyster cards. Lots of cities throughout the world will have a similar system for public transport travel, I'm sure. But can every visitor know about it? No, of course not. If you live and work in a tourist area, then you can expect tourists and visitors. It's really not rocket science, and you (and others of your ilk) have to learn a little tolerance

I grew up in London, lived there again for 7 years when my kids were little. When I go to London, I plan to make the most of my stay. I will go anywhere I choose, at whatever time I choose. I know what it's like to not speak the language, I give people time and space. If some London huffy puffy pants wants to stand behind me and moan, I'm fine with that, I'm most likely to ignore them. London is full of people that are always in a rush. I've never quite figured out why, running to work, running home, running to the gym, grabbing a bite to eat...what's the rush?

...Soooooo how much are we commuters looking forward to the trains/buses/streets being joyfully child and parent free come Monday?

What have you got against single parents? That seems a bit unreasonable.

what's the rush?

Lots to do? A dislike of wasting time? Who knows?

I find my leisure self and my work self move at quite a different pace post-kids. I'd love to have more of leisure self and less of work self, but that's not feasible. So I rush to get a bite to eat at lunchtime, because that means I can get away on time to pick up my kid and have more leisure time in the evening (as not catching up on work as much).

And when I'm in leisure self mode (often in central London, often with DS), I try to be mindful of other people. Cos, y'know, polite.

Just out of interest - do you ever spend any of your leisure time in other cities of the world? If and when you do, do you always know exactly how the public transport systems operate, and how you, as a tourist in that place, should behave?

In answer to those questions: Yes, yes and I try to. It's not difficult to get information online/ in a book about how transport systems work, plan your route etc.

For example, I went to DC for a work and leisure visit. I worked out in advance how to get to the conference venue from my hotel. Checked the Metro map, how it worked, where to buy tickets etc.

When walking around, I tried to have an idea of my route in advance. If I felt a bit lost and needed to consult a map, I stood to the side out of the way of people.

It's not hard to work out how to behave in a city.

I might change my name to LondonHuffyPuffy

Testing, Testing 123...

If I have children with me I shall visit London in school holiday times and I shall go to major tourist spots. I make no apologies at all! We will be slower- we have time to stand and stare.

And I don't always want to suss it out in advance- half the attraction is going where the fancy takes you at the time. That is the joy of holidays.