Monday 29 February 2016

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show."


In the world of blogging you meet some amazing people, but a lot of the time never in person, which is really unfortunate. Emails can go back and forth for years and you can build some pretty amazing relationships with companies. So when the chance arises to meet one of these amazing people it can be both exciting and a little unnerving, especially as I worry that I come across a lot less confident in the flesh. So this week I was invited by Micro-Scooters to attend an event to showcase the new Emicro one, their latest electric scooter which (being a HUGE scooter enthusiast) I was really excited about. The meeting gave me and Opeie the chance to have a couple of days adventuring in London (with of course, our scooters for getting about).


If the thought of a couple of days in London scooting wasn't enough, on the train down we received an email to say that one of our previous trips to London had made it on to Micro-scooters blog, titled 'Opeie's no tube scooter challenge' , so Opeie spent the journey down there telling me he was famous and the news had made us even more eager to get some wheels under our feet. We got off of the train and headed straight for the science museum as per Opeie's request and after checking our scooters in to the cloak room we had a great look around talking about all the things we could see. Opeie informed me that he would like to do a Space project at 'Daddy school' and after watching a video of Charles Michel he would like to attempt some food art this week so I'm looking forward to that.

Ive talked about it before but the great thing about having the Micro-scooters with us in London is that you get to see a different side to this amazing city. The none visually stimulating dark tunnels lined with posters for theatre productions and movies becomes amazing architecture, interesting people (not crammed together like sardines) and beautiful street art. From a home schooling point of view there really is no better way to take in London for everything it is.


When we have the scooters with us we always do a little investigating around Hyde park, the park itself is so much fun on wheels and aside from all of the amazing things to look at it can be used for getting to different parts of the city quickly while entertaining the kids. I love that with the scooters we can go long distance, in great time and without the 'daddy my legs are hurting'.


We always try and investigate areas we've not been to before as I think its important to show Opeie that there is so much out there. In London EVERYWHERE makes you think, there is so much diversity and taking Opeie to places where he is asking questions and constantly looking about for inspiration for things he wants to do is what home schooling (for us) is all about.


Day two of our trip and we woke up and made a bee line for Southbank after being told by our friend Katy that we should check it out. Its somewhere we had been meaning to go during other visits but until we arrived there I hadn't realised how close we had been to there on a few occasions. We had been on the London eye last year and around that area and had almost made it there when scooting along the Thames from the Tate Modern.


There are lots of interesting things to do around London and so much of it is free, having the option to dip in and out of these places and not having to worry about spending a fortune is great. we popped in to the Tate Modern and had a great trip to the Horneman Museum, which had an interesting dinosaur exhibit on, aimed at children. But aside from all of the museums and culture there is a never ending amount of fun to be had outdoors and being on the scooters really opens that up to us. Opeie developed his own form of parkour while out and it was great watching him climbing up pillars and walls around Waterloo station.


By the time we reached the apartment late that afternoon we were exhausted, but I still had the Micro-scooter event to look forward to that evening, so I mustered up the remainder of my energy and made my way back towards where we had spent our afternoon. Rather than scoot there (which I really should have done) I decided to walk and I can honestly say it wasn't for me, haha. When you've been whizzing around all day on wheels and have been reaching your destinations it great time, being on foot just doesn't cut it.

There's something pretty fun about walking in to a bar and seeing those scooters that I adore so much lined up and ready for action. As always though I was a little apprehensive walking in, not having the troops with me to break the ice but Ive never had a warmer welcome. All those years of passing emails back and forth and I finally got to meet the lovely Dannii who made me feel very special. Dannii was the first person I ever spoke to since working with Micro Scooters so it meant a lot to finally meet her, as expected it was like we had been the best of friends for years.


Getting to chat to other scooter enthusiasts was so much fun and I met some really interesting people. the star of the show 'The Emicro' is a really awesome bit of kit. It is the first motion controlled electric scooter which had my undivided attention from the moment I pushed off. Instead of just getting on and being ferried about, the Emicro still needs a physical kick off and an occasional push and thrusting motion every now and then to keep up momentum, which I love as it continues to keep the scoot physical. The more energy that you kick off with the better assisted the battery and journey is, genius. Racing it along the side of the Thames was the perfect place to scoot and I could get up to a great speed, not quite the Emicro's top speed of 15mph though. As I scooted around it got me thinking how great the scooter would be for Seth, because of his muscle condition he has days where he struggles on his scooter, the Emicro could definitely keep him up to speed with us which would be great for his confidence.

During the event we got to see an Emicro being put together which was really interesting as I had no idea that the motor was in the rear wheel. I would love to get my hands on one of these to go out for a solo adventure to really put it to the test. With it needing only 60 minutes to fully charge you could do some serious distance in the space of a day, scooting from train station to train station while charging during the journeys.


The event was everything I was hoping it would be and as I said before I met some really amazing people. It makes all the difference when you turn up to events like this and everyone there is passionate about the products.

With a few more hours left of our London adventure the following morning, we made the most of the scooters before heading on our journey home. Micro scooters from day one have brought me closer to the boys and having these as something we can share has been very special to me. We are already planning our next scooting adventure which looks like it is going to be lots of fun so stay tuned.




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