Once Cameron and Eli started school we had just Mim and Simon to entertain so we took them to a park they have been to a couple times but I’ve never been.  It is a quick trip on the DLR and so we packed a lunch and got on the train right after we dropped the boys off at school.  

Mudchute is a little (if you can call 32 acres little) countryside gem in the heart of East London.  It’s a working farm with stables and all sorts of fun farm animals.  All the sheep and horses we saw (and smelled…) were a nice throwback to our home in Kuna.  

One of the wonderful things about London is that wherever we go we usually get more than we bargained for.  We’ll be exploring a park and find something we never expected, or when walking through the city I’ll turn a corner and there will be some historical home or exciting landmark that I wasn’t looking for at all.  

In Mudchute we found that there are several gun emplacements left over from WWII.  Many of London’s parks were used for anti-aircraft defense during the war, and Mudchute has converted most them into stalls for the farm animals, but this one was let as an exhibit.  

The gun is set down beneath ground level and is surrounded by concrete bunkers, where they stored the ammunition.  Most of the guns were operated by remote control, but this unit was run by Captain Fletcher, who won a medal for bravery, the only medal won by someone on British soil.  The remote control capabilities broke down after the area was damaged by land mines, but Captain Fletcher took his men to the guns and operated them manually, at great risk.  

As we made our way back to the DLR station we stopped at various playgrounds along the way.  We never found the one I was looking for because someone had an accident in their pants which required some creative and public clean-up and ended our fun adventure for the day.