bonaome

mayo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My eldest swam with tiger sharks for a > while and I didn?t rate their teaching personally, > I thought it was better suited for children who > already have good technique and wanting to improve > stamina etc with club style swimming. The guy I saw teaching there recently was new and was only taking little kids. Haven?t heard of Superkids but sounds great.

For the 1 year old, I take it it?s baby and parent splash sessions you?re after. I?m pretty sure Camberwell leisure centre, Peckham Pulse, the Elephant and Castle centre, ED leisure centre and Brixton Rec will all have these and it?s more about finding a time that suits you. AFAIK, they aren?t expensive and are all PAYG. But see below on water quality. The 3 year old can find ?lessons? at Beckenham Spa and Brixton Rec, and also the leisure centre at Elephant and Castle. Probably at the other places too but the advantage of these three is that they have dedicated toddler pools (Peckham Pulse May have too) which are very warm and very shallow and ideally suited to letting the little ones get really comfortable being in water, being splashed and maybe even doing a rudimentary doggy paddle. The 5 year old is ready for lessons lessons. By 5 they mostly (but not all) have a reasonable control over their arms and legs and can actually understand what the teacher is telling them. Swimming actually involves some very complex and sometimes counter intuitive coordination. Leisure centre lessons are fine. But check how many kids there are in the class. There should never be more than 12 and ideally you?d want fewer. Watch some of the lessons. Note progress and move if you are not seeing any. It will all boil down to the specific teacher you get. I personally find the water at Camberwell very heavily chlorinated. The Elephant and ED less so. JAGS bearly at all as they use UV light. The teaching overall at JAGS is good. Again, it?s down to the specific teacher, not the venue. The classes there do book out quickly, but I think they do everywhere. I?d probably take a view on class timings as much as anything else. One last thing to consider - Tigersharks has superb teaching and you can swim with the kids yourself too - though you don?t have to. They are a non competitive club. Look at the website and email them to see if they have space. If you want a competitive club, local ones are Dulwich Dolphins (Dulwich) Leander A(Clapham) and Saxon Crowm (Lewisham). They all have development squads. Ironically I think progress in these can appear to be slower than in leisure centres and at JAGS, but they are not in the business of trying to trot the kids through a curriculum and perhaps focus a bit more on getting it ?right? than getting it ?good enough to tick the box?. Maybe. Tigersharks May be the perfect mix as it has no levels to jump through and I?ve seen the teaching myself and it?s superb. Hope that helps.

If you have the option, choose a night flight. It'll be a nice calm, quiet, dark cabin, with few interruptions from the crew / few loud announcements etc. Give them a bottle / tippee mug to sip on take off and landing. It'll naturally help them equalise the pressure in their ears (which is otherewise a source of great discomfort, much upset and a lot of crying). Entertainment in-flight for 11 month olds is provided in the form of being able to post the flight safety card in different seat pockets, taking it out and reposting it. Hours of fun. Hours.

Beckenham Spa certainly used to take that age. All swimming classes round here fill up very quickly so I?d get on it ASAP. I think JAGS will have something too, and if not you could certainly organise 1 to 1s there until a class place opens up. Brixton also a good shout I think in that like Beckenham it has a specialised dedicated teaching pool with very very warm shallow water - which can make all the difference to confidence and willingness to go etc.

HMS Belfast is very good. Also - the bike hire place in Dulwich park has all those interesting recumbents and 4 people bikes etc.

BrandNewGuy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > When the Grove Vale CPZ was proposed a number of > years ago, it became clear even from Southwark's > plans that marked out parking bays and double > yellow lines would reduce the parking capacity of > the zone sufficiently to create greater pressure > on residents' parking even without any additional > visitor parking. That was one among several > reasons why I was very much against it. I think that the reduction in spaces was a function of introducing pay and display bays and extending double yellows plus plans to restrict other parts of streets - e.g. with single yellows. It?s not connected to what rahrahrah is taking about which is just demarcating whatever legal parking space there is into car sized blocks. E.g. like the car parking lines in Crystal Palace sports center. There is no enforcement, it just encourages - nudges - people to park considerately. I?ve seen it put to very good effect in Australia.

We ended up not going after more than one person told us that it?s a bit of a party place for backpackers and moreover looking at photos of the places on the web - traveler photos and Google street - just didn?t look that great. The final nail in the coffin was someone mentioning the fairly open prostitution - including kids - in the area. Don?t know where you?re going in Cambodia but if you?re including Siem Reap in the itinerary I can recommend DaNang in Vietnam for a beachy part to the holiday. There are direct flights and I can recommend specific beaches etc. let me know if interested.

James Barber Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi DuliwhcLondoner, > The classic way is to record all numbers place by > location and time slot for a weekday and a at the > weekend. > With number plates you can then find out the home > postcode to postcode area to see if local or not. > I was planning to ask if the council had this from > the last CPZ study that wasn't written up into the > report. Someone earlier in the thread suggested > officers had stated it was local East Dulwich > commuting and not out of area commuting. It wasn?t in the published data, it was from the discussion here on the forum from people on the effected streets observing when cars were arriving and leaving. Be great to know if they do have actual data from the study - although I think the study only covered a very small number of streets.

janepinkcat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > YES I do want a CPZ. We live on Tell Grove and > are constantly forced to park streets away from > our house due to commuters leaving their cars all > day, while they go to east Dulwich station, or > drop kids at nursery then go to work. We're only > asking for a two hour CPZ during the day, people > can still park if they need to for shops etc, > although if you're local you could walk. I don't think people drive to East Dulwich to commute from the train station. I think people commute to East Dulwich to work in the offices, shops and schools. I think the last time a CPZ was discussed the cars parking near the station were reported to be there after 8;30 and gone by 5:30.

Tried a pre-cinema dinner in Signoria the other night. We had a bruchetta and beef carpaccio, a spaghetti gamborini and a pasta dish with aubergine. All very good. Service nice. Wine fine. Didn?t strike me as overly expensive. All in all we thought it was super and will go there again pre-cinema or just for dinner generally. I am not being paid for this. I have no connection with the restaurant other than having eaten in it once, as described. I am a reasonably regular poster, I think. And I am a real person, as far as I know.

Try Playa Blanca in Lanzarote. I can recommend the Princess Yaiza. https://www.sovereign.com/holidays/spain/lanzarote/playa-blanca/hotels/princesa-yaiza-suite-hotel-resort/ The link is to Sovereign but there are several others you can get a package with, or you can book the hotel separately and sort out your own flights (which will be cheaper, but you?ll have to organise your own transfers etc). Playa Blanca is a lovely area, ideal for families with young kids. There?s a marina and nice market and a long esplanade all the way from the marina, past the Yaiza and on into the little town. There?s some lovely restaurants and the beach is one of the nicer ones on Lanzarote with white sand (unlike the volcanic black sands and hence the name, playa Blanca means white beach). The Yaiza itself is a lovely hotel, two large swimming pools, excellent kids club and activities, great food (we?ve only been b&b as prefer to go out in the evenings) there?s a mini disco etc and a show in the evenings. Nothing goes on too late either in the hotel or in the resort so it?s quiet enough by bedtime etc. Nice family, friendly vibe to the whole resort.

A bus has broken down on the Goose Green roundabout. There is a queue of busses behind it stretching most of the way back to East Dulwich station. Nothing can get past southbound. I went past at 07:15. You might want to check situation on TfL if you need a bus that way this mornjng

Thanks all. I reset the network settings on my phone and that seems to have solved the issue.

I've just moved to EE for 4g. Service keeps dropping to 'no service' all around ED. Is it a service issue or just me?

https://www.exodus.co.uk/thailand-holidays/family/jungles-beaches/fit-10197#itinerary I think it?s pretty safe for families nowadays, and no longer quite as off the beaten track as once was. This is a group tour, but you could of course make your own itinerary.

I swim at JAGS and they don't mind paddles and pull buoys and kickboards (in fact they have loads and don't mind you borrowing them which saves bringing your own) but you'll only be allowed fins if there is no one else at all in your lane. There is Windrush triathlon club there on Friday nights - you don't need to join JAGS for that, you need to join Windrush. There's a guy called Lido Mike who runs sessions at JAGS, at the Lido and at Dulwich College. Google him. ETA Southwark do Swim For Fitness sessions at ED Leisure Centre and at The Elephant and Castle. Ed pool isn't great for swim training - too hot, no deep end - but better than nothing, and the elephant is quite good. The Swim for Fitness sessions are "fin and paddle friendly".

Beckenham Spa used to have great lessons for little ones. Worth checking out.

tomskip Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I can't imagine why you would walk past a very > good primary school to go to another one further > afield. Make your life easier if you can! It only > gets more difficult and more complicated as your > children get older. This. Our daughter has just left Heber after 7 great years there. She thoroughly loved it, and so did we, we found it, overall, to be an excellent school. If I were in your position I would embrace the convenience and relax in the knowledge it's a super school with a really strong and stable senior leadership team and a great set of governors. The fact that they are being so careful in their approach to replacing David says it all.

Daughter started year 7 in September and loves it. We chose it because it's strong academically but didn't feel like an exam factory, we thought the pastoral care would be great (it is) and, more than anything else, she really wanted to go there. I wouldn't say sports are their strong point, and the school doesn't have a pool. (But ours is a club swimmer and trains 6 x per week - so that didn't matter to us). They made a big deal about single sex ed benefiting girls. For every paper supporting this, there seems to be another contradicting it. What they do make great use of is the alumni network (across all of GDST). So early days for us, but so far very pleased we chose it, and she is extremely happy - as I say, she loves it. They do several taster sessions for the girls who've applied - so worth doing those if you're seriously thinking of Syd.

The order you have suggested makes the most sense. You probably only want enough time in Hanoi to get over the jet lag and see the water puppets. 2 nights. You?ll probably find easiest to organise a trip to Halong Bay from and returning to Hanoi - I?d do 2 nights/3 days. So you?ll then have another night in Hanoi and then a day to gather supplies. The reunification express will take you overnight from Hanoi to Hue 1-2 nights Hue. Cycling there is lots of fun. Train or bus from there to Hoi An - 3-4 nights and you could move on to Da Nang for beach. There?s some very nice but not gob-smacking options. Or you could could fly down to Na Trang or to Phu Quoc for some very beautiful beaches - perhaps some of the most beautiful in the world. You could fly from there to HCMC where I think really you?ll only want a couple of days for shopping. And then fly back to Hanoi for your return flights. I don?t think you?ll be able to get all that in realistically without flying. Vietnam Airlines are excellent, very reliable, great service and they?re safe. The overnight trains are fun, once or twice, but I think most people find sleep elusive - though there?s always a friendly cocky to chat to if you find yourself awake in the wee small hours.

Go cold. Avoid cooking altogether and do assembling instead. Get a carton of gazpacho, good bread with olive oil and balsamic for dipping, some good Spanish ham, olives, anchovies, etc. Nibbles and starter done. Get some dressed crabs from Moxons. Make a good salad. Provide the same olive oil and balsamic as a dressing. Buy a tart au citron or whatever and some single cream (organic if you like). If you're pushing the boat our even further a cheese selection and a bottle of dessert wine / good sherry / port. No actual cooking involved.

Has anyone recent (last couple of years) experience of Sihanoukville? Specifically Otres beach? I am thinking of going there with children aged 12, 13 and 15. Magazine reports of relaxed resort and clean white sands appeal, but Google stick man lets you walk along the beach and frankly it looks like an absolute dive. But appreciate Google might have not been for years.

JAGS has fairly good group lessons. They also have a lot of teachers there who do one to ones. Might be worth having a couple of 1-2-1s and an assessment as to which group lessons might be best. They book out pretty quickly I think so you might already find you're on a waiting list for September. Otherwise, I'd try Beckenham Spa.

Water was on on Saturday. Maybe it's a temperature thing - or possibly we were just v lucky

If you ring or email the admissions team there they will tell you the furthest distance offered. Someone did this last year and posted it in one of the discussions about secondary admissions. I can't find the post now, but from memory it was 1,050m. That, I think, was "safe walking route". I believe that this year they are switching to "as the crow flies" distance. You're best to ring and ask them, but I'd leave it until September if you want this year's distance as I think you still get a lot of movement all through the summer holidays, right up to the start of term.