Royal Ilford

She's the one in the car with the blue hat on!

Last week the Queen paid a visit to Ilford and Flo and I went along with some friends to see if we could catch a glimpse. It turned out that it wasn't that hard, we rocked up, got a spot along the route, right at the front of the barriers and got a clear shot of her as she drove into the park. Flo had absolutely no idea what was going on but enjoyed waving her flag lots. It will be nice to tell her in years to come that she saw the Queen on her Jubilee tour.

Ilford isn't known for being a beauty spot but Valentines Park really is gorgeous. Our little family like to go for a Sunday morning play on the swings and walk around the Mansion, which is where they film the BBC's The Great British Bake Off, don't you know! So the weekend after the Queens visit we came back to the park and lots of the attractions from the Queens visit were still there.

There was the Damien Hurst spotted Mini, be guarded by a very nice security guard, however I didn't envy his job as he had to keep hundreds of sticky fingered school kids away from the very expensive art work!

There was also an amazing tent called The Big Book Bubble which took you literally into the world of famous children's books. You could crawl through the fruit that the Very Hungry Caterpillar had munched through, go in search of the Grufflao and you had to enter through the Wardrobe from Narnia, ducking through fur coats into a forest of snowy Christmas trees. It really was magical.

I sadly didn't have my camera with me, but walking round to the other side of the tent while the Mr and Flo listened to a story sung by a crazy man with a guitar, I found something that I just had to take pictures of, so I used my camera phone, I apologise for the picture quality in advance.

A group called The Materialistics were exhibiting their work called Once Upon a Time which was a gorgeous collection of wall murals and 3D knitted items all from famous children's stories. 

There was the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel, The Jungle Book, Where The Wild Things Are, Peter Rabbit to name but a few! 

It was great to see knitting in the spotlight at an even like this along with other hand crafts such as felting and embroidery. The work that had gone into the pieces was phenomenal and its such a shame that the exhibition wasn't there for longer.