Let's go fly a kite, enchantment in Hampstead

And send it soaring!!!

Living in Hampstead means living out a little bit of my childhood dreams. 

Julie Andrews is definitely a guest at my dream dinner party, I grew up with a strong love for Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp and love nothing more than passing this love on to my sweet girl now too. 

P.L Travers was an Australian living in Hampstead when she wrote Mary Poppins and there are little bits of it trickled throughout the book/movie.

I've always felt lucky to be living in Hampstead, but the little spoon-full-of-sugar that is sprinkled over NW3  makes living here feel a little bit enchanted. 

Madeleine is still a little young  but I hope one day she'll look back on her childhood with a little sparkle in her eye. 

We live right around the corner from the house that inspired ...Admiral Booms' house;

...Maddie spent last winter tottering around in a very similar coat to Jane Banks;

...and a week ago we went flying a kite at Parliament Hill, which is affectionately known as Kite Hill. 

It is thought that this is where PL Travers intended Jane and Michael Banks go to send their kites soaring, and so we thought where better to take Maddie for her first Kiteing, than this magical place, up where the air is clear.  

Situated in the highest peak of Hampstead Heath, Parliament Hill has beautiful views over London and this particularly rainy and windy morning was the perfect opportunity to take out our homemade kite!

I made this kite using contact paper (the kind we used to cover our school books in) and used some of my colourful confetti that I use to fill my balloons with. It was so easy to make, but next time I would make it a little larger! I searched all the thousands of kites on Pinterest and found a tutorial that was pretty much identical to what I did (and how it turned out too! Its impossible to be the first person with an idea isn't it?!) and so if you want to make your own kite, have a read of Life Lesson Plans.

We had so much fun teaching Maddie how to fly a kite, and were so proud when she got hers up in the air a few times! I'd forgotten how much fun simple joys like this could be. And now Maddie can sing "Lets all fly.....kite.........lets all......fly kite and..... soaaaaaaring" and knows exactly what she's singing about. 

Is this the start of a lifelong love of Mary Poppins too? I sure hope so!