The next step - 'Get out and Do' at Comic Con

For two months now I've been not buying unecessary 'things' and have also been working on decluttering the house and trying to make my life more streamlined. So far, so good. After the initial decluttering push, I've slowed down a bit, but am gradually chipping away at it, one messy cupboard or drawer at a time. But a couple of weeks ago I started thinking - what next? The idea was to clear some space in my life to do something new. To use my fledgling analogy, so far I have been busy defeathering the nest, but it's time to get out and start do a bit of flying.

So time to start on the next challenge - 'Get out and Do'.  Get out of the house and do something new or interesting.

Half term has been a great time for this as it;s a chance to get out with my teenagers. Part of the drive for this whole project comes from the realization that we're way past going down to the park to feed the ducks (although the puppy does add a new twist on that one..) and that we need to find new things to do together that will engage us all.

So with that in mind, on the morning of the first Saturday of the hoildays I find myself on a train to London with Milady de Winter from The Musketeers, Velma from Scooby Doo, and Bigby from I'm not quite sure what. For those of you in the know, you're right, we're off to MCM Comic Con in London.

I hadn't even heard of Comic Con until we discovered The Big Bang Theory on telly a couple of years ago. And even after we laughed at Leonard and the boys getting their car stolen while dressed in full Star Trek costume, it hadn't occurred to me that there were Comic Cons in the UK, and that you could just go along for the day in normal clothes. So when one of my daughter's friends went along last year, I was intrigued and thought that my youngest son would enjoy it, so when we had the chance last spring to go along together as a family, we took the opportunity and had a great day out.

For those of you not in the know, MCM Comic Con describes its events as 'The UK's biggest modern pop culture events'. If you like sci-fi, YouTube, Manga, gaming, fantasy, steam punk or just like to sit and watch people walk past in the weirdest costumes imaginable, it's the place to go.

It's also a great place to let teenagers off the leash. As the convention is all under one roof, once we had found our way around it was easy to let everyone wander around on their own if they wanted, with regular meet ups to feed the teens. So this time, while my teenagers roamed the halls stalking Youtubers, I was able to go a bit more mainstream and sat in on a really interesting Q&A session with the about half the cast of 'Humans' including the incredibly beautiful Gemma Chan. This was followed by another Q&A with a  number of writers from Dr Who including the very talented Steven Moffat. 

So, if anyone is looking for an interesting day out with teens - try Comic Con. You might even be tempted to dress up as My Little Pony.