One fine day at the museums…
Sunday, October 7th, 2012The day started out by emptying about 15 litres of water from the dehumidifier and the two large buckets in our room. Clearly it had rained most of the night, and clearly the leak in the roof was a significant one – thankfully our temporary setup caught all the drips and we actually had a reasonable night’s sleep. By the time we had finished breakfast the day was actually shaping up to be clear and cool. Another simple day today – spend the day between the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum and the V&A (Victoria and Albert) Museum. Simply put, impressive museums with some great interactive displays, although we did think that the life-size T-Rex (which had enormous queues all day!) was a tad over-rated, but still great to see. The Science Museum definitely won out over the Natural History museum (which one of the children remarked was like a dead zoo!). Clearly not too many budding entomologists or ornithologists in the family? Having said that, the highlight of the Natural History Museum was a half hour talk by one of the resident scientists about mosquitoes. I sooo know that sounds terribly boring… but it wasn’t! Trust us :-). If you really want to know what sounds boring, then MamaBear wins the award for spending twenty minutes looking at four socks at the V&A. You will have to ask her in a comment if you want further explanation of how four simple socks could capture one’s attention for that length of time :-). In the end, that is the beauty of extensive museums like these – there is just so much variation that everyone is bound to find something to capture their imagination and interests.
MamaBear’s rebuttal:
If a talk on mosquitoes was their highlight, does my day sound so bad after all?…..I saw crypts and smocking and ironwork (acres of it Grandpa said) and frescoes and a virginal and alabaster carvings and Constables and the most awesome Raphael cartoons and the ensuing tapestry made from one of them and and and…….
We ended the day by a quick after-dark trip on the metro to Piccadilly Circus to “catch the lights”. Not quite Times Square, but certainly a boisterous and merry crowd were gathering at the Circus!
rayres