Girl Lacer has been requesting the museums, although she always describes which one she wants to go to by the play area . . . So it was Natural History Museum and the Science Museum then.
We emerged from South Kensington tube to see the normal massive queues outside the Natural History Museum and as it was getting close to lunch we decided to detour via the V&A first. The V&A has the best place on Exhibition Road to have lunch, actually it has the two best places on Exhibition Road to have lunch, the cold weather option and the nice weather option. If it’s cold, I’d recommend their cafe, I’ve written about it before, there’s a photo about midway down this post here, the food is nice (and a lot of museum food isn’t) and the rooms the cafe is housed in are the prettiest and poshest cafe rooms anywhere, they don’t look like they’ve changed since the 1800s. We went for their nice weather option today, in their courtyard, specially as we had our own food anyway (although they also have a nice cafe in the courtyard to). The courtyard is a lovely sunny place to sit, with a choice between tables and chairs, a spot of grass or -
- paddling pool side edge. Of course me and Girl Lacer had to go for a paddle!
After lunch I managed, with a spot of persuasion to have a look round V&A’s Telling Tales exhibition (and there we were just for the science museums), which was incredibly fun. Art work based on fairy tales, there was Little Red Riding Hood’s Grandmother’s bed, the Robber Baron’s Chest etc. etc. There was also a section on Heaven and Hell, with a stuffed fox with golden maggots crawling out of it’s ears, an animal skull tea pot and a lamp shade that looked like something from Dante’s Inferno, it was all rather good and the kids loved it, particularly the Heaven and Hell section, which was displayed in little rooms with cutout holes in the walls to peek through.
Then it was back on track for what we were meant to be doing, there were still massive queues outside the Natural History Museum, so we went to the Science Museum first, had a walk through their automotive and space sections and onto the ‘pattern pod’, which was popular with the kids and then up to launchpad (the interactive play area), which is a lot better than it was a few years ago, not so cramped, although it would have been nicer if a few more of the exhibits hadn’t been down for maintenance. Boy Lacer was fascinated by the infrared camera and was playing with various perspex masks which shielded heat from the camera, just showing heat through the cut out eyes and smile holes.
Then it was onto the Natural History Museum, now Girl Lacer always wants to see the dinosaurs there, so not only do you have to queue up for ages to get into the building, you then have to queue up for even longer to get into the dinosaur exhibit, where you have the privilege of being squeezed like a sardine along a tiny walkway, where you never seen anything properly and nothing ever changes anyway. So we put our foot down this time, no dinosaurs, so we were at a bit of a loose end to decide what we were going to see, so we ended up in the insect section, by which time Boy Lacer was exhausted and so was I. So, me and Boy Lacer called it a day whilst Mr. Lacer and Girl Lacer went onto the next scheduled activity, the Princess Diana Memorial Playground, about 25 minutes walks away in Kensington Gardens, I’d done the maths, by the time we were in the insect section deciding what to do next, it was just after three, it would take about half an hour to get to the playground, at least an hour’s playing (probably more), half an hour walk back, then an hour and a half of the tube and bus, doing the playground meant having tea out, going home in rush hour and back after bedtime and considering the mouse under my bed has kept me awake for a third night, nope, wasn’t having that and Boy Lacer didn’t look in too fit a state to have that either. So, me and Boy Lacer headed back to the tube station (which did mean me having to handle Boy Lacer and his pushchair on the numerous steps there on my own, but a price worth paying) and we got home about ten to five, just in time for tea and now I have a tired but more importantly content Boy Lacer laying next to be on the sofa watching Charlie and Lola and asking me when it’s bedtime. Girl Lacer on the other hand was last seen in pirate’s crow nest.
