Image by *Tom* via Flickr
Boy Lacer starts school tomorrow and one of the things I hate about the thought of both kids being in school is that we can no longer go and do anything when it’s quiet, as being restricted to weekends and school holidays, of course the whole world is out and about then with us as well. It’s a hazard I suppose of living in London, but at the weekends and holidays everywhere is crowded, during the working week on the other hand, you can go out with small(ish) kids and not have your hair turn prematurely grey. So to ‘celebrate’ Boy Lacer’s last day of freedom, we caught the tube into town and went to visit the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs. Now I haven’t taken the kids to the Natural History Museum for quite a while and when we have been I’ve avoided the dinosaurs like the plague, as being one of the last few free family days out in London (as opposed to somewhere you’ll have to pay £60+ to get the family in) it takes about 2 hours to queue to get in during the holidays and then another hour to queue to see the dinosaurs, which to be honest never ever change anyway. You can no longer enjoy the splendour of the entrance hall with the dinosaur in either, as it’s almost as crowded as the tube station you’ve just staggered out of to get there. But none of the above applies if you get to see the museum on a weekday out of the school holidays. We didn’t have to queue to get in *shock*, we walked straight into the dinosaurs *double shock*, we weren’t herded like cattle along the little walkway to see the T-rex *and I may actually be enjoying seeing the dinosaurs for once*. Anyway after we saw the dinosaurs (and I’d assured Boy Lacer multiple times that no, they weren’t going to eat him), Boy Lacer wanted to go and see the Human Body exhibit, which he actually seemed to enjoy more. Now I hadn’t seen the Human Body exhibit for even longer than I’d last seen the dinosaurs and it was slightly disappointing to see that the exhibit has not changed at all from the days I remember going round it as a kid (where it was my favourite exhibit back then), some of the clothes the people in the pictures in the exhibit are beginning to deserve a place in the V&A next door, if they ever hold an exhibit on early 80s fashions. However I guess the Human Body doesn’t change much.
After that we caught the tube back home again, Boy Lacer had also wanted to go shopping on his last day (I think he shares my fondness of trips round the supermarket with him to), so we went to buy more packed lunch stuff and then made our way back home properly.
