the space between the lines

The greater noise and higher heat didn't have too much effect on the ease of dragging the wingpiglet round the museum though the old bit is now too cramped to be able to use a pushchair unless absolutely necessary, so when he started getting stroppy and tired we picked up the buggy and went through to the new bit, nice and quiet and cool in comparison to the overcrowded refurbished sections. It's hard to tell if he's listening sometimes but he had some things explained to him anyway seeing as the wee man in the blue boiler suit had gone to the trouble of setting the steam engines going despite the relative paucity of visitors.

Whilst many of the exhibits will be mysterious until he's old enough to pay proper attention to the information cards he definitely knows what a radiator as as he has one at home, on top of which he tries to put things. He tried to put things on top of my parents' radiators too but then discovered that when things fall down the back it's exceedingly difficult to get them out as there's some boxed-up pipework at the bottom which prevents things which have falled down the back from emerging at the bottom. He didn't have anything to hand to put on top of any of these so just settled for slapping at them and grinning. He was quite excited by them when we popped up briefly on the re-opening day yesterday so it'll be handy if he retains his interest as it's far easier to control someone who only wants to toddle over to the nearest radiator rather than one who wants to bimble randomly around. Due to the large amounts of people and limited ground-level visibility the boy was reined at all times when on his feet which apparently attracted askance looks when we were in the new bashing-things-to-make-noises room on the ground floor. Like his sunhat, the more he gets used to wearing the rein-harness the less likely he is to object to it, which will be useful when his directional control and ability to respond to simple instructions improve to the point where we can walk him along the street to where we want to go rather than just to the nearest interesting bit of dust or litter.