Natural History

As its half term today we all took the day off and got a cheap train to London to go to the natural history museum. I was particularly excited as the International Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is currently there. We were also hoping to see the dinosaurs.

In fact we were lucky to even get on the train as Girl defiance went through the roof this morning, which ended up with all of us falling out. Some how we managed to pull it back and got to the station in time.

To occupy the little ones I got them a little toy each. A Hello Kitty figure for Girl and a Playmobile skateboarder for Boy. Shortly after getting on the train Boy announced that he wanted to go home to play with his skateboarder on the chair with the rampy armrest.

After the standard fun with two little ones on a train for two hours we were then fighting the crowds on the tube and then at a very busy natural history museum. As we queued to get in we heard the dinosaur queue was already at an hour. Once in we saw that the queue for them was even longer. Our train tickets combined with bedtime meant we did not have time to waste in queues so we knew straight away the dinos were not going to be seen today.

Boy had been very excited about seeing the dinosaurs but took this decision well, responding with the fact that he still wanted to go home. We headed on up to the photography exhibition which was excellent as expected. I have been to this exhibition for the last two years and am always blown away by it. This is the first time I have seen it with the little ones which made for a different experience as I could not be as attentive to the photos as I would have liked on account of having to be attentive to them. That said they seemed to enjoy it and I think it was a nice experience for them, even if Boy just really wanted to be at home playing with his skateboard toy.

After a lunch that consisted of a lot of cheese puffs we had a look around the human biology bit, the half term tent bit and the cocoon bit before racing back to the station to head for home. As we left the museum that was still packed Boy asked if we were going home. We told him yes and his face beamed.

We had to wait at Vicoria for a little while for our train to arrive. As we stood there we were suddenly face to face with an old friend. The night I met Wife this friend was out with her and in those early days of our relationship we would ofen go out in a group with this friend and others. A year or so later she then moved back home to Jersey. We have seen her a couple of time since but over recent years have completely lost touch. She and her boyfriend were on their way back from holiday so it was an incredible chance meeting.

Setting off on our long train journey home we had to lose our table and seats as we were in the wrong part of the train and were left standing as the train got fuller and fuller. Just as it almost hit full capacity Boy looked up at us and said "Done Poo", shortly after this the smell hit us. I took him to the toilets where we could hear someone chatting on their phone so we knocked until they came out. Once cleaned up and with a change of trousers (Boy not me) we eventually got some seats and got through the journey hair with only a few hair pulling incidents over who got to watch Peppa Pig on Mummy's phone.

Our street was half alive with Halloween when we got home, so after a quick play with the skateboard both little ones got fancy dressed and we popped out to upset the neighbours into giving us sweets. This was the first time the little ones have trick or treated, funnily enough the first time for me too. It was quite fun on the small scale of just our neighbours, but I still prefer the giving out to tricker or treaters as it is a bit more fun. The little ones really enjoyed it too, racing to the door each time they heard it knock to dish out some sweets. The racing got a little too much when Girl flattened Boy to get there first but after this they did calm down a bit briefly.

So after a pink bath (Wife took Girl to Lush today to buy a bath treat, to tempt Girl into better bathtime behaviour, it worked well too) and on a sugar rush it was off to bed. Thankfully even with all the sugar the exhaustion of the day won through as both of them went off pretty quick. A good day out, but it took a lot of work, after a particularly bad start. I am not sure we will do it again for a while, not at least without the guarantee of dinosaurs anyway. Not that it matters, clearly we just need to stay in with a toy and chair to be happy anyway.