On Thursday 29th October, George and I visited the Natural History Museum in London. Out of all the places in the world, this has to be Georges favourite place to be. Emily was filming with friends so I had a Mum and Son day. The train journey was nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s what you do on your journey that’s the most important thing. We started playing “I Spy”, but that gets a bit boring after a while, so instead we played the “Alphabet Game”. This can consist of any subject, Boys names, Girls names, Animals. You take it in turns for each letter of the alphabet. It gets rather interesting when you get up to “X”!! We then did Counties of the World. This is a fun one. The rules are the same, but with a slight difference. If there are 1-5 counties beginning with that letter you have to name just one, 6-10 you name two, 11-15 you name 3 and so on. There are a lot for “M” and “S”. George ended up with both of those. In contrast there are no counties beginning with “X”, only one for “Y” (do you know what it is without looking?) and two for “Z”!! It’s a fun game for all ages. We finally arrived at the Museum and the queue to get in was biblical!! But it moved fairly quickly so it was ok. We continued with our games and the time flew by. There were lots of very impatient parents with their children, and lots on moaning kids. I know that queuing isn’t much fun but you need to make it interesting and play a game like we did. We finally got in and were greeted in the Earth Hall by a baby Stegosaurus. At about 4-5 meters long, yes it was a baby, but still huge!!

Baby Stegosaurus! She’s watching us all as we go past.

We then went up the escalator and through the world to the Earthquakes and Volcanoes area. Every time we go, we always go to the same bits, but if that’s what the kids want to see, then I’m not complaining. We went on the Kobe Earthquake simulator. The TV footage looks very scary, and I wouldn’t like to be in a real earthquake. We then went to see “Human Biology”. Last time Emily didn’t like this section (she was at that age), but George, maybe being a boy, was fascinated with everything. There was a short 6 minute programme on how babies develop in their mums tummies. Like it’s that easy. It then stopped before the birth bit. I said to George it’s like Jurassic Park “Oooh ahhh, that’s how it always start. Then later there’s running and um, screaming”. We then went and found a quiet spot (by the monkeys) to have some lunch. Being the cheapskate I am, we took our own lunch. Once we’d finished we then continued on our quest, and visited the Creepy Crawlies section. I love the house with all the bugs in. Some are good and some are bad. It makes you want to rush home to make sure there aren’t any lurking in your cupboards. George loves the large scorpion.

The giant moving Scorpion. Mind or he’ll sting you.

A bit of sad news the ant colony is no more. Apparently the Queen ant died, so the rest of the colony then fails and the ants die. They’re waiting for another Queen to arrive soon. It’s the first time we’ve ever seen them like that. We then went to view the Mammals. They’re in the process of moving the Blue Whale so there’s a lot of scaffolding around it at the moment. We saw the Elephants, Polar Bears, Hippos and all the rest. The once that was done (and we’d had another little sit down) we then queued up to see the dinosaurs. Again the queue was epic, but it moved surprisingly quickly. We again played the “Alphabet Game”, but this time we had to name dinosaurs. I’m pleased to report that I did incredibly well, even George was impressed. So he should have been, I’m a cool mum!! The moving T Rex is amazing, and very loud. As we were waiting to see it, a little boy in front of us asked his dad “Are they real dinosaurs?” The innocents of the young!! A very lovely man took our picture underneath the T Rex head which was very kind of him.

Aaaahhhh!

By this time we were exhausted so headed back to the station to work our way home. George had been so looking forward to this day all half term, I know he enjoyed it….and so did I.