A much slower and later start to the day today- by the time we'd put in a couple of Skype calls to check how Ethie went on his first school orientation and to show Mum & Dad that the new powercord really does work (and to have a lovely chat), we were behind in our research for the day. Lucky we stopped long enough to do our research as all the things we had planned for the day fell through. Osterley House was closed (for the next 2 weeks- so totally off the agenda for good now) and there were major problems on the tube line that we were going to take to the Sherlock Holmes museum. Since we were thinking about museums, we decided to just go to Museum row and head into whichever took our fancy.
Off to South Kensington we headed and decided that the Museum of Natural History would love us to pay it a visit. We soon found out that it's half term here as every other person in London and their children had also thought they would be there too. We joined a long line and waited patiently for our turn to go in. We spent some lovely time with thousands of other people in the mammals section and the human body section. Though I would have loved to report back on the dinosaur exhiition to Ethie- we were not quite up to the 3 hour line up. We also decided against braving the gift shop and the cafe and headed next door to see if the Victoria and Albert was any quieter.
It was slightly less crazy in the V & A so we decided to brave the cafe for lunch. Wraps/bagettes/salads and coffee later and we were ready to immerse ourselves in some culture. We covered pretty much the whole of the bottom floor- spending time in the South Asia, China, Japan, Middle East and European collections.
We even found a place to take more silly photos of me trying on a replica robe. We seem to have no trouble coming up with these moments, even in the V & A. There were a couple of exhibitions that look really interesting (a Hollywood Costume and Ballgown display) but there were no tickets available on the day. Thus are the perils of not pre booking!!
Time to go- though we did pause to admire the ice rink they are setting up outside the Natural History Museum, complete with fairy lights strung through all the massive trees and a real decorated Christmas tree in the centre. It opens on Friday and we just know it would look magical. That would be a pretty amazing place to ice skate on my big girls!!
A thrown together dinner of sausages/cherry tomatoes and cous cous rounded off an excellent day.
