Sometimes I’m a terrible Mother. Why just last Friday, I let my beautiful girl skip school for the day and we headed off to London. Our original plan was to go to Madame Tussauds and have some fun but after discovering that it would cost £25 for me and £18 for Chick, which I’m just not willing to pay, we decided that we would go to the Science Museum (that way we can pass it off to school as an educational trip!!!). One of the things I love the most about London is that all the museums are free, it’s beyond cool as well as being a cheap and educational day out!!!
We made a flying visit to the Natural History Museum to catch a couple of exhibits that we missed last time and visited the Dinosaurs (again!!). We sat and had some lunch in the beautiful sunshine. (I’m not sure what’s going on with the good old English weather but after having the central heating on last week we are now back in t-shirts and flip flops!!). Then off next door to the Science Museum. Now I’ll tell you a secret that not everybody knows…..I am a Geek. Yes, I know I hide it well by being so cool but deep down I may as well be in the Big Bang Theory!!!!
(As a complete aside – I was sure that I recognised the people sitting next to us at lunch but I couldn’t think where from, although I thought it might be off the T.V. It bugged me for the rest of the day and then in the middle of the night I woke up and had a Eureka moment and realised it was a guy from EastEnders and I’ve been kicking myself ever since for not taking a sneaky picture and selling it to a trashy magazine!!!)
Anyway…back to being a Geek and educational stuff!!! The museum is set over five floors and knowing that we would never manage to see it all on one visit, we spent the first 10 minutes arguing over which were the coolest things to see. I was all about Space and the Aeroplanes (Oh planes….my geekiness reaches a whole new level when it comes to military or old fashioned aircraft…..no I don’t know where it comes from and yes I do understand how sad I am. It’s one of my Geek secrets that up until now only my Brothers and JoJo knew) Chick was all about anything interactive and the gift shop!!! Oh wait I forgot the incessant whining….actually to be fair she has been really sick for the last three or four days so I guess just this once I will have to let her off with a whining sickness pass!
So first up we did Space. There was a replica of the ship that the Americans landed on the moon and various spacesuits. Chick pretended to be interested in the information about Constellations but she was more interested in pushing the buttons to make the computer flash. She was fascinated by the whole concept of going to the toilet in space and was amazed that they have to wear nappies on space walks. This is her wondering if the man behind her has one on:
Next up was the house through the ages which was the history of gadgets in the home. Now when I see the word history I automatically assume this to mean long ago (my definition of long ago is anything before I was born…..scientific, huh!!!) The first couple of items were the toilet and the microwave oven. Chick was impressed with how much things have changed and ‘improved’ over the years and I was thinking that this was pretty cool until we moved to washing machines and there in the historic section sat the Twin Tub that my Mum used to have when we were kids. Holy Shit! How did I get so old that stuff in a museum is from my childhood?? Worse was to come when we moved on to vacuum cleaners and record players. Yep, there it was again, my childhood/teenage years in a museum….anyone sensing the trauma yet???? Then we carried on to computers. Remember this?
That’s right…it’s Ping Pong on the computer. The sad thing is that I remember sneakily playing this when we first started Computing at school as teenagers. Seriously I am not that old, right? Chick was very amused by my freaking out and mentioning several times that none of this stuff is old enough to be in a museum so we moved to the Planes to take my mind off of it!! I won’t bore you with all the aeroplane pictures that I took but this is the one we’re gonna buy when we win the lottery:
After several hours Very quickly Chick got bored of me talking about planes and pointing out interesting information so onwards and upwards to the interactive gallery. It was completely the most fun and even I understood how some scientific stuff works!! The staff at the museum have the official job title of ‘Explainers’ and they help the kids to do experiments and describe stuff better than I ever could. We spent a good while here trying everything out and taking loads of photos. I think the Infrared one of Chick is one of my favourites. It picks up the heat from your body and the hottest parts are shown as white:
She helped the ‘Explainer’ with one of the experiments which is obviously very exciting when you are six and three quarters. Then the kids had to draw pictures of their own inventions for the picture board. Not sure why the kids get to have all the fun so I did my own:
It might sound really girly and silly but if I could invent them, I would totally be a Billionaire. My picture now sits pathetically proudly on the wall amongst the brilliant artwork of the other children.
It was a totally educational day right? She would never have learned all that in one day at school!!!!!
Just the Two of us 
Sounds totally awesome! I wish the museums here were free all the time.
Glad to hear you’re a geek. I’m a self-proclaimed nerd myself. =)
Bill knows exactly how you feel. When we went to the Smithsonian in Washington DC, he saw the furniture that was in his home growing up & then in the Aerospace Museum, there was the Minuteman Missile that he worked on in the Air Force!! His secret military job was now in the museum! I made him stand in front of it so I could take a picture.
No wonder you & Dad enjoyed so many trips together – you share his geekiness & enjoyment of museum stuff. I’m with Chick on this one.
Awwww, I love that museum too! Went with Dru one time and that heat machine certainly showed where my hot and cold bits were…..i refused to walk in front of it again after that, ahem, moment :o( But it seems that you did not visit the carpet shoes?!?! Is this really so, i’m shocked and deeply disappointed ;o) xxx