Museum Day

We had a nice trip today up to town to take in a museum or two and meet up with a blogging friend, who was in town for a short time (she lives in Finland). It was a nice, sunny (mostly) day, and although not hot, it was warm enough to go without heavy coats (finally) which is always nice when spending a lot of time in museums, etc. And it meant I got to wear my fabulous jacket which my grandma bought for me when I was in San Diego in the autumn and which I've had barely a chance to wear as it's been too cold. I'll be wearing it a lot this spring, though - you can see it in the photo at the a bit below - see why I like it?



Here's Alex being cute in the queue outside the Natural History Museum - we started there, with a quick trip through the dinosaurs as a pre-reward for being dragged through the V&A in the afternoon; we then moved on to a less crowded area of the NHM - the mammals - it wasn't empty by any means, but not quite so heaving as the dinosaurs. Here's Alex with a panda.

And Olivia with some dolphins, which are her favourite. On the right, you can see the model of the blue whale, along with some other cetaceans and elephants, etc. It's a nice exhibit, I think - slightly old-fashioned, but in a good way.

After the NHM, we had some lunch on a bench outside, until it started to sprinkle rain, then we went inside the V&A, where we were meeting Jen, and finished up in the lunchroom there. At the V&A we decided to hit a few specific bits, and then sort of wander - we started in the fashion room, which is always fun, and then headed off to find the glass exhibit, passing through the architecture bit (which I really like) on our way. Then we wandered off through the ironwork gallery, hit the interesting displays of tin boxes and keys and locks, and the musical instruments gallery before deciding to experience the cup of tea gallery - and then Jen went off to see the China exhibit and we went home - Alex was very tired by then, but bearing up well, bless him. This photo was taken by him, actually - not bad for a 5 year old!

I really like the V&A - always something interesting to look at, and such good variety. It's a little grown up for Alex, but even he seemed to have a fairly good time. I think he particularly liked the juice in the cafe, but hey, he's 5... Here's a fun sculpture thingy in the entrance, and a sculpture in the glass gallery - also a glass work, which looks like cherry blossoms or something like that - I really like it. And one final sculpture, also from another entrance hall - this is a piece by Dale Chihuly (not sure of the spelling) - isn't it fun? Lots of photos today - I was going to put them on flickr, but it was acting up, so they are all here - hopefully not too photo heavy for you all...