A museum day out in London

Harry loves a museum, so when we were planning a day out for his birthday a London museum trip was the obvious choice. We last did a family London trip in January 2020 before Covid, and we were also keen to visit the British Museum to see the real Parthenon Marbles after our holiday in Athens last year. 

We decided to spend the morning at the British Museum and then head to the Science Museum for the afternoon, another favourite that we've visited many times over the years. We booked free tickets online for both of these museums but it didn't seem too busy, so I think you can probably visit without booking especially if it's first thing or later on in the day.

At the British Museum we started with the Egyptian collections. There's a lot to see! Although currently some exhibits like the Rosetta Stone have been temporarily moved to a paid exhibition. We saw the mummies of course, before heading to the Greek sculptures. The Parthenon Marbles exhibition area is nicely done, but you can't help thinking that the marbles should probably be back in Athens. 

I can see the argument both ways, because if they hadn't been removed to the museum then they probably wouldn't be in such good condition now. But now that there is an excellent new Acropolis museum in the very shadow of the Parthenon, with spaces for the missing marbles, it really does feel as though they should all be displayed there together. 

We stopped for a quick sandwich and then headed to the Science Museum. Mia isn't such a museum fan, so my husband took her to the shops for a break while I made a start with Harry. When we arrived I asked Harry where he wanted to start and he answered 'with the boats!' I couldn't work out what he meant until I realised that he was talking about the play area in the basement of the museum - The Garden - where there is a huge water play table with boats. He spent many happy hours playing there in the past when he was tiny! But sadly I had to break it to him that it's only for ages 6 and under - he was so disappointed!

Luckily there is plenty to see at the Science Museum and so he wasn't sad for long. We started with a new temporary (and free) exhibition - Injecting Hope: The race for a Covid-19 vaccine. It was really good, very approachable with just enough science to make it interesting without being overwhelming. There was also lots of memorabilia to see like home testing kits, signage from vaccine centres, even the penguin T-shirt worn by the first lady to receive the vaccine! I must admit that it did bring back quite a lot of emotions to see the timeline to a vaccine laid out like that and remembering all the anxiety that was around, especially in the early days of the pandemic before the vaccine was developed.

Then we walked back through one of Harry's favourite areas, the Exploring Space area. We are pretty familiar with this area as we've visited it many times over the years, but there are still lots of interesting things to see. I like all the areas about daily life in space and the future of space travel. Then I was starting to get quite tired legs, so I was happy to have a sit down and let Harry wander around the Mathematics gallery before we headed up to Flight. Harry can spend ages here, so I had to speed him up a bit! My favourite exhibit is the cut-through section of a Boeing 747 showing two floors of seating and the cargo hold. It's fascinating, I can stand looking at it for ages!

We did a quick sweep through some of the other galleries but we couldn't possibly see everything and we were all a bit museumed out. It was time to head home, despite Harry's longing glances as we walked past the Natural History Museum. We'll have to save a visit there for another day! 

Young Voices 2022 at the O2 Arena

Last week we made our third trip to London to watch the Young Voices choir perform at the O2. In 2018 we watched Harry perform, in 2020 both children sang in a concert that they managed to sneak in just before the lockdown, and this year we took Harry along to watch while Mia performed with the choir.

This year marked the 25th Young Voices concert after the show was cancelled last year. This show had already been postponed twice from earlier in the year, so it was quite a relief to see it finally take place.

We arrived at the O2 early, so we took the tube over to Stratford for a walk around the Olympic Park and had dinner in the shopping centre. Then we joined the crowds of proud parents, relatives and friends, and made our way into the arena and found our seats. Our school was on the opposite side and we weren't able to get close enough to talk to Mia, but we could just about see her. We waved frantically and were pretty sure that she was waving back.

It was a great show as always. There was a stunning opening moment when the lights went out and you could see all the children waving little lights in the dark, before the show started with O Fortuna. The choir was accompanied by dancers, singers and musicians. The arena lighting was amazing and really complemented the performances, and when all the singers joined in with synchronised dance movement it looked fantastic across the arena. 

It amused me that most of the parents there were fully making the most of a night out without their children. There was constant traffic from the audience seats to the bar, people were coming back to their seats carrying trays of beer and full bottles of wine. The glass of wine that I had beforehand definitely helped my moves in the audience participation rave segment!

We had another brilliant night out watching the concert, and I'm quite sad that my children won't be taking part again as they move to the senior school. If your child ever has the chance to take part in a Young Voices concert then I'd absolutely recommend it, it's a brilliant experience for them.

Free small London Underground logo cross stitch design pattern

I've been busy working on my cross stitch map over the last few weeks. Now that I've filled in all the countries that I've visited, I've been coming up with lots of individual designs to represent places that I've travelled to. Some of them are pictures of places around the world, and others are symbols which represent different countries or cities.

I've shared a couple of my designs already, and so today I'm sharing the design that I came up with for a mini cross stitch London Underground logo. This small version of the logo would be ideal to use on greetings cards, bookmarks or as part of a larger London or United Kingdom themed sampler.

This cross stitch design is very simple. The only colours of thread that you need are red, blue, white and black. I stitched the design with the strand numbers as follows:

Cross stitch - 2 strands
White lettering - 3 strands
Black outline - 1 strand

The cross stitch is done first, then the lettering and back stitch around the edges are added. I chose to complete the background in white but if you are working on white fabric then you might decide that it's not necessary.

Here is the design as it looks stitched on my sampler. I'm really pleased with how my cross stitch map is building up, I'd love to have it finished by the end of the year but I still have a long way to go!

If you liked this pattern you might also like my other travel themed cross stitch designs:

Free mini Disney castle cross stitch pattern
Free cruise ship cross stitch pattern

Visiting The London Dungeons with small children

When we bought our Merlin passes at the beginning of the year, we knew which attractions would be most likely to interest our little ones, and to be honest the London Dungeon wasn't one that we'd really considered. We thought that at just 7 and 4 they were a bit too young and it's really recommended for ages 12 plus. But we had to collect our passes from the main desk there, which involved me and the children hanging around in the entrance for a little while. To my surprise Harry in particular was really interested and was desperate to visit straight away. We couldn't fit it in on that trip, so when we had a day out in London a couple of weeks ago we decided to see what they thought of it.

Ram and I visited together a few years ago when it was in a different location. The format is still the same - you go around as a group through a series of different rooms which are hosted by actors, mostly playing historical characters, that give you some information about particularly gruesome parts of London's history. There are also plenty of special effects to bring it to life, and make you jump! I must admit that it's not a format that particularly appeals to me - I do spend the whole time hiding at the back hoping that I'm not going to be picked on!

We were in the first group of the day and although the visits are timed we were straight in. It was quite a large group and so sometimes it was a bit difficult to get near the front so that the children could see. I think because it was quite dark the other visitors couldn't necessarily see that there were small children there to let them through, and they were too nervous to head for the front without us. They were easily the youngest in the group, the only other children were older teenagers.

There are a couple of rides on the tour. The first is The Tyrant - a boat ride which is a journey along the Thames to the Tower of London. Harry was a bit scared during this as it is very dark, and I think because the entrance is like a theme park ride he was expecting it to drop down a waterfall at any minute! But it's actually very tame, just a bit noisy. There is a height restriction on the ride, and guests smaller than 1 metre can't ride.

The second ride comes at the very end - Drop Dead: Drop Ride to Doom is a freefall drop ride. Unfortunately the minimum height restriction is 1.4 metres so the children weren't able to go on it (although to be honest I think we would have struggled as Harry in particular was looking pretty fearful as we approached). 

My favourite room was the Ten Bells Pub, where the landlady told us all about Jack the Ripper with a few surprises along the way! Harry was particularly interested in the Guy Fawkes story and Mrs Lovett's pie shop, and Mia was just happy tagging along and taking it all in. There was lots to keep them interested, with the scary bits broken up by comedy. Although the children were a bit nervous at first, once they realised that it was only funny scary rather than dark scary they were fine.

The tour finishes in a recreation of an old pub, where you are given a token that you can exchange for a drink. We were first through as we'd skipped the drop ride so it was nice and empty, and a good opportunity to sit down for a rest while a piano played to itself next to us.

In general, as long as they were close to us, the children enjoyed the visit. They were a little scared of the dark and unexpected things jumping out at them, but nothing that will traumatise them for life. If we had been buying separate tickets then I would probably have waited until they were older so that they could get a little bit more out of the attraction, but as an extra Merlin pass activity I'm glad that we took them.

Photographs courtesy of London Dungeon. We visited using our Merlin passes. Entry prices start at £19.95 but if you are interested in visiting it's worth checking the website as there are lots of different ticket options available, including advance purchase tickets and combination tickets with other Merlin attractions.