893I’ve had a few days of work this past week, mostly spent around home, however on Wednesday we decided to take the children up to London for the first time. We bought a family railcard for the trip. Although this meant paying for one of the two children when both would be normally be free, the saving on our adult tickets meant that we almost broke even on this one trip and we should hopefully get more use out of the card than that. We arrived at Waterloo around half-ten and decided to do a bit of sightseeing en-route to a primary destination: the Natural History Museum. We went past the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and through St James Park to Buckingham Palace. Although we arrived just in time for the Changing of the Guard, sadly they only perform every other day during the winter and this was an off day. We were, however, overtaken by some Horse Guards and then, as we reach Hyde Park, were passed by two Royal carriages. It was then on past the Serpentine, the Albert Memorial and the Royal Hall to arrive at our destination just in time to check out the restaurant. Christine and I both enjoyed our lunch. Unfortunately we enjoyed most of the children’s lunches as well!
Emma was keen to see the dinosaurs after a previous encounter at the Pitt Rivers in Oxford. We then went on to look at the mammals (including the life size blue whale) and the creepy crawlies. Duncan also seemed to love the museum although that may just have been the chance to run freely from one brightly lit case to the next. There was bright sunshine when we emerged but we dived down in to the underground (all part of the experience) back to Westminster and then walked back to Waterloo, just about beating the commuter rush back home.
There are a few photos on Flickr. I would have taken more but the auto-focus on my kit lens seems to have packed in. Thankfully it’s still under warranty.