Day 133: Wicked science

05/12/2021

It was an early start to the day as Dad almost tumbled out of bed with a firm kick in the back from Eloise who had strategically wiggled her way up and into the middle last night. The room we have is small and the only spot for Lachlan’s cot was directly in front of the wee radiator. This meant we could not crank the heating without baking Lachlan. Eloise was glad we had not forgotten the advent calendar and Lachlan was hungry from the get-go.

After some morning hugs, we wrangled the troops and were off for their first Underground ride “mind the gap”. As you could imagine, Eloise was excited and had to jump out of the pram for the full experience. Although, she was unsure when she started seeing it snake along the track bends. Looks like she has a new favourite method of transport, sorry double-decker busses. We do not know where the Londoners were. Oh, that’s right, probably sleeping in.

We arrived at South Kensington Station and realised it was not pram friendly. After dragging the Batmobile (pram) up to street level, Eloise was overjoyed when she saw best friends of the blog, Hazel and Tom, approaching, Lachlan decided to play it cool. We grabbed some breakfast and were on our way when Tom ‘Tommed’ all his daily possessions. Hazel was on the ball and grabbed it for him, good to see she has developed the sixth sense. At least he had not left Eloise behind. We walked past the Natural History Museum, the wee ice rink and Victoria and Albert Museum. This morning we were visiting London Science Museum. It is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and to date is one of the city’s major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually.

Hazel was excited to show Eloise a fun time with the catchphrase of the day “yahhh for Science”.

We made our way through the Energy, Space and Aircraft floors. Hazel was working overtime darting about after Eloise. It is incredible that these museums are publicly funded. It was one of those museums you could spend a week looking around.

The “Liam not everyone likes this stuff, put it in a slideshow” slideshow one:

Tom noticed the kids zone which was a real winner. Eloise enjoyed the water play and Lachlan had fun laughing at himself in the mirror room.

We continued to make our way through more aircrafts, what a day!

The “Liam not everyone likes this stuff, put it in a slideshow” slideshow two:

The “Liam not everyone likes this stuff, put it in a slideshow” slideshow three:

… and many more. You have got to check out the 10A Electra, Hawker Hurricane Mk I and the Hawker Siddeley P.1127. The space stuff was nifty too. There was so much to see in the Science Museum. You can guess who had the camera.

There was a set of fairly dynamic 360° Eurofighter Typhoon and Hawk aircraft simulators. Tom and Liam stepped up for a joy ride but unfortunately, they were booked out. Tom was half relieved as he had scary flashbacks of when he was last here in 2015 and Hugh attempted to fly him into the sun.

There was half a floor dedicated to “Engineer your Future”. Eloise was not convinced, perhaps she will become a physiotherapist. Having said that, it was not long before she was helping Tom out. CPatz would have loved it!

After a few hours in the museum, it was time for lunch before saying farewell to the children. They were in Hazel’s and Tom’s capable hands this afternoon. We were off child-free and flying. It was also handy not having to lug two bags and the Batmobile (pram) with us. We had stepped up a dozen gears and it felt like we were back on our 2018 holiday.

There is such a large selection of theatre shows each night in the West End, this afternoon we were seeing Wicked. Even though it was cool, Sophie’s first reaction was “let’s get ice cream, I won’t have to share it with Eloise”. However, after wandering around Victoria Station we settled for some treats for the show.

The Apollo Victoria Theatre was almost sold out. We did have to show COVID-19 passports for the first time. The hardly legible scrunched up pieces of paper that live in Liam’s back pocket finally got some use. The COVID-19 guards’ reaction was “oh, they let you out”. After a half-hearted visual check, we were in. It will be interesting to see how international COVID-19 passports develop. We cannot imagine a secure international record system that all event venues have access to ever getting up. The musical was incredible and one of Sophie’s favourites. We can tick that one off the list.

The Apollo Victoria Theatre is a West End theatre on Wilton Road in the Westminster district of London, across from London Victoria Station. Opened in 1930 as a cinema and variety theatre, the Apollo Victoria became a venue for musical theatre, beginning with The Sound of Music in 1981, and including the long-running Starlight Express, from 1984 to 2002. The theatre is currently the home of the musical Wicked, which has played at the venue since 27 September 2006.

It was then time to rendezvous with Hazel, Tom and the Troublemakers. They had a tricky first twenty minutes but Hazel distracted Eloise by teaching her the important life skill of how to sing MMMBop throughout the streets of London. It was all smiles and giggles as they continued through Hyde Park, visited Liz and walked all the way back to Tower Hill. No nappies needed changing, although Lachlan showed Tom what he was up against when he went into full wiggle mode during a quick check.

We were all a wee tired at this stage so dinner was just around the corner at Pizza Express, which was surprisingly tasty.

It must have been an action-packed day for the kids as they fell asleep quicker tonight. Although everyone was back up at midnight to party. Eloise was saying how much fun she had today and was sad there are one three days left. She wanted to repeat everything today, the babysitters must have done well.