Off to The Smoke today. I’ve decided to make the most of any RIt trips to London with something else planned during that day, so today was RI in the morning for The Bigger Bang.
(Dr Hal brings his giant chemistry set to the Royal Institution in this explosive, colourful and fun Science Show demonstrating the power of chemistry. From exploding ostrich eggs to hot ice, the show involves a high level of audience participation and interaction and offers a unique blend of high-end, spectacular exhibition science and entertainment, underpinned with long-halflife, takeaway science knowledge and educational discourse (with a small element of Laurel-and Hardy-esque buffoonery).)
NB I’ve decided to nick this idea from Michelle as by the time I re-read these things links no longer are operational to stuff that is outdated.
The kids and I saw a very similar version of the show last December at Brighton Dome – Dr Hal works for Brighton uni and does an annual show at the Dome. I’d clearly remembered Davies and Scarlett’s opinion of it rather than my own though as when I re-read that blog post I was rather scathing about it 😆
Ady had taken a day off to come along, which was great. I often feel he really misses out on the great HE stuff we get up to during the week so it was nice for him to participate (and actually he was one of 4 blokes among our group today :)) It was also nice to have him to carry the rucksack ;).
The train and tube is really straightforward with no changes on the train and just one stop on the tube. Ady is not at all used to travelling with the kids or being on the tube so needed more herding than Davies and Scarlett did 😆 We paused at the Lush shop at Victoria with a promise to return if we had time later. The kids were given the undivided attention of two members of staff showing them demonstrations of products and chatting to them.
We got to the RI with half an hour to spare so went to the basement and met up with Chris and Helen along with Portico and Manor Born children at the periodic table challenge. Lije led the children in it whilst singing along very impressively. He tells me he doesn’t know all the words but he was doing a fairly strong attempt ;).
We went up and I later realised pushed infront of a whole load of people who had been told to wait in the downstairs lobby after they all followed us up and a couple moaned rather loudly 😳 Not as impressive pushing in as Michelle and Marcus managed though 😆 I stood chatting to Maddie and Like for a while which was lovely, I do like having known these kids since they were shy and didn’t really talk to me at 3 to now seeing me as someone to chat to about all sorts :). I also always notice the way HE kids have the skill of conversation too rather than simply giving monosyballic answers to questions posed by adults or viewing you as an audience to show off to.
So, into the show. I thought it was pretty good – lots of impressive chemi-luminous displays, plenty of very loud bangs and explosions. I will forever remember Charles’ Law 😳 and whilst there wasn’t much in the way of teaching about science Davies and Scarlett came away with a smidgen more chemistry knowledge than they went in with and were entertained and amused – that’ll do me ;).
Off to Green Park for a picnic including some Happy Birthday singing and cake for Lulah. Have missed sitting chatting with this group of friends so it was really nice.
The kids ran around together and Scarlett managed to catch a pigeon. Not sure if this is down to her superb bird-whispering skills or it being a particularly sickly and ill specimen but she brought it over to show us all which freaked out many more people than it charmed 😉 😆
We bid goodbye to everyone returning to the RI, hanging about or otherwise and headed off with Marcus, Michelle and Chloe to the Science Museum for the Wallace and Gromit exhibition.
This has been something we’ve been planning to see since it was first announced and had left it til really late (it closes on November 1st) to sort out. We’d been to a Science Museum once before – Disney Pixar 3 years ago and been quite disappointed with that for the price – I think if I’d paid full price for this I would have felt a bit swindelled however we do have two SuperFans (Davies and Ady) in the house and for them it was an excellent exhibition. We did spend a full hour in there and possibly if it hadn’t been so very warm we may have spent longer. It was very much a big advertisement for inventions and patents but the amount of W&G stuff dotted around and the high proportion of interactive stuff made it worth it. We made W&G style wallpaper, looked at various scenes and props, spent a while playing with plasticine and explored all the buttons to press, levers to pull and wheels to turn. I spent quite a while chatting to one of the lads who worked there and he was quite interesting (and complimentary about my plasticine dragon in the style of an Aardman character 🙂 ). We sort of couldn’t not take Davies there really and he loved it so it was well worth the cost (which was only about £18 I think although it does put my moaned about £30 for the woodfare into perspective).
We decided to head off just after 3pm as it meant we’d arrive back in time for Badgers. We got back to Victoria with time to go back to the Lush shop where I bought the kids one small thing each and then on a very packed train home. The journey home was fairly dire -no seats, tired and slightly trying children and Ady got pissed off so grabbed a seat and spent most of the time playing with his phone but then had the cheek when we got off the train to tell me I’d spent most of the time nagging the kids in a really loud voice (I hadn’t!) so he used up his usefulness before the day was out! 😆
We’d taken the Badger uniforms in my car (which we’d left in the library carpark) but did have time to nip home for hand and face washing, getting changed and swapping cars before heading to Badgers. The kids decorated baseball caps and Ady and I went for a walk. I was a bit pissed off with Badgers tonight firstly when I told Davies and Scarlett to stop doing something and they replied that they always do it, I said ‘but I bet you get told not to every week’ to which the leader replied ‘ yes but they don’t listen! They’re your kids!’ and then when we collected them and they said ‘the children have been sworn to secrecy about what we’ve been doing tonight’ and Scarlett looked horrified and worried until I whispered to her that she didn’t have to keep the secret and could tell me if she wanted. I’m not at all keen on the idea of ‘promise not to tell your mums and dads’ even if it is harmless… oh and they do listen, it’s just that they often choose to ignore if there is not a sound reason given ;).
Back home for a very late tea for the kids, a shower each while it was cooking to wash the London grime off and then baths each for Ady and I before a fairly normal time dinner for us.
A really good day, I’m so pleased Ady got to enjoy it too :).
did you find out what secret things they were up to at badgers?
Yes, they were decorating baseball caps to show at presentation evening at the end of term. Nothing remotely worthy of secrecy and I think really irresponsible to ask the kids to keep secrets.
Looks a fab day – am really against people asking kids to keep secrets too and you would think they would get some kind of guidelines given to them about that kind of thing!
I am very glad I’d left before the pigeon turned up! Looks a particularly manky specimen even by London standards. Have you checked Scarlett for fleas/other parasites? 😉