After a couple of weeks of everyone in the family picking up one illness or another (again – I am so over winter now…) we are finally better. Hurrah!
We’ve spent lots of time recently hanging out at home and in local parks and commons, but I wanted to do something a bit different today so after lunch I popped Frida in the sling and headed off to the Natural History Museum.
I love the Natural History Museum so much. It’s worth visiting for the building alone, a soaring secular chapel devoted to the creatures and minerals that inhabit our world.
When we arrived I realised I was hungry so we had an obligatory stop for some cake. Frida was thrilled at being allowed to taste a little bit and I was thrilled that there was an abundance of high chairs.
I thought we would start by looking at the mammals. Frida seemed so interested, both in the displays and in all the other people visiting the museum (it is sadly never, ever quiet). She insisted on waving at everyone and everything we passed, and had a particularly animated – if one sided – exchange with a stuffed jaguar in a display cabinet. She was also mesmerised by the giraffe, craning her head back over and over again, and pointing up at it.
We also compared her hand to a rhino footprint (spoiler alert – its smaller).
She seemed to really enjoy it, but after about an hour became tired and I had to feed her to sleep in the sling. I can think of worse places to have to breastfeed in!
I thought I would make the most of my “alone time” whilst she slept and crept up to my absolute favourite bit of the museum – not the dinosaurs, or the enormous blue whale, but the calm gallery of minerals.
From meteors to malachite, they are all there, glistening in their neatly labelled rows.
At the end of the room there is “the vault”, a section with the most amazing precious stones and even some rock from Mars. It’s a shame Frida was asleep as I think she would have enjoyed crawling around and looking at all of the cases.
It would have been good to explore more with her – I think next time I will dawdle less at home and make a day of it with her. London’s free museums are one of my favourite things about the city and one I intend to make full use of now Frida is getting a bit older.
