TheBabs is a useful friend to have when it comes to the Natural History Museum 😉 We were already planning to go to London to see Stomp! so the offer of free guest passes to an exhibition at the NHM was impossible to pass up, especially when combined with the chance to meet up with friends 🙂
When we booked Stomp! many moons ago, we didn’t know whether Kfish would be here or in France, so we booked 6 tickets anyway on the assumption that we could either take another child with us (if Kfish was in France) or I could stay at home (if we’d gained a French child). In the event, Jfish was asked if he’d like to spend the day with Jbiff, whose school term hadn’t yet started, so we dropped him off first and then travelled to London from the nearest station to there.
Finding ourselves passing through Tower Bridge on the underground we seized the moment to see how the poppies were progressing. We visited a few weeks ago with French J and found it quite breathtaking so it was good to be able to show Bob as well and to see how many more poppies there were now.
We opted for the exhibition on Mammoths and caught up with TheBabs and B and the Beans there. It was very good, with short videos and interactive exhibits to keep the children’s attention engaged. We saw Lyuba – the most complete woolly mammoth ever found, but only a baby having died at just one month old 🙁 The children also had a go at manipulating a trunk to perform a task, fighting with tusks and working out where best to attach ligaments to avoid having their (mammoth) head pulled down by the weight of tusks.
TheBabs was also kind enough to take us with her to the member’s room (complete with misplaced apostrophe, unless she really is the only member!) where we had a comfortable lunch break, complete with tea (but no milk – tsk tsk!) and then decided to whizz through the earthquakes and volcanoes section to experience the newly refurbished Kobe earthquake experience. I think L would have liked rather longer there, so have noted his interest in volcanoes for future reference 😉 Unfortunately with a matinee to get to time was not on our side.
A brisk walk and a trip on the Tube and we were at Leicester Square, ready to hunt for the Ambassadors Theatre. We got sidetracked briefly by a proper old-fashioned sweetshop where Bob and I decided quite uncharacteristically to treat the children to a bag of sweets for the performance. The lovely assistant very helpfully gave us a mixture of all the old favourites, most of which the children had never tried (we’re quite abstemious sweetie-wise normally 😉 ) and working our way through a few of them helped to pass the time once we had collected tickets and were waiting to go in and then again waiting for the show to start.
The wait may have been tedious, but the show was well worth it. Bob and I saw Stomp years ago when we were both students, as far as we can remember, and they were excellent then. If anything they’re even better now. There were touches of humour, well orchestrated rhythms and musicality, fantastically choreographed dances with dustbin lids, large sticks and even shopping trolleys and even a whole set performed in the dark with lighters. Excellent stuff 😀
