Birmingham hols day 3!

SB’s choice today, and it is the science museum – she is very fond of science museums as they often have levers to press!! We woke up, got ready, with curling on [again] in the background [go eve!], had our enormous brekkie, and set off. This one wasn’t really within walking distance – well not without a fuss from BB!! so we got on a bus, which v helpfully went past the Bull Ring for us to admire! Quite a queue for the entrance and we hadn’t prebooked [the half term effect!] but not a prob.

Decided the entrance floor far too full of kids, so started on ground floor with all the steam engines. I love steam engines! When i retire, i am going to have to think of a use for one and get it!! [will pay with lots ofr renewable this's and that's, I promise!!]. On the ground floor, there were little cards you could then impress, so the girls enjoyed doing that. It was divided into sections. Chris’s fav machine was the button maker – which was fab. SB and I had a lovely chat with a chap who used to work in the jewellery quarter and made silver items for faberge excellent discussion and look.The dunlop landpeed record car is there, so SB and i had a good peer at that. they have a huge water pump that they fired up for the occassion too, and I loved that, tho the girls got a bit impatient at that point… prob time for lunch!!

After lunch we changed floors, going up to the second SB and I started to look at the animal section, but BB flagging, so took her to kids city whilst chris stayed with BB [we were playing tag kids btw!]. The kids city is great, but too busy for BB, so we took some time out for a cuddle and read some books and then looked at the body bit. My main criticism of the museum i think is for this floor, as it was v much aimed at between my 2 girls level, and tho some over and undering, i think there could have been far more explanation and background description to extend all the exhibits, and a lot of them were out of order…

We then did a round of shows, starting with the ‘gene-eration’ game, which i thought was rather fun and captured most of the audience. The poor woman and her 5 year old at the end were a terrible couple for the complicated memory game tho! the kid had to remember 15 items, and the woman the 15 amino acids/ enzymes attached. My girls loved the intereactive seat buttons, and SB knew we would have done better!! [aah, that she has such faith!]. The next was a show and tell kind of thing called monsters from the past, handling various fossils and replicas of ice age and before creatures. Both girls loved this, but BB sat with huge beaming grin for whole thing. I was proud that they both answered lots of questions sensibly! unfortunately the giant sharks tooth was dropped by someone and came back in pieces – phew not us really!! The next thing was the planetarium. SB decided to go with chris to level 1 instead, as there was little chance of getting in. BB really wanted to see it [and it was aimed at her age] so we waited against hope! however, when they started to close the doors, it was because there was only one seat left, and the woman next had 2 kids, then a party of 7. SO i piped up would it be ok for one and one on lap [thinking prob not] and they said yes!! wond a big beam and happy dance from BB as we went in! I thought it a bit of nonsense, but fine for BB, and she loved it so all happy!! We all met intime to go to shop and agonise over purchases! both girls reasonably sensible tho, so not so bad.

Huge shock to find a blizzard in progress as we left! So we scurried along to bustop, where 3 of us sheltered, and one played on her own in the snow! whilst we were on the bus, it intensified, so when we got off, there was still quite a walk to the inn, and we decided to eat dinner at the v v expensive indian we went past. it was utterly delish! and the bill topped £100!!!! oh well!! [i spy a diet of pottage coming up!] we then raced back to the inn and snuggled in bed.