Yesterday was the long hot drive from Stratford to London, and I met my friend Hazel at the home she is staying at belonging to her friends. They are just off Gunnersbury Park, and a short underground ride to South Kensington (where the museum of Natural History is).
Best of all, in 30° temps was the sight of the swimming pool!
No blog last night because I was talking so much – and listening – and swimming. At the end of a long evening I slipped up to the attic bedroom Hazel had given up for me and slept on top of the bed under the fan.
This morning we breakfasted and farewelled. Me to walk to the Underground, and she to the train North to see family. I joined the vast crowd at Sth Kensington streaming in to the museum, and enjoyed the sheer size and variation of the displays. The minerals, precious stones, birds, fossils, and moon display! Most popular of course, the dinosaurs!
Sweating, tired and maxed out on crowds I tubed back to my car and today drove down to Bournemouth.
I’ve caught up with Anna and Matthew, and we’ve gone for fish and chips to Christchurch (Alexander’s) – which we ate around at the water’s edge. So good! Now I’m sipping beer in the delicious cool of a summer evening and letting my faithful readers know where I am. I’ll be here until I go to Gatwick on Sunday and fly to Florida.
Hen & Ink 
I’m sure you’re enjoying being with the Bournemouthians. The Natural History Museum is great except for those bits they try to make appealing to children i.e. maze-like, under-lit and (yech) ‘interactive’. I imagine that style of exhibit is what they teach curators to do at ‘what-to-do-as-a-museum-curator’ university courses. “Let’s make museums less like a museum!” The result is a cross between a trade-fair and theme-park, with the sound of gaggles of shreiky children on class trips running from one dull exhibit to another whilst trying to escape from their minders. Museums are for strolling around over-stocked over-labelled ancient cabinets of even more ancient artifacts, preferably in huge open rooms that are wonderfully echoey (except no children are making echoes, because they have been taught to wander in awed silence like they would in a cathedral) and where claustrophobes like myself can always clearly see the exit. Fortunately, most of the NHM is like this!
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I couldn’t have put it better! I didn’t think I was claustrophobic but I’ve been tested a few times – in one or two houses, in museum, and on the underground.
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