May Day: weekend review

Weekend predictions have been partially fulfilled. Saturday I bit the bullet and forced myself to stay in bed most of the day... I hasten to add it was a most productive time of sorting and filing papers, preparing letters for posting, and didn't involve any entertainment-driven web surfing, snoozing, or similar. Ahem.

Sunday though and it was time to get our teeth into the weekend. After going to church we hooked up with Nick and Hayley and headed into the Natural History Museum. I've been wanting to go there for a while; I'm the only member of the household who'd never been there. Also, the much-advertised T-Rex exhibition was closing after this long weekend, so it seemed a good time to go.

The museum is free, but the T-Rex exhibition cost £3.50 each. Let us just say that overall the entire afternoon was good value for money, and leave it at that, shall we?! Highlights for me were:

• Seeing blue whale skeletons and a full-sized model—most impressive...
• A rotating-table thing you could spin around which demonstrated fluid dynamics, making a tornado in the liquid inside (Nick and I plan to get one for a coffee table, the only downside being the cups getting flung around the room I guess.)
• This enormous sculpture of the Earth, that you travelled up into when going to one part of the museum. (I never knew the music inside the Earth was so cool!)

Today has not dawned bright and clear as hoped, though to be fair the weather forecast from yesterday is on the money. The planned trip to Hampton Court Palace will have to wait till the next fine Saturday I think. That gave time for a leisurely brunch of Nick's outstanding pancakes complimented by my patented Summer Berry Sauce™. All going well the afternoon will give way to an extended and ultimately successful game of the Lord of the Rings game. There are many (many, many...) Lord of the Rings games being flogged out there, but I've not seen any others like this. It is a true board game, not a role-playing game, but it is collaborative. All the players have to work together to attempt to defeat Sauron (who is played by the game, not any player) and destroy the ring. The illustrations are by the artist who did the artwork for the movie. If you like board games, we'd definitely recommend it. Be warned though, we've never succeeded in destroying the ring yet!

Before all that though, I'm off to bleach the bathroom ceiling. London, you know. Damp. [Memo to self: wear old clothes.]