Saturday 31 October 2009

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Well Half-Term has been pretty ropey to say the least.

The veritable pinnacle was getting my toilet fixed.

The rest was, erm, crap.

All the stress about the house move, various other stuff that's occurred, living out of boxes with no proper food, not having any plans or places to go as we thought we'd be gone by now - and THEN on Thursday I woke with the most splitting headache imaginable and spent the day under a duvet being sick.

I think it was actually my body/mind saying 'this is it - enough - I'm SO over this'.

Anyway I decided enough was enough and my kids needed ONE happy memory of the holiday (I don't think watching mummy vomit and listening to her shout at estate agents is really stuff for the scrapbook?) so I asked the eldest what he really really wanted to do on Friday and he said 'go into London on the train'.

Cool.

So I decided to go to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green (I couldn't quite face the tourist spots of Central London alone with both of them - taking the toddler out is a bit like being accompanied by slightly wild unbroken colt. That can cry).

Anyway as I look back on the day I wonder what my children will make of their childhood and growing up with me as a mother.

Will they just accept the, erm, 'strangeness' of some days as the norm or will they think 'mother? What a case she was.......'.

The day went something like this:

Negotiating rail system into East End with 2 kids and buggy - no problem.

Negotiating roads/streets to find museum - no problem.

Day in very crowded museum - no problem (Ok I won't tell you how many times I lostthe toddler but he's still here so, as I said, no problem!).

Number of times I had to drag the toddler away from the glass display cases containing toys he couldn't play with, which he was trying to bust open by means of giving them a good kicking - too many to count but again, no problem!

Lunch in crowded cafe with 2 kids, no help, hot drinks a go go - no problem.

And then we (tried) to leave.

Before leaving we took a toilet trip. The toilets are in the basement area and they were RAMMED. I haven't seen that many people in a toilet since I was skirting puddles of vomit in the Leeds branch of Ritzy's Nightclub.

I managed to squeeze us all into one cubical and just as I was standing up from the toilet to pull my pants up (waaaaaaayyyy too much information there but you are probably used to it by now) the toddler decided to ram the bolt back across the door and throw it wide wide open.......

And opposite the toilets are a room long length of sink to ceiling mirrors........

There was me and my foof - reflected and refracted around the room in all our glory, several dozen times over......

We left.

Promptly.

On leaving I couldn't be doing with tackling the stairs (again - and this time with people who had just seen my pubic hair watching......) and there was a huge queue for the lift so, seeing a small door to my right with daylight on the otherside, I hurriedly opened it and we left.

Or we tried to leave.

To cut a long story short we ended up, quite literally, behind the scenes in the museum.

We had entered an outdoor area around the side of the museum only meant for staff and there was NO WAY OUT. Up and down we went, weaving along the sides of the building, inspecting the staff car park, looking at the cargo lift, skirting over grating, pushing through bushes........ and as my eldest stated 'mummy - you have got this ALL wrong'.

Sometime later I began to fear we'd be there all night so I had no choice but to go and knock on one of the building windows, behind which sat the slightly bemused back office staff.

'Help!' I mouthed.

'How did you get out here?' the lady asked.

'Erm, I opened a door' I replied.

'The WRONG door' added my son.

The wrong door indeed.

Oh well - if you're going to have a day out, you may as well make an adventure of it......

3 comments:

  1. Oh GOD! That's too much. Can't breathe...

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  2. I was often in that museum when I lived in London, but never saw anything like that in the toilets!! Let's hope there's no security camera behind the mirror!

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  3. I needed a giggle today and you supplied it lol Sorry to laugh at your misfortunes but you do make me laugh xxxx
    SparklesSimpleStuff.blogspot.com

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