Brewhouse Yard Museum

During Nottingham Light Night, we got to visit Brewhouse Yard, I have been there many times before but it closed a few years back to the public and so we have never had chance to take the children.

This was a great opportunity to discover a huge part of Nottingham's history, the houses and caves are set below Nottingham Castle and are over 300 years old!

There were many uses for these caves, deep inside, they were used as air raid shelters in world war two, I loved the way this one was laid out. You can see the beer kegs in the next room, from when breweries were based here. Castle Rock, a local brewery, takes it's name from this very rock.

In this bedroom there were only candles lighting the room, it was interesting to be able to show the children how it would have been all those years ago.

Ye olde shoppe...

Looking at some old vintage classics, including can you spot them....Sun Jellies :)

I loved this beautiful old till, sat amongst a replica of an old chemist the ornate buttons and patterns were beautiful.

Looking at the old war posters on the walls of the caves...

Trying out some old puzzles...

All lit up, this beautiful row of houses looked stunning in the dark...

This is our Magic Moment this week, linking up to The Olivers Madhouse.

Science Museum Fun

On New Years Day, as we did this time last year, we headed down to London and visited the Science Museum. There was no traffic about which made the car journey fly by, and except for a slightly busy circle line, the tube was relatively quiet too.

First up we got to explore the launchpad area, this area is perfect for younger children to explore and learn all about science.

Here we are looking at how magnets work and how different lenses change how things look. 

Looking at ice, water and sand and how they all react! This bit was really interesting, I loved the pattern on the glass with the frozen water.

And finally in the launchpad section we watched dry ice on water, it was like it was dancing or ice skating, really beautiful

Once we had finished exploring the launch pad area, we made our way downstairs to the area for under 6's. The children spent ages playing with water, using different pumps and paddles. There were even waterproof smocks provided so no worries about walking around with wet children!

Next to the toddlers hands on science/play area in the basement of the museum, there was an exhibit of household items throughout the years. We had a lot of fun looking through the old objects from the first cooker, hairdryer and televisions, right through to their modern day equivalents.

Finally we looked at the Making the Modern World area, here we got to see the first x-ray machine, after recently watching The Knick in which it showed the first machine being used in the hospital it was really interesting to see one up close. I also recently had an MRI so it was fascinating to see inside the machine and how it worked.

We had lunch in one of the cafes at the museum, which wasn't too expensive, a box of food for the children, with a sandwich, some fruit, veg, a cake and drink cost £4.99. There were also plenty of spaces to eat around the museum if you wanted to take a packed lunch.

On the whole, we had a great day out at the museum, there was something fun for everyone to do and best of all, admission is free, although they do appreciate donations!

A Visit to the Natural History Museum

New Year was rather soggy, not really caring about staying up till midnight we used this as an excuse to get an early(ish) night and head to Natural History Museum in London on New Years Day.

There was no traffic on the way down so it didn't take very long, we parked up at Westfield in Shepheards Bush and our adventure started their.

My husband is always in London where as I have only been a few times and the children never, so the tube was a big adventure and one the kids loved.

The museum itself can get very busy but it wasn't at that time on New Years day so we didn't have to queue and got straight in. After dropping the coats off in the cloak room we got down to some exploring.

Oooh whats this? Honestly I can't remember.

Seeing how different size stones fall faster in water and looking at the different rock.

If you watched Alive with David Attenborough on New Years Day you will no doubt recognise this beauty, the lovely Dippy the Diplodocus.

The ceiling is unbelievably beautiful and awe inspiring, in fact there wasn't one bit of the building that wasn't amazing

We had gone specifically for the dinosaurs for my son, shame then that he was petrified of the anamatronic dinosaurs on top of a display cabinet and didn't then want to see the main event a giant T-Rex, but we still had a good time spotting the different dinos. It is amazing how many we now know, I guess that is what 4 years of reading dinosaur books does.

The shadow's were as impressive as the skeleton.

Possibly my favourite animal out of them all was this pink fairy armadillo! So cute!

Last year my son did the lifecycle of a caterpillar and butterfly so this was a great display to see, although this area wasn't for the faint hearted with spiders and scorpions!

Crabs! What do they all have in common?

Even the newer additions to the building look good, I loved this passageway, it was a bit of a rabbit warren and I had no idea where we were most of the time.

Looking back at the pictures I couldn't believe how life like this was.

I love the Dodo, it is sad they are extinct and it was us humans that did it!

The building really is a beautiful object itself and I just couldn't stop myself looking at the walls and friezes.

Best of all the Natural History Museum is free, and we were there all day. The queue on leaving was huge even with only an hour and a half left. With lots of food on offer in the cafe's and restaurant you don't really need to leave though so can stay the whole day. Lots of exploring and nature to look at all indoors, which when on a typical British bank holiday was great.

Linking up to County Kids over on the Coombe Mill blog.

Silent Sunday