A day out with a dragon

 http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75959/form-untitled/

 As the Star of the Week for good behaviour in class Mattie has been charged with responsibility for entertaining and protecting a little Welsh dragon named Derwu.  Here they are in the car park at West Ruislip at the start of an eventful day at the V&A in London.

On the Central Line Alison reties Mattie's shoelace while Derwu looks on.  I hadn't realised that children (and dragons) travel free on London Transport.  Money saved on transport and entrance to the museum was invested in lunch before the serious cultural events started.  Food was good value for money but don't be thirsty in the V&A £2.60 for a bottle of flavoured water ouch!

After lunch we went to the visitor centre to pick up a children's activity backpack and then it took us about an hour to find the room where the activities were based.  Very confusing building with impossible to read maps (not only for me) and helpful staff who recommended other exhibits on the way.  Here Georgie cuddles up to a pride of lions.

And Derwu gets in on the lion action too.  These are replicas of the 17th century silver lions commissioned to guard the Danish royal throne at Copenhagen.  Past the lions and through the Susan Davies gallery we headed for the performing arts area.

Where Georgie and Mattie both enjoyed the bird costume.

even Derwu got in on the act.

We eventually found our way into the glass gallery where the activity pack was based.  One of my favourite objects in glass is this group of men here.

The activities were good fun and nice and short for limited attention spans.  My favourite was the plastic replicas of objects that came with a blindfold.  With the blindfold on you feel the object and imagine what it looks like and then without the blindfold you have to find the object in one of the cases.  Even Alison had a go at that.

The last activity was to write a story inspired by one of the objects and Georgie wrote a really good story inspired by the object you can see behind her here (see larger picture below).  From her story I instantly remembered the object she was referring to.

And then the return journey.  We're all a bit tired by now but Derwu and her hat are still with us and the consensus seems to be that a good time was had by all.