Hello London

The summer is passing so fast and has been so full of adventures, but our trip to London was my favourite so far. We took ourselves off to the big city for three days and went to lots of fabulous places. 

We started at Tate Britain on Sunday, I've been so excited for the Barbara Hepworth exhibition and it didn't disappoint! I loved her beautiful sculptures, especially the later ones with the incorporation of coloured threads, and it was really special to see her sketches and drawings. 

On Monday we ventured up to The British Library to see the Magna Carta exhibition, then on to Gower Street to visit Speedy's cafe and the front door made famous in "Sherlock" (One of two nerdy pilgrimages of the trip, we also popped along to King's Cross to see Platform 9 and 3/4 and the shop next door but the queues were unbelievable! We went on to the Grant Museum of Zoology, it is part of the University College London, and is full of specimens and slides and it is really fascinating. We managed to pick up tickets to see "The Mentalists" in the evening, I'm a bit of a fan of Stephen Merchant so it was very exciting to see him perform. We were even in the front row!  

On Tuesday we had a slower day, starting out in the National cafe for breakfast, and then on to the National Portrait gallery to see the Portrait Prize. We had tea and apricot cake in the Coffee Tree on Shaftesbury Avenue and left there with beautiful vanilla Cannoli to take home. After that we wandered on up to the Flinders Petrie museum of Egyptian Archaeology, and I was particularly thrilled to see the drop spindles. Our last stop of the day was the Wellcome Collection, a place we always wanted to visit but never quit got around to. The special exhibition was work from Alice Anderson and it was amazing, I'd definitely recommend it! The main collection is full of strange bits and bobs from the history of medicine and anatomy, there are shrunken heads, medical implements, and even some examples of Plastination from the Gunther Von Hagens institute. Of course, my favourite part of the gallery was the oversized Jelly Baby...