london Archives – Mummascribbles

As if our holiday last week wasn’t exciting enough for Zach, I had arranged an extra special treat for him on our return. I mean, coming home from hols is a massive downer isn’t it? It seemed only right to have an exciting weekend too! So on Sunday, we headed on up to King’s Cross to the theatre to watch Erth’s Dinosaur Zoo Live! Of course, this meant Zach got to ride on a couple of trains which he was mega excited about!

Erth’s Dinosaur Zoo is a live puppetry show that has been touring around the world since it began in Australia.

We hadn’t told Zach where he was going so when we arrived at the theatre and he saw the promo photos of the dinosaurs, he was instantly excited. ‘Are the dinosaurs in there?’, he said a few times. ‘Are we going to see them?’. He was so excited that he attempted to run straight into the main seating bit before we’d handed our tickets over and been told a bit of information (photos fine, no filming kind of thing!). Once we’d heard that, we headed on in to find our seats (2nd row…whoop!).

We’d only got there about ten minutes before it was due to start so there wasn’t much sitting around before the action kicked in. The whole time, Zach had been pointing to the side of the stage and asking if that’s where the dinosaurs were. Suddenly, the lights dimmed and it was time for the show to start.

The main presenter appeared on stage, an Aussie guy who started with a g’day! He filled us in on what the show was about, where it had come from and a message for the kids…to not worry if the grown ups started to cry in fear! Then it was time for the dinosaurs! They started out gently with the babies. Ahhh how cute everyone thought!

Children were invited up on stage to meet them and all was lovely. Then, it was time for the next! I turned to Zach and asked him if he thought the next would be bigger or smaller. ‘Bigger’, he roared at me!

It was!

Boy had they got his attention now! It was at this point that I realised just how awesome these puppets were. They moved like dinosaurs, made sounds like dinosaurs and looked like dinosaurs. I was impressed!

After they had finished showing us what they could do, these two left the stage and it was time for the next. An insectivore! Zach didn’t like these! We’ve been telling him recently that for obvious reasons, he needs to be a bit careful of wasps and bees. His response to this creature flying around the audience was ‘insectivores do sting me’.

What he did like though?? The T-Rex and its counter part which I cannot remember the name of! I mean, who wouldn’t like two massive dinosaurs on stage. Even though I understood that they were puppets, I still thought they were pretty scary – I have only just seen Jurassic World after all!

Finally we were introduced to the gentlest and hugest dinosaur. This one was a sweetie in comparison to the previous two!

Throughout the show, the Aussie dude had us in stitches. He was hilarious, cracking jokes that the adults would get and putting young children in ‘danger’ on stage with the animals. Equally, he knows his stuff and was full of facts that I have no doubt the slightly older children took away with them. 

The kids up on stage were great too but there was one wee boy who just refused to put his hand in the t-rex’s mouth!! The next boy obliged by putting his head in! Brave or stupid?! 

The show lasted for 50 minutes and was the perfect length for young children, handy since it’s aimed at ages 3+. Zach was engaged all the way through and even joined in with one of the jokes, copying the audience in laughter!

We the adults were also engaged throughout and thought the whole thing was brilliant.

After the show, some of the dinosaurs do a meet and greet outside. I am not going to lie, when you’ve got a T-Rex in your face, roaring at you and clapping its jaws, even though you know it’s a puppet, it’s blimmin terrifying! I was brave though and I stroked it…cautiously in case it bit me! Unfortunately said T-Rex also put its ridiculously scary self right in Zach’s face and that was it – he was petrified and cried! Fair play, like I say, I was scared! We then went over to the baby dinosaur but he’d lost trust in them all and refused to stroke it! I would definitely say to be cautious with the very young children in the meet and greet! It clearly had an impact on him when he came running into our room at 5.45 the following morning saying ‘mummy, the monster bit me’…oops!! Despite that, he and we absolutely loved it and I am so glad that we took him.

Dinosaur Zoo Live is on at the King’s Cross Theatre from now until 30th August and then tours the UK until November. Tickets range in price and are on sale here.

We were sent complimentary tickets to Dinosaur Zoo Live for the purposes of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

We have the week off work this week and we promised Zach some adventures. I mean, this is the boy who is happy enough with an adventure to the slide at the park round the corner so anything else is simply awesome!

The other half has been dying to take him to the Natural History Museum in London, well…since I was pregnant haha! I’ve been putting it off a bit to make sure that Zach was old enough and that he would appreciate at least some of what was there. I wasn’t expecting him to be standing asking questions about minerals and the Earth forming but I did want him to be involved in the day.

Of course, the first piece of excitement was that we had to get on a few choo choo trains to get there. We live just outside London so it meant one overground train and then two underground trains (South Kensington is such a long way!). Now, my boy is obsessed with trains. Every night we have to read some kind of train book, we have to pretend we are trains when we are out on a walk, Zach pushing the buggy and us being the carriages, and all he talks about is going on the train…every day! He is constantly jealous that me and his daddy get to go on trains five times a week. So when he gets to go, it’s the best thing ever.

    

When we got to the museum, there was a short queue but it didn’t take us long to get in. We didn’t go in the main entrance (we were told the queue was long when it wasn’t), and this entrance took us into the bit where the escalator leads up to the Earth section and he was immediately fascinated. We decided to do the dinosaurs first though because, well, he loves dinosaurs and we didn’t want him to get tired and not enjoy them! Before we reached the main hall where Dippy is, he was treated to a taster of what was to come!

 

Then it was time for Dippy. I don’t know if you know, but Dippy is being removed and replaced by the Blue Whale which we are saddened by. I do kind of understand that the Blue Whale is still alive and kicking today and therefore more relevant, but Dippy has been there for as long as I’ve known and so we wanted Zach to see him before it goes. He loved him immediately!

    

Next up, we joined the queue to get into the main dinosaur section. Again, it wasn’t a long queue…luckily half the schools have already gone back else it could have been! We weren’t sure how he’d like the dinosaurs but he was enthralled with them, spotting them moving, seeing the skeletons and roaring with them!

Then it was time for the big one. The moving, roaring T-Rex. This was either going to make or break him. We were about to find out just what level of braveness our boy has. Whether the huge roaring T-Rex would make him excited or make him cry! I’m happy to report that he thought it was fantastic!

 

Once we were done with the dinosaurs (he was saying goodbye dinosaurs as we were leaving the section), we wandered around looking at anything that may interest him and there was plenty!

            

It was then time to go up to the Earth section – the bit that he’d first seen and was so excited about!

    

Something else we did was go into the Earthquake section. If you haven’t been, there is a room that shows footage of an earthquake and shakes as it would have done based on the actual earthquake. Again, I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about this and he was a bit jittery and unsure but after the ‘tremor’ had ended, he wanted to experience it again! I don’t have any pictures of this as I was holding onto him tightly!

After this, we grabbed his buggy from the cloakroom as he was looking pretty worn out after running round like mad for 2.5 hours, and we headed off to the mammal section. He just (with a little help from mummy), managed to stay awake long enough to see the giant Blue Whale, but then he was gone. Off for a nap to dream about dinosaurs and earthquakes! Absolutely shattered!

So then the other half and I wandered some more but by this point my legs were aching and I needed a sit down. We begrudgingly paid a ridiculous amount of money for two cans of drink (we took our own packed lunch for earlier in the day so we didn’t have to spend a fortune!), and had a relax. We then visited the shop, decided not to buy anything and headed on out to the tube station. Upon me covering Zach with my cardi, he woke from his nap, happy that he hadn’t missed any of the train journey home!

    

I think it’s safe to say that Zach had an absolutely amazing day. I had some comments on Facebook as to how well he really took to it at two and a half and I would say he really did. Yes, there is lots he didn’t care abut but we purposefully picked sections that we thought would interest him and as you can see, he was absolutely fascinated. I’m so glad that the first trip of our staycation was a huge success. He was telling everyone about it at nursery today!

Have you had a fab day out with your little ones to the Natural History Museum? I think we need to try the Science Museum next – I’ve heard that it’s fab and that a change of clothes is required!