(Picnic at) The Horniman Museum, 21st March

I have had on my List for about four years ‘picnic at Horniman museum’. Does eating a slice of chicken and ham pie in the cold count? I think so.

For our day’s diversions we took Stephen’s mum and her husband to the Horniman museum where they also happened to have a farmer’s market on. The best looking stall was the one dishing out sausages in baps but by the time I joined the queue they had run out of rolls so instead I got the pie. Tasty, but not the best thing to eat in the biting cold. We then went into the Horniman itself and whiled away a couple of hours staring at all the taxidermied animals. Sure it's kind of morbid but that's half the fun (the other half maybe being a juvenile delight in the name of the museum itself).

The most famous of which is, of course, the Walrus – stuffed so full that none of his natural wrinkles exist (it even has its own Twitter account). This is such a cute story from this age of exploration – people were going out and having these adventures, bringing back tales (and specimens) of exotic animals but the people back in Blighty had only the intrepid explorer’s descriptions or they had to guess at what the animal looked like. Hence overstuffing Mr Walrus. They didn’t know he had wrinkles in the wild.

How much fun can a museum full of stuffed animals be? Well, quite a lot actually. They have so many types of wildlife and species on show, we easily spent an hour wandering through it all. It gives you a chance that you would get many other places to get up close to animals of all shapes and sizes. So what if they’re dead? And, I must admit, in many cases, rather mangy looking. Some of them are more than a little forlorn. The accompanying text is a bit 'students on a field trip' but ignore that and it's just as fun for an adult to meander through and look these animals in their beady dead eyes.

They also had an exhibition on Romanians in London and a gallery dedicated to African art and culture which looked quite interesting but interest from my other parties was beginning to wane so we headed back into town for Blacklock.

Design Museum, 3rd May

It has taken me so long to visit the Design Museum because it is one of those rare museums in London that actually charges. You can browse the museum shop for free (and you should – all sorts of cool oddities in there), or have a coffee and cake but you can’t set foot into an exhibit without handing over a bit of dosh.

So, I waited until there was something I was pretty sure I was going to like before going. This does mean, of course, that I can’t really talk about the place in general, as the exhibitions change, and I can’t guarantee you’ll always find them worth the entry fee. But the current exhibitions, I think, are.

The museum is, as you would expect, quite modern in feel – a blank canvas on which to arrange the exhibitions. When we went, the first floor was given over to a retrospective of Paul Smith. As a girl I’m woefully uninterested in fashion and both knew and cared little about Paul Smith. But I rather enjoyed this and it succeeded in making me more interested in him and his brand. Starting off with a reconstruction of his very first shop, taking you through his story, complete with mock-ups of his office, or the studio where his designers work, and interspersed with video and audio, I thought it was very effective. I appreciated his design more, and I liked him as a person.

The real reason for going, though was to see the Design of the Year exhibition. Almost 30 entries were put on display along with explanation of what they did. If ever you want to be inspired by the innovation, creativity and motivation to better the world that humans can possess, then head here and soak it all in. There was gadgetry on display, such as the mobile phone made out of separate, replaceable components, or the Citymapper app that I’ve been using constantly since getting it a few months ago. There were improvements to transport – things as simple as a removable mud guard, to completely new types of cars.

 There was recognition of architecture and artistry. And design didn’t just mean physical products and fixtures. One of my favourites was a fashion show where the designer used models of all shapes and sizes, and instead of ‘doing their little turn on the catwalk’ they performed an aggressive dance to drum beats, with feet stomping and body slapping and war cries. It gave me chills actually.

On top of that were advancements in medicine – a needle which indicates whether it has been used or not to avoid contaminating patients. A place where children with cancer can live with their families. 

You even get to vote on which one was your favourite, although if you’re anything like me, you’ll find that a difficult decision to make. So many of them seem so useful either in an everyday kind of way, or in a sweeping, benefit for mankind kind of way. And it’s fun to wonder which ones actually will become a part of our lives in the future. As I read somewhere – you get to see the things that will likely end up in other museums some day as artefacts, back when they were barely more than ideas.

Be amazed with the human brain. Go.  

V & A Museum of Childhood, 10th December

I didn't have much of a desire to go to this museum, if truth be told. But I saw from my various sources that they have several exhibitions on at the moment, that were up my kind of street. 

The first was The Stuff of Nightmares which promised to transform the Front Area into a dark and nightmarish forest where the retelling of Fundevogel plays out. It was actually made by local schoolchildren and sounded creepy. It was pretty disappointing. There was a small 'forest' with some macabre looking children's playthings and a TV playing an odd animation on a loop which almost gave me goosebumps. Almost. 

So it was with baited breath, for all the wrong reasons that we went into the museum to look at the other exhibition I wanted to see - My Giant Colouring Book. This was also on the small side. 21 pictures by Jake and Dinos Chapman. They were images based on children's join the dots pictures but fleshed out and made altogether unwholesome. But even though there wasn't much to the exhibition, I thought it was really good. You could just about see the original shape in them all and some of the images were pretty disturbing considering their origins were in innocent pictures. It didn't feel right that children should be running among them. Below are two of my favourite.

Considering the two main reasons I wanted to come took all of ten minutes to look through, we thought we might as well take a look at what else the museum had to offer. It is free after all. And I'm glad I did - it's actually quite fun! Apart from the fact that there are kids running all over the place. But I suppose you shouldn't begrudge children enjoying themselves in a museum all about children. Well, childhood, which basically means a museum of toys. 

There's a hell of a lot in there and the museum have done their best to insert some interactivity into it, with a few coin operated displays and some free stuff for the kids to get into. 

So yes. Toys and toys and toys all through the ages. It was like stepping back in time. Stephen and I enjoyed pointing out to each other the toys we'd had when we were young and I personally enjoyed marvelling at the grand dollhouses. But after a while it did get a bit tiresome and by the time we'd got up to the other exhibition I was interested in: Magic Worlds, we were ready to leave. It wasn't that amazing anyway. And so I leave you now, with a video of my favourite thing from the museum... Wood... as waves.