Getting old

There's that time in life when you start to feel old, and to turn that around you need to surround yourself with older things to make you feel younger in comparison. So that's how I found myself with the dinosaurs. Something that's 65million years old is definitely going to make me feel younger.

So I headed off to South Kensington and made my way to the Natural History Museum. There's currently a really good dinosaur exhibition on with a very lifelike animatronic T-Rex (that's assuming that a T-Rex wasn't bright purple with green spots, but I guess we will never know for sure). This has to be one of the most intriguing buildings I have ever visited, wherever you look there are animals and plant life carved into the very fabric of the buildings itself, apparently, not one creature is duplicated and no one knows for sure how many carvings there are.

Next, I moved on briefly to the Earth Galleries, now part of the same museum, but as I recall from when I was a kid it used to be a separate museum, the British Geological Survey. With the main escalator out of order in the entrance hall, it had the appearance today of being a bit closed down, so after taking a few pics I moved on to the Science Museum. The main entrance hall appeared to be under a rebuilding programme so I managed to work my way around that and eventually down into the childrens gallery, to rekindle childhood memories of button pressing. It's now renamed the Launch Pad, and not suprisingly full of screaming kids with thier groups of teachers. It seemed to be lunchtime so I managed to have a good look around while they were otherwise occipied with packed lunches. I was pleased to see that the floating gold ball was still their. A table that has a ball that you are invited to grab, but as soon as you reach over it disappears into a hole in the table top. After 30+ years it looks like no one has yet managed to catch it.

And so next onto the Victoria & Albert Museum across the road as I wanted to see the Abbas Kiarostami display. This was something that really took your breath away. Entitled "Forest Without Leaves", it was a large room, with mirrored walls, that echoed the large tubes that stood treelike with photographs of tree bark wrapped around them. a very strange feeling altogether and well worth a visit. there is a fuller exhibition of this Iranian filmmaker in the V&A but this part is free for all.

It's about 9 years since I moved out of Knightsbridge, so I had a wander around to reacquaint myself with the area and see how much had changed, naturally gravitating towards Harrods, where 20 years ago I worked for a while as a porter. Al Fayed has certainly continued his luxurification of the store, perhaps too much in my opinion, the Egyptian escalator is testament to that!

And so, at the end of a day surrounding myself with old things, do I feel any younger? Not bloody likely with all that walking and the blisters that have now appeared on my poor feet. Back home and put them in a nice bowl of warm water I think to soak. I can dream about being young while watching the final of The Apprentice tonight. I really hope that Saira doesn't win it.