To think museums are shit?

[lecce]

Well, not really, but they seem such hard work and not really the best way to see stuff and learn about it.

I'm probably not being coherent as have just got in from an exhausting few days in London with dc (6&3). Before anyone says anything, ds1 has a huge thirst for knowledge and his face lights up at the mention of a trip to a museum, so I'm not saying that it's hell dragging a reluctant child round a museum, as that is just obvious. (I know because we have no choice but to do that to an extent with ds2 and there is no way I would ever make him go to such a place if I didn't have ds1 to consider).

But really, being herded past display after display? There just being so bloody much of it? Every sodding room leading on to yet another and another? The horrible nagging feeling that round the next corner there will be the most amazing thing that will change ds's life and we can't risk missing it? The worry that everyone else's child is getting much more from it than mine because they are just better at it as parents than us? (I know I'm being stupid on that one, but that's just part of the effect these places have on me).

So, AIBU?

I don't like Museums where people dress up as folk from the olden days.

When I win the lottery I'm going to buy(make them an offer they can't refuse) Edinburgh museum and move in.

All museum gift shops are shit though.

I like museums. I still though at the memory of being told off in the British Museum...twice.

We went when dc were smaller and I was telling them not to go too close to something. I was demonstrating how close was too close and I got told off. Much to dc's eternal joy.

Then I got told off again for sitting on a step. By this time dc thought museums were brilliant places for watching your parents get humiliated

I do like them though. And art galleries even more. Ds hates art galleries and said Tate Modern reminded him of IKEA so I guess that's off the to do list for a return visit in future.

I have a (mildly) interesting story about the pencil museum. When we were younger mil used to tell us how fantastic it was and how we must go. Now she denies all knowledge and claims never to have been

I cannot bear the railway museum though. So, so dull. It's a train. It's another train.

Or better still, no people at all... A nice quiet museum with no other visitors.

I did not like Historic Dockyard but it may have been due the child I had with me at the time, who was not at all interested in ships, just wanted to try to play on the shooting game in Action Stations. Expensive to just do that.

Value for money still plays a part, whilst some museums are free many are not.

Sparkling - re dressing up as people from Ye Olden Days - we went to Warwick Castle last week and it was the acTORS that made it for the DC. Esp the Horrible Histories ones, DS loved the rapping executioner.

Warwick Castle Taffeta? Have you won the lottery?

I was thinking more of the buxom Victorian ladies in huge dresses standing about to recreate Victorian Britain or something.

Warwick Castle is fab, I'd love to go back. We had a great day there.

I love a good 'local' museum, the sort that's maybe one or two rooms with old wooden cases full of random items with wonkily typed labels.

We love museums! The NRM is a fave of dd's and she also likes the Royal Armouries in Leeds (Elephant Armour is her fave) but we go that often we can get round in an hour! dd is dino mad so we are planning a trip to London to go to the Natural History Museum, as dd does not start school until sept we can go mid week term time!!can't wait to take her!!

MoominmamasHandbag - we went yesterday, my dc love the little Liverpool playroom in the new museum. Its really lovely there.

Speshul treat. it was snowing and we made them stay ALL DAY to get our money's worth.

One hour. Two hours at most. And then off to the park. The gift shops sell tat.

Swindon train museum (Steam) has toy trains to push around, a train to walk under. Spent a while there, the children like trains.

Stuffed animals, another liked thing. NHM Tring was ok, been twice. Bit busy. Oxford has a few museums with stuffed animals, astrology equipment etc.

The shops do vary and do tend to sell things no one would usually buy. Pendent, modern day version of an old toy, old coins, gem stones, rubbers. Any good museums buys?

What's the squashed penny thing all about too? Why does it cost more than 1p?

HOly shit Sparkling! Why is there a readers wives style/70's car advert 'dolly bird' bent over a lawn mower on the front of the website with 'one of our tour guides'? is it a front for something a bit more wink wink nudge nudge ie 'carry on mowing'

It is a bit like that isn't it MrsK? We need to take a MN trip to Southport.

DH and i stopped at Shipley once and there was a load of school kids being taken into a mill or something by someone dressed in victorian garb. She was telling them they were going to do work like real victorian children to experience what it was really like. They looked thoroughly unimpressed and i thought, this is a bit unpleasant, 'come on kids lets pretend to be starving abused urchins, how fun'. And i wondered how that would work on other shady parts of our 'empires' past: 'oh jolly good, a slave ship...'

'confessions of a lawnmower'?

Yanbu. THERE'S TOO MUCH TO SEE. I'd rather watch the soaps with a nice cup of tea

I think at the Black Country Museum you have to sit at desks in the school room while dressed up person yells at you.

I get a bit 'must see everything' as well. It's all good & well when you can pop in all the time (I hate not living in London anymore ) but when you have to make an expensive trip to get there, you feel you want to 'make the most of it & see as much as you can' but really, you should 'make the most of it' by seeing what you can comfortably and enjoying it...