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Today we went to a vicious venoms and poisonous parasites workshop at centre of the cell in London.
My goodness it was good.
Mamie, Ruby and Christine joined us, whilst daddy and Lila stayed home.
The day began with a train journey into London, or should I say Luton, where I got kicked off the train for having a cheap ticket. Turns out I'm not allowed to ride on virgin trains if I have an FCC ticket, much to Christine's amusement.
So we got into St Pancras on my FCC train and then caught the tube to Whitechapel. In all my time living in Watford and working in Soho, I'd never been to St Pancras. Watford has a tube station on the metropolitan line so there'd never been any need to use a mainline train.
It was like a little shopping mall, with artisan cupcakes and cheese delicatessens and organic farm shops. I really wanted to stop, but with three preschoolers in tow it probably wouldn't have been much fun.
Anyway, we made it to centre of the cell, which was fantastic. They really do cater to all ages, with questions simple enough for a four year old to understand and knowledge deep enough to hit GCSE requirements and more.
The first section was called a 'pod show' and you get inside a pod which is shaped like an 8 day old embryo. In the centre of the pod is a 'nucleus' which contains tons of touch screen interactive games. They're done simply enough that Will was easily able to identify a gene for deafness, raise a colony of bacteria, treat severe burns and even watch a simulation of himself from birth to now.
We then moved on to a lecture room where we got to see an experiment of what happens to blood when venom is added, and learn a bit about different venomous animals. Did you know that a jellyfish has 24 eyes? Me neither, but I do now!
There were some craft activities and interactive learning packs for older children, but the toddlers were happy just pottering about looking at everything and making bracelets out of 'DNA' beads.
Then as we headed home we stopped in a bakery at St Pancras and bought some really extravagant cupcakes.
We brought them home and had just enough time for a tea party with all the teddies before bed.
A fantastic day out which I hope to repeat again soon.
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