TfL Transported by Design

On summer Sundays, Regent Street is apt to close for special events.  Two years ago, there was the Bus Cavalcade, and today there was the Transported by Design exhibition.

There are some excellent photos on the BBC report of the event.

Two years ago, The Boy was not quite four and Boy Too was about 9 months.  Now he is nearly 6 and his brother is 2 3/4.  It makes a huge difference - Boy Too was loving the exhibits, especially the ones he could climb on or get into, while The Boy was able to read the captions and generally realise far more what was happening than that someone had put all these buses there for his pleasure.

I didn't enjoy the exhibition as much as I'd liked the Bus Cavalcade.  There were several old buses, a tube carriage ("The same as the one in the Transport Museum" said The Boy - it probably was that one) and a couple of taxis, but after that it was rather more static exhibitions about the present and the future of transport design.  The most popular - from the boys' point of view, anyway - was a giant London train set, with Tower Bridges, buses, and Underground trains.  Both boys were promptly absorbed, and the Daughter worried about an exit strategy, but in the event Boy Too is learning to do without nappies and didn't quite make it ("I'm all wet!" he said, ecstatically), and once he had been put in dry clothes, The Boy came away very cheerfully, with no sulking.

There were also things you could colour in, and people giving out free yo-yos and boxes of peppermints, and endless stickers.  And various concession stalls.  "Frozen yoghurt!" said the Boy, blissfully, but we pointed out that there were six of us (Mrs Rev had joined us for the afternoon, lovely to see her) and it would be too expensive.  I noticed the Swan Whisperer eyeing the ice pops stall thoughtfully, but again, probably too expensive if you bought one for all of us.

But I don't think any of us were really sorry to arrive at Oxford Circus and meet the boys' father who had come to join them.  And The Boy went into one last tent to do one last colouring, and we went our separate ways.