London Transport Museum Depot. Acton

 We decided we wouldn't carry on with the Treasure Trail, it was too long and had got boring.  It was also a bit too old for Boy Two, and even The Boy had to have help with most of them.  Even us adults did, on a couple of them....

So the question was, what to do today, which is the last day we could all get together before school restarts next week.  I looked on IanVisits and found that the Transport Museum's Acton depot was, exceptionally, open for a few weeks this summer.  Normally it only opens for two weekends a year.  I had never been - I did buy us tickets to go one year, and forgot to put them in the diary, to discover them ten days after the event..... 

They were selling timed tickets, but the 11:00 am slot was already sold out.  The noon slot was warning "Last few tickets", but they managed to sell me 3 adult and 2 child tickets, so we arranged to meet outside the depot at 11:55 this morning.  The Daughter said she was going to drive, since that was easiest and avoided using public transport, and the Swan Whisperer insisted that we would, too.  I had nightmares about it and was very worried about finding parking in the area, even though we knew that the local CPZs were in operation only 09:00-10:00 and 15:00-16:00, presumably to stop people parking all day and going into work on the Tube from Acton Town station.  In any event, I need not have worried as we found a parking space at the first time of trying, within a couple of minutes' walk from the Museum.  So we ended up spending 20 minutes in the car as it was too early to go in!

It was all very easy, and most enjoyable.  We could only see the bus collection and the Tube train collection (I felt we were slightly ripped off, as the tickets were full price, and there was much of the depot that was, understandably, closed off - we couldn't see the ticket machines, or the little huts that the collectors used to sit it, other than from a distance, and the upstairs galleries were closed).  The daughter, Boy Too and I wandered on, but The Boy and the SW were far more engrossed in the technical details of the buses, wondering how you accessed the engines in these ones for maintenance, 

 and generally being nerdish.  They had fun!  We spent hours in the Museum shop (the Daughter said she never had enough time to browse, usually) and the SW bought her her birthday present there.  Then we wandered on through the various Tube trains and out the other end, where they presented the boys with a pack of things to do at home (mostly make a bus-driver's cap), and we had a drink and a snack in the café area, and then a ride on the miniature railway, before heading back to the car.

As I said, most enjoyable, but I do think they could have reduced the price slightly as not all of the Museum was, or could be, open to the public.

Treasure Trail

 This may well end up being Treasure Trail part 1, but I won't edit the title until I know for sure.

One of the sad things about this pandemic is the dearth of summer expeditions with the Boys.  But yesterday their father had an important court case over the Internet, and really didn't want it added to with fighting in the garden, or football goals being scored against his office wall.  So the Daughter decided to take them out on a Treasure Trail around Spitalfields and Brick Lane.  This was a detective trail, with clues to solve to find "Whodunnit", or rather, to eliminate certain suspects and murder weapons, a la Cluedo.

 We met at Liverpool Street Station and first off found a Prets for a cup of coffee/iced tea/juice/babycino (not that Boy Too is a baby any more; he is very nearly 7, but he still likes them!).  But once that was done, we had to retrace our steps to Bishopsgate to find the first clue, which was a date inscribed high on a building.  Most of the clues were that sort of thing, but sometimes you had to think sideways to find them.  There were definitely two we didn't find before we all decided it was lunch time, and headed to Franco Manca for pizza and affogato.  Or plain ice cream, in the case of the boys, who do like coffee now but aren't allowed it much.  

Once lunch was over, I knew I had had enough for one day, and went back to Liverpool Street Station to get a 133 back to Brixton.  I had hoped to go to Morley's, but there was a 355 behind us when we got to Brixton, and I realised I was absolutely exhausted.  I staggered home and went to bed for the rest of the day!  Not as many steps as sometime, but a lot more than I've been able for since I had Covid-19 back at the end of March! 

The Swan Whisperer came in a little later, saying that they had done one or two more clues after lunch, but the boys were getting a bit tired of it, so they decided to call it a day, and the rest of the clues can be done another day.