Wellcome Collection: Day of the Dead

We celebrated the Mexican holiday, the Day of the Dead, this weekend at the Wellcome Collection. Luckily we arrived as they opened, because after we went for lunch we came back to see a queue around the block to get in (maybe they knew something we didn't!).

We were greated by dancing and music, which Kit loved. He especially enjoyed sitting on my shoulders to watch it (hence the bad photo as I didn't want to risk dropping him too much!).

The Wellcome Collection is aimed at people 14+, and we went to meet up with some of my friends, not necessarily for Kit's benefit. When we arrived to the room with the Day of the Dead altar it became apparent that this day was aimed at the under-14 age group. There were lots of awesome face-painting going on, which is something I am still to scared to let Kit have done, given his sensitive, ezcema skin. On tables around the room was a load of activities to keep the small people entertained. Kit made a skeleton.

We even poked around the galleries a little, and Jess tried to get Kit to learn about the different organs, in the end though he was happiest listening to someone talking about malaria on a telephone.





I was tipped off that there is even a kids pack, although this is aimed at children's 6+. We'll definitely head back there to explore the galleries properly, when it is a bit quieter. There are lots of things to look at and buttons to press. There is a model of a very fat person too, so I told Kit that was what happens if you eat too many biscuits - hoping that will curb obesity for him later in life!

Fabric Pom Poms

I started to make Kit a quilt tonight (hopefully more to be shared later!). We took the sides off of his cotbed last week, so now it is just a bed! He'd climbed out of the cot one morning and I woke up to 'where are you mummy?' getting louder and louder until a small child appeared in my bed! I had hoped to get the quilt done before taking the sides off but I didn't want to wake up to a thud, so now I am on a mission to get it done asap. First task was to cut out the patches. I had to stop before I'd managed to do the last lot of material because one of the panels is massively creased and I don't have an iron!





From the patches I had cut out I had lots of little scraps of materials which didn't seem good for anything, but I hate to waste pretty material, no matter how small. I remembered that I had a new pom pom maker that you could use with strips of material, so I thought I would test it out.



I only had enough scraps for one pom pom, but I know what I'll be doing with all my fabric scraps now!

Insect Circus

We were really lucky last week and we won tickets through the lovely people at Urban Explorers for The Insect Circus at Jacksons Lane theatre in Highgate in North London.

I'll be honest, I wasn't sure that my wriggly fidgit of a child would manage to make it through a theatre performance without running out the doors several time. He did thought. I'm not sure if I just underestimated him, or whether it was just that the performance was so amazing that he was entralled by it! I've decided I'll have to take him to some more shows to find out!

The lovely people in the circus said it was ok to take photos so here is a teaser of what you've missed out on if you didn't make it along. The photos don't do it justice though, it was an incredable show (and no insects were harmed in the performance).

The show at Jacksons Lane has finished now, but check out The Insect Circus website for any more shows.