We had a great day out yesterday to Great Missenden for a trip to the Roald Dahl Museum. We have been wanting to go since last year and as we were aware that our time here in England could be very limited we wanted to 'sieze the day' and take the kids while we had time. It didn't disappoint that's for sure!
The museum itself is quite small but is full of really interesting memorabilia to read and look at. The children were given a 'Story Ideas Book' as they arrived and told that Roald used to keep all his ideas written down in a book which he kept with him all the time. Sometimes the ideas lived in the book for decades before he used them for a story. The little ideas books are great with lots of prompts for the children and space for them to write ideas of their own. The two main galleries were based around the books 'Boy' and 'Going Solo' but have elements of lots of Roalds books in them (a shadow puppet theatre based on the dream bottles in the BFG, a 'cut-it-out-yourself' seagul to fly like in James and the Giant Peach and lots more). There are photos and audio visual elements running all the time and I have to say that after two visits to each of the galleries I still didn't see everything!
The story centre is such a fun place with lots of opportunities to make a story using animation, words, photo cut outs etc. There is also a mock up of the inside of Roald's writing hut where the children can sit in a chair exactly like his and see if inspiration takes hold of them! There are lots of dressing up clothes, chests with books attached so you can just sit and read if you want and also an art gallery where you can draw, colour or embellish to your hearts content.
The children had been booked onto a Revolting Recipes workshop and they had a lot of fun making 'plushnuggets' (pastry cases with a mashed banana and golden syrup filling drizzled with chocolate sauce after baking!) and 'fizzy lifting drink' (coloured lemonade with a scoop of ice cream and loads of sprinkles on top). Well worth going to if you can.
Finally they went along to the storytime in the Boy gallery which was interactive and involved a couple of the museum staff taking parts and dressing up as they told the story.
Definately worth the drive from Bristol for our family and so glad we fitted it in!
Isaac: At Noas Ark Zoo (or Animal) farm we (Isaac(myself) and Evie(my sister) ) touched a boa constricter called Bruce (sounds a bit like brute which in turn sounds a bit like brute strength which is what boa constricters posses) he felt a bit sticky, but quite nice, although we weren't allowed to hold all of him at one time because he was too big.
