It’s not all about hills you know…

The girls decided an adventure was needed. They decided there were  rules: We had to take a train, cos trains are fun when you’re 4. We had to have our dinner out and it had to be pizza. It had to be a whole day effort and it had to involve at least, but not exclusively tigers, dinosaurs and fun stuff. We’d been to Kelvingrove recently so the choice was easy, it would be a return to the National Museum of Scotland.

The train journey to Edinburgh buzzed with excitement of anticipation. I get that when I hit the A82, so I’m right there with them. When we arrived we got the usual “Welcome to Edinburgh, you’ll have had your tea” : a sign at the museum said that due to industrial action, it would close at 1pm. There were mutterings, we’d planned the whole day and a wee note on the website would have helped. Nevertheless, we got on with it. Familiarity meant we could get down to business quickly and find the important stuff with the animals, only being passingly sidetracked by a giant beastie made out of balloons.

There’s bags of hands-on stuff for the kids, along with nose-on and ear-on. I had to test the skunk smell-o-matic, which was a delight.

1pm came all too quickly, so we were ejected into Chambers street along with 500 blinking tourists with an afternoon to fill. We headed on down to the National Gallery to see some Rodin, Rembrandt and van Gogh. The security guard looked a wee bit perturbed as suddenly hundreds of punters appeared at the door. The girls were not massively impressed by the old masters or the tiny wee lift with the squeaky doors, although Pip was captivated by a picture of a horse.

Completely cultured out, we headed to the shops for some coffee and browsing, then back up to North bridge for some Pizza Express action.

We staggered back to Waverly full of pizza and ice-cream to catch the train back home. The return journey was a subdued affair and two wee girls fell into bed tired and happy.

If you’ve not been to the museum, go. If you have, go back. There’s enough in there to keep you entertained for years.

Adventures come in all shapes and sizes.