London last week day six

We did not get on the road until lunch time and headed for the The Natural History Museum. This is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London (the others are the Science Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum). Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road and gets over four million visitors a year. The quality of the exhibitions and the building truly set this apart from any other museum we have visited.
The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections: Botany, Entomology, Mineralogy, Palaeontology and Zoology. There was just so much here that it was impossible for us to see it all. One amazing feature exhibit was a large slice of a Sequola tree trunk. This tree was a seedling in the year 527 and when Shakespeare was born it was 1,000 years old so it was exceptional to see this.(see pic)
The museum is a world-renowned centre of research, specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, such as specimens collected by Darwin.
The museum is particularly famous for its exhibition of dinosaur skeletons, and ornate architecture — sometimes dubbed a cathedral of nature — both exemplified by the large Diplodocus cast which dominates the vaulted central hall. (see pic). Unfortunately for us the main Dinosaur exhibition was closed.
Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, the Natural History Museum does not have an admission charge.
We spent most of the afternoon here and then moved on to the Queens Household Cavalry Museum.
This is a living museum in the heart of Horse Guards, Whitehall, London.
Unlike any other military museum it offers a unique “behind- the-scenes” look at the work that goes into the ceremonial and operational role of the Household Cavalry Regiment. I was lucky enough to try on some of the gear that they wear and it was really heavy. This style of dress has not changed for hundreds of years.
The Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons) is a cavalry regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry. The Colonel-in-Chief is The Queen.
From here we walked to Golden Square close to Soho. This is where Chris and Gemma work. We all met here for a few drinks with their boss and work colleges. It was great to meet them all and to get a feel for everything.
Paul, Chris’s boss suggested that we go to a restaurant called Wright Brothers for tea. This was going to be our last tea together before we headed home and the meal was lovely. (see pic). We had to say our final goodbye to Gemma as there may not be an opportunity to catch up with her again before we left. This was very hard and very emotional.