No work for Bobby on Friday (he needs to use up some of this year's leave, so he's working four-day weeks till the end of the year) so I walked into a delicious-smelling house on Friday evening after work. He'd made lamb curry, and there was wine, and DVDs to watch afterwards. Lovely.

(I highly recommend Tsotsi, by the way. I'd put off watching it for ages, because I thought it was going to be one of those sentimental movies which are too painful to watch, but actually it was excellent.)

Lucky for Bobby he earned all those Wonderful Husband points on Friday, because Saturday was not in the least bit lovely. Bobs wanted advice on buying a new coat, so I went shopping with him. The horror. Shop after shop, coat after coat, and no coat ever quite met his specifications. This did not surprise me (though it did him) because his specifications were impossible to meet. His ideal coat had to be formal enough for work yet casual enough for hiking, and warm enough to withstand the iciest temperatures England (or Scotland, because that's where we're going for Christmas) could throw at it, yet light enough to wear indoors. And also, it had to have "slanty pockets", and not be blue.

Amazingly enough, we did actually eventually find a coat which, while it didn't meet all of his specs (no kidding!), did make him happy. And we got 22% off the purchase price because we opened a store account when we bought it. (We did pay the whole thing off immediately though; we are the sort of people who would lose track of store accounts if we were to actually use them). Anyway, so we got the coat home - it was 3pmish by this time, and we hadn't had lunch - and then realised that the check-out girl had forgotten to remove the security tag, the one that if you pull it off yourself sprays ink all over your garment. Bobs called the store to ask them what to do about it, and they said, oh, just take it to any other store, show them the receipt, and they'll take it off for you. All well and good, except that none of the local clothes shops use those tags, so we had to get in the car and drive to one that did. What a performance. And when we got home, we still had to do the week's laundry. So, not a great day.

Today was wonderful, though.

We went to the Natural History museum to see the Shell Wildlife Photography exhibit. Absolutely stunning photographs. You can see them online, though they are infinitely more impressive in the gallery.

The museum itself is quite amazing looking, both outside ...



and inside.



I particularly liked the monkey gargoyles climbing up the sides of the arches.

We had been organised enough to take a picnic lunch with us, which always (for us) makes an outing work better. If we don't bother to take lunch with us, it ends up quite stressful, with everyone tired and hungry and looking for somewhere not too expensive to eat - and of course, in London, everywhere is expensive, so we end up trying to convince the kids that maybe they could get by with just half a sandwich each, but they claim (a) to be too hungry for that and (b) hate all the sandwiches on offer anyway, and everyone gets grumpy. But, if one is organised enough to take a packed lunch, most museums and galleries have areas for this very purpose, so there is somewhere pleasant to eat and everyone is well fed and happy and calm.

After we'd looked at the exhibit, we wandered around some of the rest of the museum, went for a walk through Kensington,



and had a cup of coffee (or coke, in the kids' cases), and then caught the train back home. I love that all the Christmassy things are starting to happen; our cappucinos, for instance, had cocoa stars on them.



Tonight, I made a really good veg. lasagne, and we ate it with nice South African wine, and later on we'll watch Torchwood. So, nothing too wildly exciting, but, overall, a really nice family weekend.