Inspiration - The London Aquarium.

Sea anemones. Just love the colours on these!

My youngest turned four on Saturday, so the whole family took a trip to the London Aquarium as his treat (although I can't deny we were all excited about it). Frankly I dislike London - it's too loud, too crowded and too expensive. But the children enjoyed the train journey up (apart from a long wait for the right Circle line train) and we arrived just before the aquarium opened to hear Big Ben strike ten o'clock (which impressed them). We've been to a couple of Sealife centres before and I didn't expect a huge amount different at the aquarium, but somehow we spent just over two hours inside.

The Houses of Parliment.

The London Eye

Most of my friends know I'm a fan of the weird and the wonderful, and this was too good an opportunity to miss for finding some odd inspiration among the tanks of rays, crabs and guppies (of all things! I can see those in my local pet shop any time). The first surprise when we went in was a glass floor looking down into a huge tank below. Sadly there isn't space to stop and enjoy the view as it's a narrow corridor and the only way in, which was a bit of a disappointment.

Brittlestars

I wish I'd recorded some video of these - their waving arms seemed rather sinister. However I DID record the pretty anemones doing their dance, and some baby fish wriggling inside their egg sacs - did I mention I'm a bit weird? :)

 

The biggest hit for my children was the shark tank and the big, open pool full of rays, flat fish and a mixture of other fish.

Ray tank.

Easter Island shark tank

We got to touch a starfish - for those interested, it feels rather soft and squidgy but the skin itself is kind of scaly/spiny. The underside with all the feet - well, I couldn't feel anything of the feet but the edges of the arms feel quite rough. Youngest got to hold a crab - which was very well behaved and didn't nip - but after weekends spent crabbing at Mersea he wasn't that impressed!

replica(?)whale bones

I do not have a thing for skeletons. Seriously! Although I'm finding it hard to deny considering the number I'm posting in various places. However, having a scifi story out called The Bones of the Sea, it seemed only fitting that I post this, from the largest tank at the aquarium.

Turtle

Cleaner shrimps

Bat stars. Seriously creepy-looking!

I could post pictures from the trip all day long, but that might turn this into a rather long post. So I'll leave you with one final video from the aquarium of Upside Down Jellyfish - yes, they really are called that and it isn't just a description. Enjoy!

Monsters in Mersea.

 Mersea Island, on the coast of East Anglia, might be more famous for its oysters (one of the reasons the Romans invaded Britain way back when) but for us it's the best place to go crabbing. I don't know if it's something done anywhere else in the world, but I grew up with it as a child. I can remember my husband's scepticism when I told him about it, but the stunned look on his face the first time we went together and I repeatedly pulled crab after crab out of the water is something I'll always remember. :)

I don't know if it's the time of year, but normally we'll just catch dozens of little ones - our record is 120 crabs in one session. Today was a day for monsters - and I don't just mean my kids. :-P We caught about five that were the size of my palm if you didn't count the legs. Usually a local seal hangs around in the hope of being thrown the scraps of crab bait at the end of the day, but he wasn't there today. Most likely because the number of crabbers has dwindled with the drop of temperature - we're just insane.

The local crab bait recycler

It's probably the last chance we'll get for such escapades with winter creeping in. Already the temperature has dropped a couple of degrees over the last few days. Tomorrow my dining room is being half demolished to gut the rotten wooden windows letting in a gale, to be replaced with some nice french doors - something to enjoy when, and IF, we ever get a summer in the UK.

So I finish with a last glimpse of sun for probably a long time to come.

Mersea beach

The walkway over the Mersea mudbanks