A whistle-stop visit to London

Oh boy, I feel like such a conflicted mix of local and tourist sometimes. I mean, who goes into London for an hour and half; two at the most? A local? And who goes crazy looking at all the sights and taking it all in? A tourist? Yeah, that's me...a local tourist...a lorist!!! :DWe dropped Catherine off in Soho just about lunch time and R said we had to get out of town before the afternoon rush hour.So, with a max of two hours, we made our way thru W1 to one of our favourite museums for a little lunch and a brief run around.I'm always surprised...wait, not surprised...it's more like a mix of horrified and thrilled...horrilled! at the mix of beautiful, treasured, preserved and old, and new, contemporary, tacky and sparkly in this town.That's me, a horrilled lorist. :DAnd, what would London be without a sudden deluge? (Yes, we did have the obligatory black umbrella with wooden handle with us.)We found a parking spot around the block from the Science Museum, and hoofed it in between the rains.You wouldn't tell from this photo, but I think it was about a hundred degrees inside the museum with a million out-of-school kidlets running around.R went to the main restaurant space to find us a seat and I went to buy us some lunch.I had to laugh...although I really shouldn't be...I sort of missed with lunch! First, the sandwich we split had a horseradish mayo in it, and, while I love horseradish, R hates it, and, I GOT THE NON-HORSERADISH HALF! He ate the chips...lol. I grabbed a tea for me and a water for R...the water was sparkling not still, and no amount of shaking would take out the bubbles, AND, the chocolate brownie was such death by chocolate that one bite and we both broke out in a sweat. You gotta laugh! :DWe ran around a few of the floors and looked at the exhibits.At the entrance to one room, there was an art installation. A big column and sign which said DO NOT TOUCH! A bit of an anomaly in a risk-free, child friendly museum. We stood there and giggled as hundreds of children completely ignored the sign, rushed up to it and touched, (much to their parent's horror). Apparently the pole in the centre gives off a mild electric shock amplified by sound. But apparently, these kids didn't feel anything. :)Next, we rushed off to see a time exhibition.I love time pieces and clocks.Then, on to R's favourite area: Engines!I must confess I love the engines too. Robert's been showing me some animated video of how radial engines work and teaching me about them. It's so wonderful that people are making little videos like this one:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJf5v-9ShAII'm such a visual learner that it helps me understand the sequence of the firing/piston action.And I think they're so sculptural that they could stand as a work of art.Most of our museum time was spent with the engines, but we did go into the central gallery to look at some more cool cars and boats and also to look at this Bakelite exhibit.I love Bakelite, especially jewellery from the 30's and my vintage phones, but it's amazing how well the stuff was used.I also spied a loom and studied it for a few minutes for when I get back to Vancouver and set up the thrift shop loom I bought. Actually, I didn't learn much, but it was lovely to watch it clunk and clang as it wove the cloth.Well, that was it. Three pm came round way too soon and we headed back to the car and pointed it towards Oxford.It still took us hours to get out of town. :D