The Humankind exhibition

Neanderthal man

I've always had an interest in early history, pre-history really, more specific - early man. Thinking back it probably all started when I was a child and I saw a picture of a woolly mammoth in children's magazine my mum used to read to my brother and I called Treasure. Anyone remember that?  Then at junior school we learnt a little about stone age people and that's stuck with me. So when Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story exhibition came to my knowledge it was just a case of fitting it in to my busy schedule. I thought it might interest my eldest son who has a weeks break from work this week. It did, so on Tuesday we headed off to The Natural History Museum in London.

The exhibition isn't huge but very informative. We actually sat and watched all the short films and read all the fascinating facts. I said to my son that I felt a book buying session coming on! I limited myself to the book of the exhibition but it made me think again about all the other books I'd read over the years and how sometimes I sort of try to imagine how where I live would have looked in stone age times. I do this sometimes, drift off into the past - no cars, no technology, just space! It's hard to think that woolly rhinoceros and lions once wandered through what is now London, that the Thames once meandered out into Norfolk (that's the theory). When the ice age came only the southern part of England would have been free of it. Neanderthals left because it was too cold and returned when things heated up again. When the ice broke it created the English Channel and we were forever to be an island race.

From the exhibition we wandered into the Charles Darwin Centre, then had lunch before going on a walk through Hyde Park. It was such a lovely day to be out and I wanted to make the most of it.

Hyde Park pictures