It was a family outing to Scienceworks today - the cubs' father came with us. Which was good, cos with the car it was a 35 minute trip rather than 1.5 hours on public transport with a 20 minute walk at the end...
Excellent new exhibition about predators - Eaten Alive - the highlight of which was a 3D virtual dive in a shark-proof cage. That was cool, if a little gruesome. (The 3D seal bled quite realistically..) Lots of other fun and interactive thingies too, including some t'riffic animatronic critters. You could step back a bit from the 6' funnelweb spider cos you knew it wasn't real but the crocodile was life-size and that was disturbing to watch. Looking into that gaping maw and thinking, holy crap, I'd fit in there! <g>
One exhibit was a bit icky - 'guess who killed the deer?'. Big photo of a dead dear and below that a display of 3 different predators claw patterns (and behind a flap with a clearly marked squick warning, a photo of what's left of an animal when that particular predator has finished. Did you know cheetahs don't eat the intestinal tract while lions eat practically everything? Eeuuww.)
The cubs really enjoyed the exhibition, even though this evening one of them snuck out of his room at bedtime saying he couldn't sleep cos of the scary thoughts. Getting him to cuddle up with one of his plushies usually helps him settle but tonight we realised he has no plushies that aren't predators. <g> We reached a compromise - his big shark is still a predator but it's not likely to eat him...
The rest of the day there was lots of fun as well even though the 'Electricity' exhibit gave me headache. It was probly a combination of the static being generated and the dozens of strong magnets used in the displays.
Having a look in the gift-shop a little later and the cubs were a bit disappointed they couldn't have the Albert Einstein action-figure (I kid you not) or the robot-gripper claw but were happy enough with a blob of slime and a bottle of the 'touchable bubbles' bubble making kit. And I was happy cos I got another fishie to add to my collection! Only missing the self-coloured gold wind-up koi now from the collection. : )

Walking back from the supermarket on Saturday the cubs and I stopped to browse the bargain book table outside the newsagent. On sale was the Athens Olympics special edition of B&W Magazine. Lovely, lovely nude photos, I spent several minutes browsing - then the cubs noticed what I was looking at and wanted to look as well. It did occur to me for a split second that perhaps I shouldn't be letting my children see these pictures then I dismissed the thought. They were just images of nude people, they weren't sexualised in any particular way and I honestly couldn't see the problem. Besides, I'd rather the cubs got their first look at naked bods from something like this than the less-than-subtle porn mags.

Annoyed though, discovered the bakery next to the newsagents has changed hands in the past few days. That's where I've bought my coffee (organically produced in E.Timor by a fair-trade group - absolutely delicious) for the past year. I'll be miffed if I can't get hold of it easily.

Right, actually making headway with chapter 8 and I've regained my confidence that I can write something that's not crap. Heh.