Thursday in London

Today I went to the Darwin exhibition at the National History museum. I spent 3 hours there, the rest of the museum was overrun by children but you had to pay 9 pound for the Darwin bit so there were no kids there; good for me, bad for them. It was a very good exhibition, learnt quite a lot about Darwin. He formed a club at Cambridge where with friends, he ate as many different new species of animal as he could. He did the same biology paper three times, that was all he was interested in. He wasn't paid on his 5 year trip on the Beagle. He was sea sick most of the time. He wasn't sure about getting married. There was a careful table he had made weighing the pros and cons of marriage. His overwhelming concern was how much time a relationship would occupy. He did marry his cousin Emma. She became very concerned at how his theory might would conflict with religion, Darwin said he shed many a tear at the thought that she was so concerned for him. This was one of the reasons it took him 20 years to publish his theory.

Afterwards I went back to the Stockpot in Soho for liver with sage, onions and mashed potato, followed by a Christmas mince pie with custard. Then on to Monmouth coffee company for a good coffee. Tonight Ive been out for dinner with Janeen Richardson, a good friend of my sister Melanie.