He’s always on the scene and his fire engine’s red and clean….it’s Fireman Roo. Today, the Fire Brigade Museum were having an Open Day and Reuben is in a particularly NEE-NAWy phase, so we went along (see, I promised you this morning that I’d get off my arse!). It was billed as a family fun day, so I was a bit disappointed in the lack of things for kids to actually do. Roo was perfectly happy just being in the vicinity of a fire engine and joyously calling out “nee naw nee naw” but imagine how excited he’d have been if he’d been allowed on one?! There was some kinda H&S reason why not apparantly.
There was also a very lovely FireDog, that Roo stroked in a suprisingly gentle way. And kept running back to see, even after FireDoggy had been allowed to retreat to his cage in the FireDoggyWagon (I think that’s the technical term). I would go as far as to say that FireDog was Roo’s personal highlight so maybe we should have just gone to see a dog (I believe there are Men you can see about these things). Or got him his own dog….
Sorry, I drifted off there. I was thinking about dogs. So, to the museum itself. It looked very interesting but I got no time whatsoever to read or look anything as Roo rushed through the whole place in two minutes flat. It was all a bit “look, don’t touch” which my hands-y toddler struggled with but I think it’d be great for older kids. The collection of vintage fire engines was similarly interesting but hands-off. As with the tanks at the Imperial War Museum, they could really do with something that kids can just clamber over. It doesn’t need to be a genuine relic. There were also some firefighter uniforms to try on,which were fun but chained to a wall so Roo discarded them as soon as he discovered he couldn’t move. He’s not one for standing still and/or being chained to walls (not that we chain him to walls, no no).
VERDICT: Interesting for older kids but not ideal for toddlers. Worth checking out if they have another Open Day, purely for the being-in-the-vicinity-of-a-nee-naw excitement but if they’re that crazy about fire engines, take them to the one in Battersea Park Children’s Zoo
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