"The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea."

When me and Mrs M first started seeing each other we spent a lot of time in my home city Birmingham. It was a really romantic start to what has become the most important thing that has happened to me. Around that time we were doing all sorts together and one afternoon we decided to visit the Sea Life centre. It's important to know that personally I'm not a fish person, if I'm round at someone's house and they point out their tank I'm generally not at all impressed. I do however like otters so my initial visit with Mrs M was sold solely on there being otters present.

We had visited again when I was first introduced to Seth and we had had a great time again. So when Opeie started saying that he wished he could go somewhere and see water dinosaurs I knew that evolution had won that impossible battle and I needed to find the next best thing local to us. Knowing the area quite well i found somewhere free for us to park in walking distance from the town centre which gave us the chance to walk along the canal which i always loved doing when i lived in brum.

It's amazing how different a visit is when you are approaching it from a parent/home education point of view and as we entered the main doors of the Sea life centre the excitement on everyone's faces was contagious. To add to the excitement there was also a LEGO event running over the summer, LEGO City deep sea explorers, being such huge LEGO geeks that little bonus really added to the build up of our visit.

As a grown up that doesn't have a passion for Sea life it was fun to just walk around with Mrs M taking in all the sights, there are some beautiful fish and the plants, displays and even the smell of the place really pulls you in. But this time with children (and especially a very excited 4 year old) i took a lot more time reading the information as we moved through each room. Opeie loved that the male seahorses hold the eggs in a pouch until they are ready to be birthed and then continued to tell me we were going to sew a pouch on the front of my jumper to carry him about, cute.

I love visiting attractions like this, where everywhere you look there is something interesting to look at. It also good that attractions like these get the boys asking lots of questions (even if i did have to get my good friend Google out to answer a few of them).

I loved this, made me think of me and the boys

 Being such huge LEGO fanatics and knowing the crazy things that we create ourselves weekly, the boys were a little disappointed by the amount of LEGO that was on display. I think we were all expecting to see life size deep sea divers and maybe a full size LEGO shark in the tanks. The disappointment soon vanished though when we spotted a room full of LEGO to play with and a display of all the sea related creations built by visitors. We built a starfish, an octopus and a penguin head.

I really wanted to take some LEGO related shots during our visit but because of the lighting and the 'No flash photography' it was really difficult. The boys loved that we had props for some of the LEGO trivia about though.

Opeie always gets a little jumpy with 4D cinemas so i was shocked when he said he wanted to watch the movie. The Sea life centre was showing 'The polar express' the last time we visited but this time we watched 20,000 leagues under the sea which the boys loved.

And then on to our favourite part, the under water tunnel. I think this was where we were expecting to see quite a few LEGO installations but the sharks and giant turtle made up for that. The boys looked completely captivated by all the amazing Sea life around them and as we chatted about all manner of things water related it was clear that educationally the Sea life centre is an amazing place to take your children. It's lovely to read about this sort of thing in books but to be there and see a shark for yourself is i real experience.

After a few hours walking around it was time to head home and all the way home we talked about jellyfish and seahorses and all the lovely things we had seen.

but not before Seth attempted a few more shots with his LEGO.

"Sometimes, it is not the kings and queen who make for the most fascinating history but the shadowy souls who happen to be in the right place at the right time.”

Mrs M had to work a convention this weekend in London so as always I thought it would be nice if me and the boys tagged a long too, we used it as an excuse to go adventuring on the tube (as the boys love it) and also head over to Madam Tussauds. I've wanted to go for quite some time and almost visited the one in Amsterdam many years ago but it just never seemed to happen. Getting the tube around London can seem a little daunting but once we had worked out that Baker Street was the nearest station it was really easy to find and as it was quite early the trains were not as busy.

We arrived at our destination and I was really surprised to see that there wasn't much of a queue as we had been told by our friends who live in London that Madam Tussauds is one of the hotspots for tourists. When we got inside we realised that the lack of people queuing outside meant nothing because in fact half of London seemed like they were inside!

(apologies for any blurry photos because of having a pushchair and two boys i refrained from taking the camera and relied on my phone)

I realised from the first room that the boys were not going to know many of the waxworks exhibited in each room but Seth was really fascinated by how life like each sculpture was. Bless Opeie, there were so many visitors there and he was so low down that didn't really know what was going on until I picked him up. Russell Brand was the first person we spotted and Mrs M loves his political views so i snapped a pic to send her, the boys spotted professor x (Patrick Stewart) and then I spotted the man Mrs M would leave me for if asked. There was a woman photographing him so we stood patiently waiting for some time until I realised, that too was a waxwork,Der!

Seth got really excited when he spotted James Bond from afar and couldn't wait to get a picture and then he noticed M too, Opeie as always being in complete awe of his big brother got really excited too, it's so cute how much he looks up to him.

Because the boys didn't know who many of the famous people were I used it as a chance to take pictures for other peoples enjoyment. Our friend Chris is a big Alfred Hitchcock fan, Mrs M finds BoJo quite entertaining and I know that if nanny Robson had have still been with us she would have found the picture of Seth with Henry VIII very entertaining. Nanny Roo definitely shared my humour though.

One of the highlights of the day for me was chatting to Emma, one of the lovely staff that works there, dressed as Madam Tussaud. She was a fountain of information and had i have not been with the boys i could have spoken to her for a lot longer. She told me all about Madam Tussaud and explained about the fire in 1929 where many of the wax works were destroyed. The bust of Napoleon on the shelf behind was one of the things that survived the fire. We also found out that Madam Tussauds final piece was a self portrait and was also on show further along the attractions.

We made our way through the attractions snapping away. It made me chuckle that Opeie wanted his picture taken with Shakespeare, most three year olds wouldn't know who William Shakespeare was but thanks to the wonders of LEGO and our Minifigure collection he knew exactly who it was.

Seeing her final piece was great and the boys loved that in this section of the exhibition you got to see things like trays of eyeballs. Aside from all of the celebrities i thought that this side of the experience was most interesting, its so easy to get drawn in to having your picture taken with the beckhams or Lady Gaga but the history of the place is and the story around it is far more entertaining.

The spirit of London ride was great and really broke up the visit, getting us away from the crowds briefly and giving us the chance to relax for a short time. Sadly i was using my phone and the pictures didn't turn out great but the the boys found it really interesting

Because of the boys being so young we couldn't go into the Chamber of Horrors and Scream, which initially i felt a little disappointed about, not because I'm interested in that sort of thing but because i wanted to experience all the attractions, but as i walked away i thought to myself it was a shame that that attraction was part of the tour. I really don't think that serial killers should be glorified in this way as i think its why many of them commit these crimes. Anyway that aside we finally got to the part of Madam Tussauds we were desperate to see. Yes you guessed it, the Marvel superheroes section...

Finally some characters Opeie knew (yes he is carrying a syringe around with him, clearly he was expecting a medical emergency). It was great to see Spidey and his friends and this definitely made the visit for Seth and Opeie.

After seeing the waxworks we queued for the Marvel Super Heroes 4d Movie Experience and we thought it was great. We got sprayed, our ankles were attacked by robots and every time Wolverine took a swipe with his claws we got a jab in the back which was really entertaining. The visit was great, the only negative side to the morning was that once we reached the Spirit of London ride i couldn't help but feel like we were rushed through the remainder of the exhibits and before we knew it we were standing in the gift shop with no way of getting back in.

I can definitely see why Madam Tussauds is a hotspot for tourists, the most popular waxworks to be photographed with apart from those plebs one direction was the royals, the visitors couldn't get enough of them. It was a great morning in London and with some more London visits planned within the next few months it was another attraction to tick off our ever expanding list.