Every month London’s Natural History Museum organizes a sleepover.  A couple of hundred excitable children (and their adult hangers-on) spend an evening taking part in activities before getting into sleeping bags in the shadow of Dippy in the Great Hall. My daughter went along this month, with a few of her friends, as a birthday treat. And I, of course, was one of the adult hangers-on.

I probably enjoyed it as much as they did (apart from a night lost to sleep – it’s not called Dinosnores for nothing). The staff were all working scientists at the museum, helping out to earn a bit of pin money. All were immensely knowledgeable and captivatingly engaging. The activities (in particular, the making of fossil casts and a superb, funny lecture on bugs by entomologist Erica McAlister) were well thought out. The animatronic T-Rex was suitably scary in the dark (indeed, too much so for some of the children). And it was wonderful to see the museum as I had never seen it before, at night. The Victorian gothic architecture lends itself superbly to darkness. So, here are some photos from a night at the museum.