Short on time

That's the end of the family holiday. This week Dig is working in Sydney, which means I am left to my own devices. Plan A is to locate the nearest museum and spend all day in it. I won't need Plan B.

Home Education Plan A is the Powerhouse Museum. Here I can send Shark, Squirrel and Tiger off, roaming free, and need not see them again.

When I want to find them later this afternoon I'll look for the security guard. He'll be frowning with impatience and jangling keys. In front of him will be my kids, squaring up to pick a fight about the unfair treatment, actually being thrown out of a museum when they have not yet designed the teapot in the interactive design game, and does everyone know how much they've been looking forward to doing that?

Then I'll be caught between feeling proud of my little home ed school, and needing, for the sake of social niceness, to sound apologetic for them all at the same time.

Well, Powerhouse, I'm not really apologetic. I've been kicking myself all day because I forgot the camera. And I'm short on temper thanks to a husband snatched from my grasp. And we only found that kid's gallery in the underground level an hour before closing. You should have made the design section more boring. And you shouldn't have distracted us with that space capsule. And what's with the clock? We spent a good half an hour looking at that.

So what did you expect? Take an awkwardsquad mama and three bolshy kids deprived of papa for the week, put them somewhere they like, then try and throw them out of it, fifteen minutes before closing time.

You'll find the security guard in the cupboard at the back of the soundwaves section.