London is not the centre of the universe

Sometimes, as an adult, you need to embrace your inner child.

This week Lisa drove me out into the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside for a bit of an adventure. The intention was to see brown signs, and follow them, and that's almost what we did. We ended up in Great Missenden - a very sweet little town with tiny doors and timbered houses, surrounded by the vibrant tones of an autumnal countryside, with a disturbingly eclectic range of cuisines available in it's restaurants. Really, what sort of tiny village needs three different international cuisines on one street?
What we did find in Great Missenden, besides it's delightfully quaint Christmas decoration and incredibly small and difficult to navigate parking spaces, was the Roald Dahl museum.

You'll be familiar with Roald Dahl. He wrote such beautiful children's novels as the BFG, and Matilda, and was the literary upbringing of most 20-somethings. If you don't remember Dahl as a name, you'll definitely remember the delightfully child-friendly illustrations of Quentin Blake.

Photo above by Lisa. The museum was great. It used interactive displays and silly activities to teach you all about Roald Dahl as a person, and where his stories came from. 

I bet you didn't know Roald Dahl was a fighter pilot. Neither did we. Also that he was very, very tall...

We found out about his stubborn nature, and the difficulties Quentin Blake had with working with him sometimes, and also how hard it was to translate his work onto the big screen. It always had to be just right...

There was also a replica of his writing hut, where he had objects of inspiration surrounding himself, where he cut himself off from the world and just wrote down his stories. 

I would like a writing hut.

And of course, as everything was very interactive, and not very busy, the opportunity was there to be a little bit silly...

Photo by Lisa again. I'd make a great jet pilot. It was loads of fun for us as a pair of quite wordy, excitable people, and with a 2 for 1 voucher (Which you can easily find with a quick Google), it only cost us three quid each (plus cake) for a couple of hours of great fun. We even made a little animation! I would say that it's probably a destination that you could spend all day in if you have kids, they do storytelling and have a crafts corner, and there's an excellent cafe. 

All in all, a very fun day, and highly recommendable if you've got kids, or have just never grown up.