In Which I Require Medical Attention from the Transport for London Staff

 It started out fine.  It started out with my going to Exhibition Road with my dad to the Science Museum to see Babbage's computing machines.  I was being a good daughter:  I even suggested it!

The Science Museum was more interesting than I thought. There is a main gallery with collections of household, medical and veterinary objects as they were popularly used through time.  They had a cupping set, and a field surgery kit from WWII.  If you know me, you know I find this a little gruesomely interesting.  They also have quite an extensive collection of, um...well, objects used for, um, relieving one's person might be the term.  Quite a lot of human ingenuity and craftsmanship has had to be devoted to this.  Not to mention curating the collection.  "What's your specialty area?"  Probably it's someone who has an advanced degree from Oxbridge, poor thing.  This has nothing to do with that.  It's a needle case with a thimble that screws on the top, and the bottom forms a bobbin:

There were also many looms.  This was an unlooked-for bonus.

And cake.  You can get cake at the Science Museum. 

 

Then we went to the Natural History Museum to look at the new Darwin Centre.  This is built around a huge structure (7 floors tall) that they call the Cocoon.  You start at the top of the Cocoon and wind your way down, and the interactive exhibits talk about how they collect, classify, and analyze samples.  And there are windows where you can look into the labs.  With signs that say, "Scientists working. Please do not knock on the glass." Poor things.  One of the video guides is the museum's Beetle Curator.  I am not making this up.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/darwin-centre-visitors/cocoon/index.html

It was when we were descending back into the tunnel for the South Kensington tube that The Incident Occurred.  I caught my thumb on the banister and started bleeding profusely (i.e. there were three or four distinct droplets).  And it was my right hand, the hand that's on the side with the Oyster Card reader, making swipeage almost impossible! 

I got to the station itself by fashioning a kind of bandage out of a Boots the Chemist tissue (from a packet that has actually been the full round-trip now from London to the US and back to London - but see -  it pays to be prepared).  This was good because before I went through the barriers I was able to show the TFL agent a convincing-looking, slighty bloody and definitely haphazard wrapping around my thumb.  I figured, if they sheltered people Underground during the Blitz, they would be likely to have a first aid kit at least.

He said, "Go down to the end of platform two and they'll help you there.  I'll just tell them you're coming down."  And I he actually used that walkie-talkie they wear on their shoulder to send an alert!!  About my thumb!  At the end of platform two, I said to the next TFL employee, "I was told to come down here and you would have a first aid kit?"  And he said, "Right, come along here..." and I got to go inside the control room.  Woot!  *And* the man watching the bank of screens said to the TFL worker who let me in, "I can't deal with it now, we have an emergency on platform 1.  Can you take her into the mess?"  and made an announcement telling all the people on the train on platform one to get off the train and then took it out of service.  It was an emergency within an emergency!

So now I have a Transport for London sticking plaster on my thumb, applied by a TFL employee.  I'm sure you'll be a little bit disappointed to know that it's an ordinary pinkish color, and doesn't have a red and blue roundel on it or anything.  Still, I can tell it's doing me a lot of good.

This whole palaver, plus jam-packed trains because of rush hour Friday, put us rather behind schedule for getting to Dalston Kingsbury via the London Overground to see a play at the newly re-housed Arcola Theatre.  Mostly this meant we had to suffer by having noodles again at the closest restaurant so we could finish dinner in an hour.
http://www.arcolatheatre.com/?action=showtemplate&sid=453
We were there to see The Painter, about J.M.W. Turner, starring Toby Jones and Niamh Cusack.  I don't know what the Arcola is going to do when they have a play that is not set in an artist's studio, as the whole place is kind of artistically ratty.  It's a tiny little place, with folding seats and a balcony made up of something that looks like scaffolding.  The seats are unassigned, so there was a big squoosh as everyone was waiting for the doors to open.  Someone said, "Is this the queue?  Is there a queue?  This is very un-English." 

(For a Certain Reader:  There was paint mixing using oil, pigment, and a muller.  You know how much I like this.)

I have to stop now.  I have to rest my thumb.