[by Pete Scully] Dippy, the beloved Diplodocus at the Natural History Museum, is moving! This week, on the 4th of January, ol' Dippy will be packed up into lots of boxes and sent on tour around the country, while the Hintze Hall, the grand space in the Museum that has been Dippy's home since I was a little kid (1979, though Dippy's been in the Museum for more than a century), is prepared for the installation of a large Blue Whale skeleton. I'm sad to see Dippy go, but excited to see a new change in my favourite of museums. I visited London over Thanksgiving break in November. Yes, you don't have Thanksgiving in the UK, but my Californian son was off school that week and flights were cheap so we took advantage, and came back to our London family. Britain still seems to have Black Friday though, but if you're not queuing up outside Best Buy at 4am and spending the rest of the morning in Target then you're not really doing it right. It was a good week to visit London, with the UK kids still in school and Christmas starting to really get into gear - South Kensington is lovely in wintertime, with the ice skaters outside the Natural History Museum. My son loves geology so we spent the longest time looking at all the rocks and minerals on display, before finding a seat to sketch Dippy. We couldn't see him all, so only sketched his body, and being a little pushed for time I never managed my two-page Diplodocus spread this time. But I am glad I got to see hime one last time before he goes plodding around the country, to Dorset and Newcastle and so on (see details of Dippy's tour on the NHM wesbite). Here is my son's sketch of Dippy, in his new NHM sketchbook.
by Pete Scully
