After a quick trip to see friends, we drove to the Dinosaur Museum, where we were met by the newly arrived Martha, Rob & Edward. We headed off to see bits of dinosaurs, models of dinosaurs and other fossily bits. Cue explanation of how dinosaurs were real once but aren’t now, as opposed to things like Gruffaloes (Gruffalos ?), which are pretend. Slight niggle at the back of the brain that maybe Gruffaloes could be viewed as a form of dinosaur but I let that pass. Edward has fun ‘excavating’ bits of dinosaur and enjoying the interactive exhibits.

On the way out of the museum we pass through the door and view a landscape with a lake and grasses and an apocalyptic sky like none I have ever seen. I kid you not, it took me a good few seconds to realise that this was the real outdoors and not a post-dinosaur diorama. I later learned that skies at home were red with sand blown up by ex-hurricane Ophelia but here, further east, they were indescribable. The atmosphere was similar to that at the time of a solar eclipse. No wonder our ancestors thought phenomenon like this heralded the end of the world.

A wander along a windswept beach led Edward to hunt for fossils of his own. He did light upon a large holey rock, which inevitably we then had to lug with us for the rest of the walk. Martha, who fields the many questions of Edward on a full time basis and has obviously come across this before, reveals that the holes are caused by, in Edward speak, little creatures poohing through the rock. This is actually about right. How have I lived to this great age without knowing about piddocks?