At the weekend we attended a special event at the Dorset County Museum to meet Dorset’s latest celebrity Dippy the Diplodocus.

Dippy has been housed at the London Natural History Museum since 1905 so it was about time he got out and about.  I vaguely remember seeing him as a child on a school trip but having him arrive in Dorset on the first leg of his tour is something that excited me and my Dinosaur loving son greatly.



Dippy has been carefully assembled in the iconic Victorian Hall at the Museum in Dorchester.   The skeleton cast has a whopping 292 bones, measures 21.3 metres in length and over 4 metres in both width and height.  If he was any bigger he’d never have got in!  Dippy was a herbivorous dinosaur from the Jurassic period, living around 150 million years ago.  At that time the Jurassic Coast was actually underwater!

My son Sam has known about his visit for a while now so he was pretty much dragging us through the door and then he just stood there and stared.  He had a gazillion questions for us and luckily the plaques and signs which are dotted around provided answers.  Of course there’s no way an impatient 5 year old can stay still for long so we dashed around while my husband read more facts about Dippy.

We had been told that there were some craft activities for the children so we set off to explore and Sam happily played for ages which meant one of us could sit and relax while the other had a look around this great Museum.

While you are there you have to take a look at the 3D Dippy skull which you can put on your head and you must make sure you go up to the balcony to get the best view.



The Museum exhibitions are well worth a visit while you are there.  We spent the majority of our time in the Jurassic Coast Gallery looking at fossils and the scary Weymouth Bay Pliosaur skull but there is plenty more to see in other rooms including 2 skeletons which fascinated Sam and Daddy.



Your journey doesn’t have to start or end here as you’ll find a trail of footprints leading from Brewery Square to the Dorset County Museum.  Kids will love finding the fun footprints which have Dinosaur facts on.

Tickets to see Dippy are free but must be pre booked via the Dorset County Museum Website.  Entrance to the other exhibitions in the Museum can be purchased at the door.

Dippy will leave the Dorset County Museum on the 7th of May 2018 and then he’ll head up north to Birmingham to wow another group of Dinosaur lovers after.

As part of my #40for40 I visited Poole Food Bank to have a chat with one of the lovely ladies who works there to find out what they do to help local families in need.  I’d collected a few food items beforehand and a really nice Mum from school also gave me a bag to take so I arrived with a box of donations and was welcomed inside. 



The food bank I visited is based at Longfleet United Reformed Church and it’s run by a very friendly group of staff and volunteers who are organised and ready to help.  There’s tables set up ready for families or individuals to take a seat while a parcel is being prepared for them.  I was invited to have a look around and was astonished at how generous local people are with the amount of donations that they had in storage.  Although this looked like a large amount to me they are still needing regular donations to meet the high demand.



Referrals for the food bank can come from many places including doctors, health visitors, a church, Poole housing, a women’s refuge or a children’s centre.  The number of parcels which are given out vary through the year but a family arriving with a voucher will always receive a 3 day parcel which contains enough food for breakfast, lunch and dinner with fresh fruit and vegetables available to take if there is any there on the day.

If yourself or an organisation would like to donate to a Food Bank then please note that most items must have a 'use by' date of six months or over.  An example of foods which are gratefully received are tinned food, cereals, sugar, pasta, pasta sauces, biscuits, tea/coffee, UHT milk and snacks.  If you have any questions or would like to enquire about opening times then please check out the Facebook page or give them a call on 01202 669566.

Thank you to Poole Food Bank for welcoming me and allowing me to see what you all do.  You have a wonderful team there and I thank you all for everything you do for local families.

#7of40