bugs are so cool

Perhaps I was, as Lestrade suggested, mad to hope for sun in London in February, but I do keep hoping anyway. There's something about it that's not like sun anywhere or anywhen else. But. It was gray and drizzly yesterday, so we went to the Natural History Museum instead of doing any of the inadvisable things that sunshine in February is likely to lead to.

(I remember sunbathing with a girlfriend in a certain park where everyone else in London had decided to let their dogs run free that day. I have only three words to say about that: Don't do it.)

Here, have a photo.

Lestrade's already covered most of the highlights, so I'm just going to talk about bugs. Even spiders are fine when they're dead and pinned to a board, and I think the huge black millipedes are the best, though I wouldn't especially want to meet a live one in a dark alley. Or even a well lit alley.

But my god, they are amazing. So shiny, like they're wearing armor, and all those little legs. They had one that must've been half a foot long and as big around as my index finger. And they move like a wave, sort of rippling forward. Er. Not the dead ones, obviously, but I've seen videos.

Sherlock was just as entranced as I was. It was lovely to see him act like a little kid, even if his questions were a bit more in depth than those of most of the children there. ("Do its guts go all the way from its head to its bum? Are there pictures of the insides? What happens to the exoskeleton after they shed it?" Answer: They eat it. I also learned that although they don't actually have a thousand legs, one species can have up to 750.)

To quote from Lestrade's post: The only...I don't know, 'incident' of the day was when some little child - 8 or 9 yrs old? very loudly asked his Mum why two men were holding hands (it wasn't because I didn't like the creepy-crawlies. Whatever John says.) Mycroft gave him a look that could have killed. And Sherlock loudly asked why it mattered.

1. ...Yeah. Well. That happened, and I feel like I ought to have something to say about it, but I'm not sure I do. It was odd? I wasn't expecting it. A lot of times I am expecting something like it, but right then I was only thinking about the callus on his palm and what it could be from and also how he'd undoubtedly deny that the hand-holding was remotely related to millipedes later (you see I was right) and if they might have that freeze dried astronaut ice cream in the gift shop (I love that stuff), and so it was sort of...out of the blue.

A reminder from the world at large: hey, you're not normal, did you forget? Which is doubly odd for me because in a lot of ways I really am not normal at all, but in this way, this day-out-with-people-I-love way, I think I actually am.

2. It was absolutely because of the millipedes.

(I was going to talk about today's incident with the feathers and the jam too, but I think I'll leave it for tomorrow when I'm a bit calmer.)