Half Term Mayhem

A herd of wildebeest descended on the museum today.  This being half term the kids are on holiday and we have been overbooked for the activities put on for them.  So I had thirty kids, acting like three thousand, at the desk checking in.  This entailed taking cash, paying by card, convincing mum to buy the weekly ticket to save money, running out of paper in the credit card machine and making a mess of replacing it, the phone ringing again and again, people not being noted down claiming they were, and all this while alone at the desk!  For thirty minutes nothing had occurred then for the next hour I never sat down except to write up the paperwork hoping it was correct.  I had forgotten half of what had gone before and all the mums and kids faces began to run into one.  I can only identify those who came last year and returned this.  And another thing all those Polish names take ages to write, that's why many are known only by their first name.
Having a 'Body Science' exhibition on at the moment, this being put on in conjunction with the council allowed us to cancel the entrance charge.  This in itself encouraged many, mostly grandparents, to bring the kids in for a look.  Amazing how many will not come in when a £3 charge is required, £1:50 for old folks.  They are unwilling to fork out this for a look round the museum.  With so many visiting now it may be we do without a charge for the rest of the year but that does lose us many thousands that we need.  
Naturally many family groups turned up when I was busy booking the others in so the place was crowded!  I have seen less people in the bus station!  However the mums know the score and are always good (mostly) and the visitors behaved also today, usually there is one grump.  Once the activity had begun and half had been rounded up and hidden far away at the other end of the building I was left with a constant stream of visitors who made use of the various machines all of which made noise and encouraged the kids to make more noise on top of this.  Ringing, high pitched screeches, bangs and on and on and on!  All had great fun, old and young, but the noise is doing my head in!  I noticed the office door tight shut so as I had my mental breakdown they could not hear me gurgling away in the corner.  Still it is worth it for the education with fun aspect of the exhibition.  Parents and grandparents got a laugh and most were happy about the day, all he kids I spoke to enjoyed it.
As the exhibition is about what we eat and how the body works I was somewhat surprised to note the kid eating crisps at the desk, especially as they had been reading up on what goes into them!  I wonder how this will change their eating habits if any?  Certainly there were one or two big women there who did not appear to like what they saw, I avoided asking them if they had learnt anything and avoided any use of the term 'couch potato.'
I have to do this all over again on Thursday!