It's a bonus if kids' shows amuse the grown-ups just as much as the children ... but we all adored The Elephantom this morning, hilariously funny and brilliantly performed. It was the National Theatre's Christmas show last year, now returned to the West End. All new to me as I hadn't read the book.

But I can tell you that the Elephantom grows and grows - until he's much, much bigger than in this picture - and if you're sitting where we were, you'll find yourself squashed under his enormous blue bottom. And the bigger he grows, the worse he behaves - until he's about as welcome as an elephant poltergeist. 

The puppets were made by the same people who did War Horse.

It's a poignant story about a little girl who is ignored by her over-busy, self-obsessed parents. The choreography and sound-effects of their frantic breakfasts were quite brilliant.

And while I'm on the subject of sound effects ...

That elephant really wasn't house-trained.

Four enormous icecreams later, we headed off to the newly re-opened Imperial War Museum. All I can say in my own defence is that when we planned this trip several weeks ago, I didn't twig the significance of the date. It was heaving ...

Complete chaos. The main atrium with all the boys' toys now seems horribly cramped. We tramped up and down stairs, couldn't find the WW2 exhibit we were looking for - and felt sad that they've taken out    the Blitz experience which the boys would have loved.

As we didn't have timed tickets, it was 4pm before we made it into the WW1 galleries which I think are probably excellent if we hadn't been so frazzled. It would take at least two or three hours to absorb them properly. We were tugged along by the boys who couldn't wait to get into the trench - but it was nowhere near as interesting as the Trench experience that they had years ago.

But we'll go back, I'm sure. Just not in the summer hols. At least, not this year.