I just got back from the nicest day ever. I woke up this morning and the sun was shining, the skies were blue, and it was 17°C warm and sunny in early March – finally, is that you, Spring?

A Dog-Friendly Museum in London

Brunel Museum is a hidden gem in Rotherhithe, London—and the best part? It’s DOG-FRIENDLY! 🐶✨ It celebrates the engineering legacy of Marc Brunel and his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, focusing on the historic Thames Tunnel—the world’s first underwater tunnel. It’s all about Victorian innovation and industrial history, which, I have to say, is way more fascinating than it sounds.

One thing that stuck with me, though, was learning about Marc Brunel’s daughter, Isabelle. She was interested in engineering, but back in Victorian times, women’s education was so limited that she never got the chance to pursue it. 😔 It really made me reflect on how lucky I am to be working as an engineer today. I know we shouldn’t have to feel lucky for having equal rights, but compared to women back then—and even my mother’s generation—it’s clear how much more opportunities we have now!

First Impressions: Small but Mighty

When I first got to the museum I was a bit like wait is this it? It was quite small but I did end up staying for 2 hours looking at, watching, reading and listening to everything and surprisingly found it super fascinating. They start you off by directing you to the tunnel shaft, where there’s this huge projector lighting up the inside of the tunnel. Since then it’s been blocked off so it only remains as a cylinder tunnel shaft that was kinda cold. The visuals were also blurry on the gunky, limescaley walls but the information and narration was interesting.

The Nightmare of Building the Thames Tunnel

So, here’s what I learned: The Thames Tunnel was an absolute nightmare to build. Marc Brunel and his son Isambard had this idea to create an underwater passageway, but they ran into every possible disaster along the way. Floods, toxic fumes, financial ruin and it took them about 18 years to complete, and people thought they were insane for even attempting it.

Back in the day, there was no such thing as underwater construction. They had to invent new engineering methods as they went along and do it all by hand. They invented a groundbreaking tunneling shield that allowed them to dig under the river without everything collapsing in on them.

The Tunneling Shield: Inspired by a Worm

I found this part super cool so the idea for the tunneling shield was inspired by shipworms! Marc Brunel noticed how the worms could burrow into wood, creating tunnels without the wood collapsing due to their bodies filling up the excavated wooden bits. So he designed a structure that mimicked the shipworm’s process—reinforcing the tunnel as it was dug. Genius and so creative! But also mad that they had never done it before but went straight to work building the lifesize model. As things went wrong they had to switch and change up their materials, methods etc along the way. Learning how to problem solve new issues as they came up – a true engineer 👷.

Abraham Lincoln Managers… in the Tunnel?

The technical drawings were actually these watercolour paintings with little people in them that looked more like concept art which were really cute. What I found funny was the “laberours” would wear these Peaky Blinder kind of flat peak caps and then the “managers” would wear a Top hat, long coat and had this beard and cane and they all looked eerily similar to Abraham Lincoln lol 😂

The Tunnel’s Unexpected Life

The tunnel was initially supposed to be for horse-drawn carriages, but they ran out of money, time and resources (classic), so it opened as a pedestrian walkway instead. It became this underground shopping street where people sold trinkets and they head like a circus or some kind of launch party and it looked kinda wild tbf … it also became a prime spot for pickpockets 👀 Eventually, the tunnel was turned into part of the London Underground.

The Museum Experience

The museum itself is a little hidden gem. It has loads of interesting bits and interesting narratives which it repeats in different ways so you kind of able to infuse the information a bit better. The website states that there’s a pub called The Mayflower nearby that’s really nice for food and drinks but when I got there it was packed and I had Tofu with me so we ended up walking to Southwark Park which was lovely in the sun and about 10 minutes away. I found the park cafe and got a seat outside in front of the pond in the sun. Had a lovely oat latte and a mozerella melt sandwich and read my new book. It was just so nice and chill and made me feel warm and fuzzy 🥰

So, would I recommend it? Absolutely. If you love quirky museums, industrial history, or just want a cool dog-friendly spot in London, Brunel Museum is 100% worth a visit.

Meeting the BorrowMyDoggy Lady, Ulli

Afterward, I went to meet a lady I had been talking to over the past few months through BorrowMyDoggy. For those who don’t know, it’s a platform that connects dog owners with local dog lovers who want to help with walks, sitting, or just spending time with your dog so you can have a day off. It’s an amazing idea really and we had been to meet up but haven’t really had the time but I was already out in London so went to Soho to meet her.

She was super nice, and we got along really well! We chatted about dogs, traveling, and we got talking and she said she deals with a lot of admin work and data but loves automating her job using this freel ETL tool called Knime which is created by a Swiss company. She was actually cracking me up because she’s sort of near retirement age and been living in Soho for about 30 years now and she said she works with a bunch of “dinosaurs” who manually input data and always induce “typos” and she’s been trying to automate her job using that Knime tool by extracting from the spreadsheets into csv and transforming it and loading it to the destination she needs it at. I was cracking up and so impressed with her skills 🤣 Then we started talking about how much we loved Aliexpress. I was like we are living in some sort of parallel universe right now hahahahaha and we were sitting the park cracking up and joking like a bunch of data nerds.

I feel like she’s a very interesting eccentric lady and can see myself turning into her when I am older (I think she’s single too) and I also hope she’s safe and okay to look after Tofu. She seems trust worthy and like she’s firm but nice with dogs and likes to train them when she has them. I think leaving Tofu with her for 1 day as a trial in a couple of weeks and then seeing how Tofu behaves when I pick her up would be good but also if if she goes a couple of times and is excited to go back the next time. It would be a good sign.

Thanks for reading!

Lots of love,

Becky x