Birthday in London
Well the last week (almost two weeks) have been very busy. We have had two field trips for uni, I went to London for 4 days for my birthday, then the continual essays, hockey practise etc.
Our first field trip was to Duxford, it is the large storage collection for the IWM. So it has lots of planes and several tanks, big guns etc. It is placed on an airbase that was active from WW1 until the 1960s. There are many private collectors who house their planes there as well as the museum collection, so one of the attractions is the chance to see planes flying. THey have mock battles and lots of airshows during the year, so it is really active. The collection was very impressive but they had very little interpretation of the planes. They relied on the 'wow' factor a lot. Not hard with that sort of collection. Most in the class agreed that the land warfare display was the most interesting because it had better interpretation and information for visitors. If the day wasn't so cold i would have enjoyed it more. It is definately a warm weather museum as so much is outside or walking between hangars.
The timetable was very good to me this last week, giving us a four day weekend, which just happened to be my birthday weekend. So i went to london on thursday night to see a friend from australia who was flying home the next morning for a short visit. It was great to catch up with Kris and Mike again, i haven't seen them for almost a year. The next day i managed to avoid the rain and get into london proper for lots of museum visits. The day was a little more eventful than i had anticipated. on arriving at Green Park Station to drop some stuff off with Richard, I encountered a protest march by 'Fathers for Justice' which was very noisy and spilled onto the pavement. However i fought my way through, dropped my bag with richard and then went to the National Gallery and the Portrait gallery. Loved them. The portrait gallery has an amazing portrait of Judi Dench. I sat in front of it for a while, just taking it in. It is very large and mostly white with her face the most expressive i have seen in a portrait for a while. Quite wonderful.
After some time in those two i went to the science museum. I really enjoyed it when i was there last year, so wanted to see it again. they have finished most of the restoration and expansion work they were doing last time i was there, and it is almost a new museum. still wonderful. However just as i was settling in for a visit for the rest of the afternoon the museum was evacuated. A real London experience! No one seemed to know what was happening, except we were told to stay away from the front of the museum and police with guns suddenly popped up everywhere. I was waiting to see if it was likely to reopen, when i saw a rather comical moment. A group of police in SWAT style uniforms came charging down one of the side roads to Exhibition Road, stopped and had a hurried conversation about which way they were meant to go. Some broke off and ran right, were called back and then the whole group hurried off to the right. still muttering about which entrance it was. myself and one or two other people standing round had a bit of a chuckle. As it didn't look likely to reopen, and once again i was cold, i spent the rest of the afternoon in the Natural History Museum.
Saturday was a wonderfully lazy day. Richard made me a chocolate birthday cake, and we had a very nice birthday dinner.
On Sunday Richard, Hillary and I went for lunch with Charlie and Harriet. It was quite a long lunch, and very nice. I hadn't seen charlie for a few years, so it was wonderful to catch up with him again, and meet harriet. Hopefully i will get to see both of them more over this next year. After lunch RIchard took me to the Australia Shop, so that i could get some more chocolate, specifically tim-tams and milo bars. Mum sent me several packs of tim-tam balls for my birthday, so with them plus the pack i bought at the australia shop i will hopefully be right until christmas. I hope so because the pack from the australia shop would have to be the most expensive tim-tams around. richard once again insisted on spoiling me though, so i didn't actually pay for them.
This week there was a field trip to a museum in Norfolk, Roots of Norfolk. It was a very early start, and after many late nights in london i wasn't very awake. The museum was interesting, they had a farm where they bred rare breeds as part of the programme. We did a tractor trip around the farm, that was fun. I did have to explain to a few friends what the connotations of the name were to an australian. even without that, the name isn't very good and they are thinking of changing the name apparently. They had a really interesting idea at the museum, where most of their smaller objects were put on open storage, displayed in numerous, specially designed cabinets, in one room, with almost no interpretation. Apparently they have developed this in response to criticisms about not putting enough of the collection on public view. They say it changes quite a bit as pieces are borrowed, taken out for research / conservation etc. An interesting concept, but i wonder how many people actually stop to look beyond a cursory glance.
I imagine that is enough about museums for any posting. sorry, it seems to be most of what i have done this week. I have two hockey games this weekend, plus a halloween party, so i am glad that next week we don't have many lectures. It is meant to be used to do lots of work on our essays. We'll see what happens.
Our first field trip was to Duxford, it is the large storage collection for the IWM. So it has lots of planes and several tanks, big guns etc. It is placed on an airbase that was active from WW1 until the 1960s. There are many private collectors who house their planes there as well as the museum collection, so one of the attractions is the chance to see planes flying. THey have mock battles and lots of airshows during the year, so it is really active. The collection was very impressive but they had very little interpretation of the planes. They relied on the 'wow' factor a lot. Not hard with that sort of collection. Most in the class agreed that the land warfare display was the most interesting because it had better interpretation and information for visitors. If the day wasn't so cold i would have enjoyed it more. It is definately a warm weather museum as so much is outside or walking between hangars.
The timetable was very good to me this last week, giving us a four day weekend, which just happened to be my birthday weekend. So i went to london on thursday night to see a friend from australia who was flying home the next morning for a short visit. It was great to catch up with Kris and Mike again, i haven't seen them for almost a year. The next day i managed to avoid the rain and get into london proper for lots of museum visits. The day was a little more eventful than i had anticipated. on arriving at Green Park Station to drop some stuff off with Richard, I encountered a protest march by 'Fathers for Justice' which was very noisy and spilled onto the pavement. However i fought my way through, dropped my bag with richard and then went to the National Gallery and the Portrait gallery. Loved them. The portrait gallery has an amazing portrait of Judi Dench. I sat in front of it for a while, just taking it in. It is very large and mostly white with her face the most expressive i have seen in a portrait for a while. Quite wonderful.
After some time in those two i went to the science museum. I really enjoyed it when i was there last year, so wanted to see it again. they have finished most of the restoration and expansion work they were doing last time i was there, and it is almost a new museum. still wonderful. However just as i was settling in for a visit for the rest of the afternoon the museum was evacuated. A real London experience! No one seemed to know what was happening, except we were told to stay away from the front of the museum and police with guns suddenly popped up everywhere. I was waiting to see if it was likely to reopen, when i saw a rather comical moment. A group of police in SWAT style uniforms came charging down one of the side roads to Exhibition Road, stopped and had a hurried conversation about which way they were meant to go. Some broke off and ran right, were called back and then the whole group hurried off to the right. still muttering about which entrance it was. myself and one or two other people standing round had a bit of a chuckle. As it didn't look likely to reopen, and once again i was cold, i spent the rest of the afternoon in the Natural History Museum.
Saturday was a wonderfully lazy day. Richard made me a chocolate birthday cake, and we had a very nice birthday dinner.
On Sunday Richard, Hillary and I went for lunch with Charlie and Harriet. It was quite a long lunch, and very nice. I hadn't seen charlie for a few years, so it was wonderful to catch up with him again, and meet harriet. Hopefully i will get to see both of them more over this next year. After lunch RIchard took me to the Australia Shop, so that i could get some more chocolate, specifically tim-tams and milo bars. Mum sent me several packs of tim-tam balls for my birthday, so with them plus the pack i bought at the australia shop i will hopefully be right until christmas. I hope so because the pack from the australia shop would have to be the most expensive tim-tams around. richard once again insisted on spoiling me though, so i didn't actually pay for them.
This week there was a field trip to a museum in Norfolk, Roots of Norfolk. It was a very early start, and after many late nights in london i wasn't very awake. The museum was interesting, they had a farm where they bred rare breeds as part of the programme. We did a tractor trip around the farm, that was fun. I did have to explain to a few friends what the connotations of the name were to an australian. even without that, the name isn't very good and they are thinking of changing the name apparently. They had a really interesting idea at the museum, where most of their smaller objects were put on open storage, displayed in numerous, specially designed cabinets, in one room, with almost no interpretation. Apparently they have developed this in response to criticisms about not putting enough of the collection on public view. They say it changes quite a bit as pieces are borrowed, taken out for research / conservation etc. An interesting concept, but i wonder how many people actually stop to look beyond a cursory glance.
I imagine that is enough about museums for any posting. sorry, it seems to be most of what i have done this week. I have two hockey games this weekend, plus a halloween party, so i am glad that next week we don't have many lectures. It is meant to be used to do lots of work on our essays. We'll see what happens.
posted by bronwyn | 11:11 PM
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