And bombs bursting in air

Last week, the boy and I went to the Wimbledon Stables Open Day expecting to get into the windmill museum for free. A commenter set me straight and informed me that the 18th of September would be the Windmill open day. And chided me for my cheapness. So, we headed on down to the Windmill for our free entry after many years of standing outside and wondering whether it was worth the price of entry.


(Photo credit Adrian Short)

And now that we've been in...

Anyway, there was a lot more to the windmill museum than I imagined. I didn't get to poke around all the exhibits as I spent most of my time chasing the boy around the upper level above the treacherous stairway to the workings of the mill. But there were working windmill models of all types and diaromas featuring threshing men and moth-eaten cats.





The boy had a wonderful time. He enjoyed the hands on opportunity to grind some wheat using two handy-sized millstones and he loved the pully. Pullies are fantastic for kids - demonstrating how a small machine can turn you into a weight lifting super hero.



And, of course, he loved climbing up into the workings of the windmill.



I think there was probably a lot more to see than I managed. But I will remember one thing - writ large was the fact No one ever built a windmill if they could have a water mill. Surely, these are words to live by.

And the Vol-in-Law spotted another bit of history. You know the bombs bursting in air from the Star Spangled Banner? Well, apparently back during the War of 1812 (the last time we were at war with the Brits) those particular munitions were a bit of an advance and those bombs were developed by a Wimbledon resident and were tested right there on Wimbledon Common in the shadow or future shadow of the windmill. (Not sure when the windmill was built - the model above shows it was in operation in 1825).

They had a pretty good turnout for the open day, but I'm quite sure it would have been better had the visiting Pope not been staying across the street with the attendant police presence and full parking lot of Pope well-wishers.

So all in all, I'd recommend stumping up the cash for a visit to the Windmill Museum. I've certainly paid a lot more to see a lot worse.

Come up and see my etchings

At last. A free day. My normal work schedule got flipped around, so I had a day off when Buddy was in daycare.

I could have lounged around the house and played video games, but we decided to make the most of the day and planned a museum visit, dim sum in China Town and a swimming/sauna/spa trip to a swanky gym in the center of town.

Although we've been to the British Museum many times, we decided to go there because there were a couple of special exhibits on. A Chinese Garden in the forecourt (lame), flowers and insects in Chinese art (lame) and The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock. Brilliant.

Prints and etchings from the first half of the 20th Century, including works from Hopper (always great) and Pollock (yeah, whatever) and some iconic works like George Bellow's A Stag at Sharkey's. They were all stark and dark and social-commenty and stuff, the Vol-in-Law declared they were not quite Hogarthian, but he could see where they were going. But mostly they were just really powerful images playing with light and shadow in a really striking way.

I sort of forget that British Museum has stuff like this. Although I've been many times, I'm usually going with a visitor and it's a quick look at the big Assyrian thingies, a gander at the Rosetta Stone (if you can press through the throng) and maybe check out the Elgin marbles or the big hall of Egyptian mummies. If that's all you have time for, that's probably a good way to go.

But checking out the special exhibit meant we headed off the north side, where apparently we've never been - because very little of it looked familiar. We'll have to go back again, because after a tour around the Korean room and quick jaunt through a great hall of Asian treasures, it was time for our lunch. Besides, too much museum in one day gives you artifact daze.

Besides the special exhibit, I think the Korean room was a favorite. There's a definitely a cool style vibe going for the Koreans - simple and pragmatically beautiful everyday objects. In some way it reminded me of Finnish design sensibility (though not the same look at all). My favorite was a simple green ewer with a leaf pattern (though I didn't think to take a picture).



Korean fans


In the great big Asian hall that I can't believe we've never been to

V&A

This week we have the happy circumstance of a nursery place but not yet back in full (or full-ish) time work. So I dropped the kid at the daycare and took myself to the Victoria and Albert to look at the stuff and to take some pictures. Like the one above, which could be turned into a Christmas card if I could be bothered to send such things out.

No visit to a museum is complete without a visit to the museum shop (and the one at the V&A is practically unavoidable given that it's dead centre in the building). I perused the expensive goo-gaws and desirable design items. Two things caught my eye - child sized fake Japanese armor (so cool, but Buddy's not old enough) and baby sized cotton kimonos.

I knew the cotton kimono would be overpriced, but I was willing to pay. I set my reservation price in my head and hunted for one with a price tag.

£35.00

That exceeded my reservation price by some considerable margin. That's around $70. For a thin cotton baby bathrobe. Ridiculous.

The Horny Man

Nooooo....It's not what you think. It's the Horniman Museum. A museum, full of culture and stuff. A real museum. We just pronounce it the Horny Man Museum because we're puerile. (And a hearty welcome to my new readers who come to me via Google!)

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So it's Easter weekend but the weather is sketchy, what to do, what to do - especially with a 9 month old baby? Well, the Horny Man Horniman is the obvious answer. It's one of my very favorite kinds of museums, it's a museum of stuff. Weird, random stuff. It was started by an obsessive Victorian collector - and it's kind of like a combination of the Natural History and Victoria and Albert museums and an aquarium, but smaller and not in Central London, so you can drive to it. All the better.

And I thought there might be a chance that Buddy would be interested in some of the colorful displays and hands on stuff. There was less hands on stuff than I remembered - and what there was wasn't entirely appropriate for a baby (there's a great assortment of "hands on" musical instruments that's marvellous fun for 3+ set)

Buddy certainly liked looking at the fish.


Moon jellyfish

The Horniman has a nice collection of stuffed dead critters which doesn't hold a baby's attention for very long. Though this exhibit was certainly eye catching.



Want a closer look? Yep, it's mounted dog heads.



Very unnerving.

Overall, it was a pretty good way to spend a cold and windy day and as long as we kept moving through the exhibits Buddy didn't get too bored. But this was definitely his favorite bit:

Big giant sloths

We've been like big giant sloths this Christmas. We have gone to the park and we did make one disastrous attempt at post-holiday sales shopping, but mostly we've been hibernating. We've been watching tv and reading books and lounging around the house like big giant sloths.

Not yesterday, though. Perhaps it was the slightly less grey sky or the warmer temperatures, but I spent the morning gardening and the afternoon at the Natural History Museum.

We haven't been in a while, but I thought it might be a nice idea to see the animatronic dinosaurs and maybe have a look at the gems and minerals and so forth. I knew it would be crowded, kids are out of school and many parents are off work and kids love dinosaurs and well... We'd been at Christmas time before and knew the drill.

I had no idea exactly how croweded it would be. Apparently, the Natural History Museum has been cashing in on its holiday appeal. There's now a Christmas fair and a giant ice skating rink (which costs about $20 a head - seriously!) and a carousel.



Oh...and there's a big, giant queue to get into the Natural History Museum.



This queue stretched all the way from the door to the street in a snarling tangle of impatient children and weary adults - and it didn't seem to be moving any too quickly.

I didn't want any of that, so I told the Vol-in-Law that we should just find another museum (the Victoria and Albert and the Science Museum are just around the corner). But when went around the side and up Exhibition Road - we found that there were no queues to enter the museum from that side. We had to wait no longer than a few minutes and that to have our bags searched by a very grumpy security man. It wasn't worth the wait, but we did go through the slightly more boring entrance - without a big giant dinosaur skeleton gracing the main entry hall. But, it's possible to snake one's way through the earth history section and the minerals and so forth and into the fantastic main hall.



And on your way, you can find out what happens to big giant sloths:



We didn't get to see the animatronic dinos - as the queue for that was very long indeed. But we did get to see a very outdated exhibition on human evolution and a very up-to-date indoctrination exhibition on ecology for children. It was geared for the young'uns and had just enough facts in it to turn them into little eco-warriors and brow beat their parents with environmentalism.

We did spend a minute or two looking at "being green in the garden" - where I could quite happily say "tick, tick, tick" to most of their green suggestions. After all, composting is the main good thing you can do - and that helps you reduce the need for chemicals and increase your yields all the while decreasing pressure on the landfills. I felt quite saintly, having spent the morning spreading compost I made myself. The little eco-warriour exhibit was comparitively empty though- despite the fact that it had gruesome displays of tigers disembowelling antelope and crows pecking out the eyes of hares. I guess kids prefer to see extinct animals eating each other in animatronic fashion rather than badly stuffed kitty cats stalking a bevy of badly stuffed rats.