The Pitt Rivers Museum.

 It was Js birthday at the weekend and we made it over to Oxford for a bit of culture. The first attempt was made on Friday but between 2 over tired boys and a small girl with travel sickness it was aborted. A second attempt was made on Saturday with much more success. We live about an hour form Oxford and try to go a couple of times a year. The museums are amazing and help to make you feel a bit more like you have a life. They are big enough to go to lots of times but small enough that you don't get museum fatigue, you lnow that tired slow walking feel.

 The kids like going, partly because of the Park and Ride bus.
( note to self, either take kids places more often or enjoy the fact that a bus is still very exciting.... "but mummy its a green bus and I have never been on a green bus before!")
and partly because they are starting to remember previous visits and things they want to see again.
J had chosen the Pitt Rivers as last time we had gone to the newly reopened Ashmolean.

 If you have never been to the Pitt Rivers, then its quite an experience. Its is a large dark Victorian room full of glass cabinets. Its an ethnographic museum with cabinets that contain every kind of object grouped by object. For example a cabinet of string objects, a cabinet of writing materials, a cabinet of fire lighting techniques, grouped so that you can see how objects developed across cultures. Underneath the cabinets are drawers which you can open, each topped with glass so you can discover more. We found a dark cabinet full of African carvings that fascinated the kids and to see it properly you had to be down on your hands and knees with a torch. ( They provide torches at the desk.) You really do feel like you are discovering something that has been forgotten about for years.

We spent the morning wandering amongst the cultures from the huge totem pole to a the witch in a bottle.
J and I always enjoy seeing the model of the Buddhist Temple in Ulaan Batarr, Mongolia , as we had seen it in the museum mnay times but it still amazed us (and here I must warn you is a bit of bragging) when we actually went into the building in Mongola.
To get to the museum you have to walk through the Natural History museum which as this is Oxford is complete with dinosaurs, dodos and genuine white rabbit staring at his watch! The kids wanted to spend the afternoon in the Natural |History part so J wandered round with them while I spent some time sketching in the Pitt Rivers Muesum. I have challenged myself to try to draw something everyday and I am starting to really enjoy those moments drawing.
I still have a long way to go but I am starting to see improvements.
Oh  andI know you will all be too polite to ask but the drawings are the totem pole and a Burmese carving.