museums

here’s a fantastic thing.  it’s a beer can museum with over 10,000 unique beer cans from around the world.

can there be a more exciting place in the universe ?

i can imagine having that kind of hobby which just sort of gets out of hand

remember when all museums used to have this kind of signage ?  who is this one aimed at ?

britain is full of quirkly little museums, many of which are shown on the excellent nothing to see here coordinated/produced by the lovely anne from i like

one such place is the museum of berkshire aviation.  i’m not sure i’d recommend it though as it’s quite reader-intensive in the old school museum style of ‘look but don’t touch’.  making it quite exhausting/boring depending on your age and attention span !

it promised some excitement for children but didn’t actually provide it (i wasn’t sure whether the sign above was something vintage or an actual modern bit of fun)

when i bothered to read all the words surrounding the cases it revealed a fascinating history of the woodley aerodrome as it rose to international renoun for its aircraft manufacturer, and airfield tomfoolery (dougal bader famously lost his legs after betting a friend he could do some low level acrobatics – the friend won the bet)

the highlight was getting to go in to a proper plane (the one shown at the above), although you aren’t allowed to sit on the seats.

worth a trip, even though you think they could do a lot more with the place to make it more accessible.  it feels like a time-warp treasure trove.  i may pop back on my own sometime and spend a few hours reading the signage and trying to work out the chronological order of the exhibits !

living exhibits

we had a family trip to the museum of childhood yesterday. it was most excellent (and wasn’t out of order as suggested above)

it’s a really good mixture of old and new childhood toys (in each cabinet) so kids and grown-ups both enjoy it. How weird to see things you played with as kids in a museum and having to explain to your own children what they are.
most heard phrases “Oh, i had one of those” and “oh, i always wanted one of those”.

i loved the building too. here’s a vertical panorama. i’ve put a bigger version here:
expect plenty of toy photos over the next few weeks !

we went to the roald dahl museum yesteday and it was fantastic. it’s only a small place, but there’s so much for kids to do if they are in to crafting and creating. adults are inspired too.

there was a dressing up box

and actual willy wonka clothes from the recent film (not this one)

and they had some animatronic oompah loompahs which looked very eery

after visiting the museum we went to the local church where roald dahl is buried – you have to follow the BFG’s footprints to get to his grave.

and seeing his grave was a strange end to a day which revolved around a man with an amazing imagination (and abililty to transfer that to books), and who lived within our lifetime.

due to chicken pox potential infectiousness i took kezia to a museum rather than church this morning (my logic makes sense somehow).
after much travelling (lots of which was walking by the water (canal) under water (rain)) we ended up at blakes lock museum.
neither kezia nor i were very impressed when we got there as it’s not very big and not very interesting (for 3 year olds).

i imagine on a nice sunny day it would be a nice diversion if you happen to be doing a canal walk in Reading, but as a destination it was disappointing but at least we had no contact with pregnant ladies !

i calculated i had enough time to go on the early morning tour of the brussels sewers before my conference started yesterday.

because i was the only one on the tour (it seems it’s not very popular) i got a personal tour. this is a demonstration tunnel for visitors

but this is a real tunnel with actual poos floating by

my personal tour was in french which stretched my language skills. luckily i’d learnt some of the vocab here

i’ve mentioned our trip to the Design Museum in Ghent before, but i forgot to tell you about the fantastic little guide to the museum.
my favourite phrase from the book says “The absolute topper is the entirely original dining room …”
what an absolutely topper phrase !