gnommi | One step forward! (Reply)

Last week I was barred from going to work on safety grounds, hurrah! (not). It was supposed to be my week's holiday, but we'd never got around to booking anything for various reasons. The other half still had to take the time off so we thought we'd chance some day trips to see how well I travel, now that glasses and new meds seem to be making a difference.

Monday: We managed to "go for a walk in Mayflower Park" which turned into "we'll ride the Isle of Wight ferry to Cowes and back and have a Pimms on deck as it's calm and sunny", which turned into "I feel OK actually, how about we take the bus to Ryde", which turned into "Ryde is boring, why don't we get the bus to Shanklin". So we ended up in Shanklin totally at random, had a cream tea and some crab sandwiches (not a euphemism) and got a bit sunburned sitting in the sun watching Exciting Things To Do With Tankers as we slid past Fawley refinery. Quite a nice day.

Next day I felt like death, obviously, but by Weds was well enough to consider going to Oxford for a couple of days to gently pod around museums, take

tentaclerodeo out for Chinese, stay in the most overpriced guest house ever, pod round more museums and go home again. Inspired by

major_clanger, we went back to the Pitt Rivers Collection for the first time since it was refurbished, the gorgeous wrought iron Museum of Natural History and a first for us both: the Ashmolean.

The Pitt Rivers is just as crazy, dense and totally fascinating as I remembered it being, with the added advantage that the upper floors (notably the terrifying/fascinating/depressing weaponry and armour collections on the top floor) were open. This place is stuffed full of artefacts cataloguing the fringes of human behaviour across the globe; from headhunting, playing games, killing each other, fishing, dressing up, cursing your neighbours, and making stuff out of animals. Not only can you look in packed display cabinets, but there are thousands of drawers crammed with stuff too.

The Natural History Museum always seems a little pale in comparison with the manic density of the Pitt Rivers, but is a glorious wrought iron building, and has plenty of beetles and a cast taken from an actual Dodo, the first I've ever seen. Dinner was at Shanghai 30s, an eccentric, hidden Chinese restaurant, which played Chinese lessons in the toilets and gave us Duck in Champagne Sauce and other juicy, juicy things. Would recommend.

The Ashmolean is kind of the British Museum, Victoria and Albert and National Gallery in one really. It's a bit mind-bending to take in at one sitting. Stand-outs for me were the Japanese collections and of course, the portrait of John Dee. The best of the photos I took in Oxford can be seen here.

Other good stuff: my doc and our occupational health nurse are letting me go back to work from next week! I have to go part time to begin with but every little helps as far as I'm concerned. Popped in today and it was all I could do to avoid staying there the day to try to get my lab back into order. Looks like a bomb has hit it... ah well, give me something to do!