Museum Review

My dad (being a grumpy old fart lol) is unamused with my going around the country seeing bands (especially Fearless Vampire Killers) but I am really enjoying seeing a bit of the country I wouldn't do otherwise. Almost all of my trips involve a spot of sightseeing, most usually museums and castles.

This is a personal bias; I have always liked museums and castles but the "I cinderella at a castle" in my Twitter bio (@HeggieFVK) is true - since September 2011 I have been a cleaner at Taunton Castle, home of the Museum of Somerset. This has rather increased my interest in museums so I thought I'd do an incredibly brief review of the museums I can remember visiting over the past few years only. I've been to many more and I'm sure I've forgotten some.

Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, formally opening the Museum of Somerset (2012)

ENGLAND
MUSEUM OF SOMERSET

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: The Mary Bridge Sword, it's got a nice little backstory ;)
• Review: Obviously I'm a bit biased but I definitely think it's worth a visit if you're in the area. We have a nice Roman mosaic of the Dido and Aeneas too!

BRISTOL MUSEUM and ART GALLERY

• Most recent visit: 2014
• Keep an eye out for: That huge ichthyosaur!
• Review: A really nice museum but watch out for the loos (the ladies at least, can't speak for the gents) as they're kind of terrifying!

ROMAN BATHS, BATH

• Most recent visit: 2013
• Keep an eye out for: -
• Review: Definitely a must for anyone with an interest in Romans

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: The building itself - bloody hell it's GORGEOUS! Possibly a little overlooked in comparison with the dinosaurs. Watch out for the coelacanth too.
• Review: A world class museum for everyone. If you haven't been...why the hell not???

SCIENCE MUSEUM, LONDON

• Most recent visit: 2013
• Keep an eye out for: The history of medicine displays
• Review: Probably more suited to science buffs and kids of a suitable age for all the interactive displays; I was a little underwhelmed.

VICTORIA and ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON

• Most recent visit: 2013
• Keep an eye out for: The Cast Court
• Review: Absolute cracker of a museum; highly recommended.

OXFORD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: All of it
• Review: Like a smaller and less formal version of the NHM, London - absolutely fantastic.

PITT RIVERS MUSEUM, OXFORD

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: I found the history of tattooing display very interesting.
• Review: A proper old-fashioned museum of anthropology - packed to the gills! Love it. Very highly recommended - and it's linked to the Oxford Museum of Natural History for a double win!

ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: The nice bum, pictured below :)
• Review: A very good museum, there's a reason why it's so famous.

THE GREAT HALL, WINCHESTER

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: See pic below
• Review: Not especially enthralling. They had an art exhibition when I visited that I enjoyed.

BIRMINGHAM MUSEUM and ART GALLERY

• Most recent visit: 2014
• Keep an eye out for: Pugin Rood Screen
• Review: One of the best museums I've visited but particularly as an Open University student - so many objects tied in with my studies.

NOTTINGHAM CASTLE MUSEUM

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: Big glass pumpkin (below)
• Review: Worth dropping by, but to be honest the castle grounds were better

WALES

SWANSEA MUSEUM

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: The Wassailing Bowl below
• Review: Quite a nice museum, smaller than I had anticipated though

DYLAN THOMAS CENTRE, SWANSEA

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: The Llareggub signpost :)
• Review: Probably better if you're a fan of Thomas' work or poets in general. That said, I came away needing to read some of his work

NATIONAL MUSEUM CARDIFF

• Most recent visit: 2015
• Keep an eye out for: ---
• Review: Kind of underwhelmed. Would've been better if it had been like it was in The Big Bang episode of Doctor Who with Daleks and a big ol' Pandorica.

SCOTLAND

KELVINGROVE ART GALLERY & MUSEUM, GLASGOW

• Most recent visit: 2014
• Keep an eye out for: Whatever art takes your fancy - there's an impressive range
• Review: A very enjoyable place to visit, wish I could've spent more time there

NORTHERN IRELAND

TITANIC BELFAST

• Most recent visit: 2014
• Keep an eye out for: I actually rather liked the 'ride' which gave you a bit of an insight into the building of the ship
• Review: Having a long-standing interest in the Titanic story I am rather biased. I very much enjoyed this exhibition although it was a little 'modern' for my tastes.

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IRELAND - ARCHAEOLOGY, DUBLIN

• Most recent visit: 2014
• Keep an eye out for: Bog bodies
• Review: Definitely worth a visit

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IRELAND - NATURAL HISTORY, DUBLIN

• Most recent visit: 2014
• Keep an eye out for: Irish Elk (below) - magnificent beasties!
• Review: This isn't as good as the NHM, London or Oxford NHM but it's an interesting insight into how museums were presented in the past which I find interesting in itself.

GUINNESS STOREHOUSE, DUBLIN

• Most recent visit: 2014
• Keep an eye out for: Just keep in mind how well designed this museum is, embracing the purpose of the attraction (like the NHM, London) rather than just being a generic building.
• Review: For fans of Guinness and drinkers in general but touches on social history along the way

WET FLOOR

To me, this is a simple no-brainer of a very short blog but it has come to my attention that some people are amazingly rare in the common sense department and there is actually a need for this so, here goes:

WHAT TO DO WHEN A FLOOR IS WET / YOU SEE A WET FLOOR SIGN

1) *THINK* Do I need to walk this way?
If not - don't.
If yes, move on to point 2)

2) *THINK* Do I have everything I need?
Seriously, this drives me nuts. Someone walks across my nice clean floor, remembers something, walks back, then across again AND SOMETIMES REPEATS!

3) *LOOK* 
There really is no point walking across the wettest bit of the floor, through any swept up dirt or into the sodding mop bucket!

4) WALK CAREFULLY You have seen the floor is wet / the wet floor sign, whatever happens next is your responsibility, okay?!
FFS, what is wrong with people??? I have seen people RUN, HOP, SKIP AND JUMP - this does NOT reduce your leaving footprints on the floor and gives the cleaner palpitations. DON'T!!!

Then there are my personal rules:

5) DON'T ASK the cleaner if it's okay to walk on the floor. The cleaner is not in much of a position to say "The hell no, you keep off my floor! You wanna get to the other side you gotta FLY!" however much they may want to. Realistically all they can do is warn you to be careful in the hope that you don't sue if you slip.

6) DON'T APOLOGISE for walking. It gets really wearing after a while. The snarkier cleaner may not be able to bite back a "So you bloody well should be". Also, floors are to be walked on and if you didn't walk on the floor we would be out of our jobs cleaning them!

Instead, try saying 'hello' or something. Cleaners get ignored a lot, which is fine but acknowledging us is kinda nice too.

DO however apologise if you're making a mess on my nice clean floor. Not that this is a major thing. It happens. I remember one day, cleaning my castle before it opened to the public, and I'd just got the cafe area buffed up a treat...when a bunch of guys wheeled a scaffolding rig in. They apologised. I rolled my eyes, said "no problem" and walked away. There really is nothing else you can do. A cleaner who loses the plot is in the wrong job!

I hope this helps.

Severus Snape

Pangs

Today is Thanksgiving in America.

Being neither American nor resident in America perhaps it is not my place to comment on their cultural practices but given ongoing world events it seems kind of relevant, so please read the whole thing - especially the paragraph in red.

And as the title might indicate to you I am basing this post around some Buffy The Vampire Slayer quotes from the Thanksgiving episode "Pangs"...so, to start with, as Anya put it: "To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie." Certainly it is normal enough for us to have such a 'ritual sacrifice' - any past event is commemorated with feasting (with or without pie) such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and funerals...but is this a past event which should be commemorated with a 'celebratory' meal or with a service of sombre remembrance like (to use the American term) Veteran's Day? Well, I know which I personally think is more appropriate and my feelings on the subject mesh with Willow's: "Thanksgiving isn't about the blending of two cultures. It's about one culture wiping out another. And then they make animated specials about the part where [becoming flustered with anger] with the maize and the big, big belt buckles. They don't show you the next scene where all the bison die and Squanto (?) takes a musket ball to the stomach."

And I can totally see that Willow is right...the whole thing is sanitised in popular culture (like the above Snoopy and Woodstock cartoon) and whitewashed because people can't face the unpalatable truths of history. That said, feeling bad about history can be just as damaging as whitewashing though. What if the events weren't commemorated at all because of guilt?! In the words of Spike: "You won; all right? You came in and you killed them and you took their land. That's what conquering nations do. It's what Caesar did, and he's not going around saying "I came, I conquered, I feel really bad about it." The history of the world is not people making friends. You had better weapons and you massacred them. End of story." There is a lot of truth in that statement. History is brutal, we remember it because we need to - to avoid repeating our mistakes. Feeling bad about it achieves nothing, except creates a desire for the events to be forgotten.

And this is SO relevant to the current world situation. American states are closing their borders to Syrian refugees because a small proportion of them might be terrorists in disguse...this from a nation largely founded on those escaping persecution in Europe. So much anti Islamic propaganda and hatred...this from a nation which supposedly prides itself on diversity. And a Presidential candidate who, amongst many other appalling things, has said he would seriously consider forcing Muslims to carry 'special ID' in a move that screams of Jewish ghettos in Nazi Poland. 
And this is not just the case in America - I don't want this to come off as anti American at all - this is just as true here in the UK where our newspapers feed the (appallingly ignorant) masses a diet of ill-disguised propaganda. Our nation's attitude to migrants, refugees and our Islamic community is an absolute disgrace. People the whole world over are still as ignorant / racist / xenophobic as they ever were. It makes me beyond sad that humanity is anything but humane and that the lessons of history have been so blatantly ignored.

We all NEED to commemorate past events to avoid repeating them...but we do it anyway and what's worse is the PROXIMITY. We've just had Remembrance / Veteran's Day when Nazi atrocities are clear in our minds along with other terrible actions made under the guise of war. Today is Thanksgiving...yet we turn against people in need. 
And finally...

Planning Ahead

Okay, so this is pretty much insane (as am I) but I am moving house...in a year and a half. For a multitude of reasons (including work being done on the house I'm moving to, my OU work and my daughter's college) it can't happen sooner but it is all set up and definite.

Gradually I am working my way through the attic, cupboards and assorted hidey-holes trying to decide what, of the crap accumulated since I arrived here in January 1998, is going to go with me and what will go in the bin. Yes, I know it's a *bit* early but at my level of procrastination I am going to need the time!

I have already made decisions about bathroom tiles and decorating...I'm being horribly unimaginative and having it done very much like my current house because I finally got it how I like it!

This above, for example, is a painting I own (not one of mine) and it hangs on my living room wall (which is painted Dulux Grecian Spa 4)...at the new house the living and dining rooms are conjoined, both will be this colour and the painting will go on the dining room side. This in turn will pick up a poppy / red theme through both rooms including vintage tableware to match stuff I'm hoping to steal off my dad ;)

Vintage tableware is my big passion at the moment - not least cos my first year in the new house I am planning to have my 1st ever big family Christmas (presuming everyone is still alive!) - where I am now is too far away from people and part of the intent of moving is to keep an eye on my ageing father. So far I have an inordinate number of avocado-green 1960s soup bowls and a slowly growing collection of 1970s Hornsea in (as photos) Saffron, Bronte and Heirloom.

Today I am very sad because a big box of mixed Hornsea Bronte and Heirloom brown and Heirloom green arrived at my house smashed to smithereens. Such priorities I have, I know. But elsewhere in my life I have worries about losing one of my jobs, uni work and the crushing weight of being forever alone so I'll continue my mid-life crisis obsessing about cute boys far too young for me and cry over cups that are older than I am getting broken.

One of my themes through the whole house is vintage - I thought of a whole bunch of things (I'm already a good six months into the planning phase) but I didn't want it to be 'dated' so not up to the current trends or limited to one particular time period. The house itself is a modern build but no particular features other than a bit 90s...and no, quite simply! Also, it's a bungalow and despite the fact that I'll be moving in aged 39 I feel the need to make it slightly little-old-ladyish ;) I know, I'm weird.

In Defense Of The Teen Mom

Yesterday I saw a retweet on my timeline...a tweet that made me f***ing furious. A tweet about how a guy would proudly not give up a seat on a bus for a pregnant 16 year old because she ought to stand there and think about her life choices.

Let me start by saying that I am hopelessly biased on this topic because I was a teenage mother. To be honest, for all I'm nearly 37, I still AM a teenage mother - it's not exactly something you stop being...you get older, your kids grow up but the facts remain the same.

I first got pregnant at 16. My parents kicked me out and refused to let me come home unless I had an abortion. Like I even wanted to go home! But after two weeks of being homeless I allowed myself to be bullied into it... Twenty years on I still don't know what I could have done differently. I had a miscarriage whilst on the pill a few months later. My ex partner, father in all my pregnancies, used my guilt against me...you can imagine what my mental state was.

I moved out of home just after I turned 17. My home life wasn't THAT bad but it was definitely something I was desperate to get away from. That definitely coloured my decisions. I didn't even want kids but my ex *said* he did and he was going to be a house-husband cos I had the better earning potential. I got pregnant again.

I had a HORRIBLE time of it. I was sick throughout - hospitalised for Hyperemisis Gravidarum, constant infections, every ache pain and niggle. People don't know you're pregnant. They see a teenage girl throwing up in a gutter at 8am and they abuse you for being drunk. I couldn't go anywhere or do anything. I couldn't work. I couldn't even clean our tiny studio flat. I won't deny that I was impossible to live with. We split up just after it was too late to have another termination, I've always suspected that was deliberate on his part. Not that I could have done that again.

I spent most of the rest of my pregnancy in a homeless hostel. A girl was being beaten nightly in the room down the hall, I swear the people downstairs were dealing drugs. I'm a middle-class girl from the suburbs...I was terrified to leave my cell-like room.

I wanted my baby adopted. I couldn't cope. I had no money, no home - it was terrifying. I couldn't afford maternity clothes or bras let alone all the crap you need for a baby. A £100 maternity payment covers next to nothing. My mum bought everything from car boot sales and collected hand-me-downs from co-workers. I appreciated it - don't get me wrong, I couldn't have managed at all without it - but it was largely tat and I was terrified of the long term. I did not want to be a single mother. Everyone said I'd feel differently after the birth. I didn't. I begged and pleaded, I went to Social Services...I was ignored.

Unless you have "been there done that and got the t-shirt" you can't hope to understand what it's like. Trying to live on £30 a week, no friends, no partner, precious little family support...just trapped staring at 4 walls 24/7 with a screaming poop machine.

Eventually my ex reappeared...if it had just been me I probably would've told him to go to hell but I was desperate...to not be alone, for my daughter to have a father (it is not true that a child doesn't miss what they have never had)...history repeated itself and at 20 I had my 2nd daughter and found myself alone for good. People seem to think that if you're a teen mom you're easy, that you have an endless string of boyfriends. My own grandmother thought that of me! If only she'd known...that was it for me. End of my f***ing life. Too broke to go out and meet people for one thing.

My kids are 16 and 19 now...they're doing great but it's been tough every damn inch of the way. My youngest took being fatherless very hard and cried herself to sleep over it more times than I can count. I was full time at home until early 2010 - I hated it but I worked really hard to be a good mum, throwing parties, activities throughout the school holidays, all the day trips I could manage, even home-schooling them at times. Being a full-time mum IS a full time job, not just sitting around watching TV all day. I've redecorated my house, taken IT / Admin courses, grown my own veg, made my own jam...loads of stuff. My kids are intelligent young women...don't you dare suggest they should never have been born.

My ex has never paid a penny of child support. With a history of violence and crime I was told I would be putting my kids at risk if I gave consent to the CSA. My parents have done a helluva lot for us (although I still haven't got over things), it could have been so much worse. The only reason Erin is able to be at Uni is because of them - for one thing I'm not eligible to sign as guarantor on her tenancy as my income is peanuts! She literally couldn't stay in Uni if it wasn't for them.

I had to go *back* to work part-time when my kids were 11 and 14. I say *back* because I had only ever worked for 4 1/2 months when I was 16...it hardly counts! I have been working as a cleaner for very nearly 5 years. I desperately need to get a full time job but with a 15 year gap on my CV and no useful employment experience it's next to impossible. I'm under qualified to be a shelf stacker for heaven's sake! The first 18 months I was working it was a split shift arrangement - I hardly saw my kids and my eldest had to do everything.

I have qualifications; just cos I was a teenage mum does not mean I am stupid. I got my GCSEs, I have a respectable 137 IQ, I am midway through a degree with the Open University. Yes, by a lot of people's standards (including my own) I made some seriously bad decisions...but who hasn't?! Society has decided to be sympathetic to people who choose to put alcohol or drugs into their bodies but condemn those who overeat or have babies cos wow, eating food and having sex are so unnatural and much more of a choice compared to shooting up heroin...

People judge teen mums so harshly yet hardly anyone gives consideration to condemning the boys / men who are 50% of the responsibility and who, more often than not, walk away...or the families that turn their backs on their daughters. No one thinks what a bloody hard thing it is to do, to have a child when you're little more than a child yourself. A pregnant teenager has all the aches and pains and potential complications of pregnancy as an older mother AND is more likely statistically to have a premature or underweight baby (yeah, I went overdue and my eldest was 9lbs 11oz) but this little bastard on Twitter thinks he has moral superiority for not giving up his seat on a bus?! It makes me sick.

One last word: one story that has stuck in my mind for years is that of Beckie Williamson - pregnant at 12, a mother at 13, diagnosed with bone cancer at 14, terminal at 15, died in September 2004 just weeks after she turned 16. There isn't always a 'later' to be having children in. Sometimes one brief chance is all you get and you just have to deal with stuff when it happens. In my own instance, Benign Mature Cystic Teratomas of the ovaries (big cysts, basically) damaged my fertility at 20 and pretty much ruled out more kids when I was 29. At 36/7 some of my old school friends are just starting their families. If I'd waited it would have been too late.

My choices were my choices, my mistakes were my mistakes - I'm still paying for them and always will be. Quit f***ing judging me and those like me. No one has the right.