In which there are just enough dinosaurs

I didn't actually set out for dinosaurs, they just ended up happening really. But then I always believe in wholeheartedly embracing dinosaurs where they occur.

So Andy and I actually went to the Natural History Museum in London to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the weekend. It's simply one of my favourite things. I've been to it many times (well, somewhat annually), and I never fail to be amazed and inspired. I mentioned a while back getting the book of 50 years of the award, with the best of the best. And so now I have the first collection book, since that book. Anyway, it's just incredible photography. I don't have photos of it, because you don't really take photos of photos. You can see all the winners on the site though, but there were even more than this to admire:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/wpy/gallery/2014/adult.html

I always find it so relaxing to look at, and my personal winner was a photography of a mountain circled by the Northern Lights with a waterfall in the forground. It said he'd taken it as a long exposure using several different lightings during the shot to make it all glow.

There was also a photo of some bright greenish yellow parakeets flying through a cemetry in London which was really inspiring. Andy and I kept thinking that we'd seen parrots in our local nature reserve, but then were convinced we were mad. Parrots? In Britain? But then this photo explained that lots of South African parakeets had migrated to South England. This means I might have some great photography material just down the road! So then, with that exhibition done we had classic scones and cream in the cafe, and then went to look at skeletons. And spent a couple of hours taking pictures of back-lit bones. Just a perfect British day really.

I got that pearly necklace in Spain and have hardly taken it off since. I swear it goes with everything and I love it to bits.

Wonder Woman bag is the best.

Claws!

Jaws!

Breathtaking architecture.

Charles Darwin has had enough of your sass.

Fear the animatronic dinosaurs!

Home time

In which Oxford is explored

I had my first holiday of the year this last weekend and it was utterly wonderful. We took the Easter weekend to go away to Oxford, a city we've both only visited for conferences. Now I'm home I've definitely got that proper post-break feeling of refreshment.

I have been needing the time away from everything. I'd become bored of the Internet: Tumblr, Twitter, Blogger, and all the emails. So many emails. I'm sorry but I'd kind of had enough and all I wanted were river-side walks and some alone time with my husband. So we switched it all off. Didn't use my phone or computer (ok, so we watched a few episodes of Fairy Tail one evening but that hardly counts!)

Instead we managed to cram in everything we had been recommended to see in Oxford in just three days. We went to the covered markets, the Ashmolean (Britain's oldest museum), The Natural History Museum (Dinosaurs!), and the Pitt Rivers Museum (a big jumble of art), the canal, the river, the board games cafe, the theatre, and lots of nice food. And saw a Stradivarius guitar and violin which blew my mind.

I wanted to share a huge variety of pictures but it turns out despite coming back with 400 pictures, most of them are of skeletons (Natural History Museum) or of me (for soon to come outfit posts)!

 We visited a board game cafe called The Thirsty Meeples. You may have picked up a vibe from this blog that I quite like gaming. I am a member of a local board games club and have a fairly hefty mountain of games in the living room. This place has 1500 games in the cafe to choose from to play whilst you are there!
We took the game 'Fantastiqa' from the two-player section and did that with our lunch on the first day!

All the game pieces for this game were from famous works of art.

 

Oxford Castle at sunset

 On the first evening we found this free table tennis game in an open courtyard. The bats and ball were in little free to use pockets and we spent a good half an hour of me thrashing Andy at the game.

Pink lemonade floats

Hot Cross Bun bread and butter pudding, and the best cheesecake we've ever tasted.

 So probably the thing I was keenest to go to was to see all the dinosaur skeletons at the Natural History Museum. It is everything a picture book museum should be. Full of kids running round and staring at the giant t-rex, glass cases full of dead beetles and displays of historically important rocks.

T-rex!

We liked this statue of Newton having a little nap here.

Crazy ancestor of the elephant called the Deinotherium (which is not an easy name to remember). They had downward facing tusks, and in the sketches of how they might have looked, seem utterly terrifying.

This fairy normal looking rock is one of the oldest things on the planet. 3.5 billion years old!

Dinosaurs!

The inspiration for Lewis Caroll's Dodo in Through the Looking Glass

Unitkitty and Snail enjoying the canal side walk

So that was my Easter break! It was just really nice to have some exploring time with my husband. It was the first time we had been away with just the two of us since the honeymoon so it was good to relive that kind of peaceful joy together.

What did you do with Easter? Hope you had a good time too!