Monday, April 02, 2007

A Day at the Museum

We’ve now broken up for the Easter so I’m off college and Callie is off school. And today the men arrived to install our solar panels. So to get Callie out of the house we went to the Museum and Art Gallery. We walked into the city centre down the canal at the end of our road. After changing Callie’s books at the library we crossed the square into the museum…

There is a wonderful three dimensional optical illusion in its foyer that I loved. Up the stairs we met the centre-piece of the whole museum: an impressive sculpture of the fallen angel Lucifer based on Paradise Lost. On our way to and from the Edwardian Tea Rooms for lunch we looked at an interactive Mandela in the Buddha rooms and some wonderful stain glass windows. We spent hours exploring the museum looking at exhibitions of candlesticks, chalices, jewellery etc. as well as exploring the galleries. I was struck by how much religion and especially Christianity is a theme in art – even in some contemporary art. We stumbled across a pair of storytellers telling the story of Ezekiel in front of a painting of the Valley of Dry Bones. Callie sat at the front enthralled for about quarter of an hour. In the archaeology section we found a game of Nine Men’s Morris to play. There were some other children’s activities including some dressing up but Callie’s favourite was making an Easter card.

After our long walk home we are both very tired.

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