Looking back at London (pt. 2)

As you can see by the date some time has passed. I'm now in the airport Hilton in Copenhagen between flights on my way back to London. The conference is behind me and soon will be a dim memory. So let me finish telling you about my second museum day in London.

We went from the National to the V&A. By this time my feet were in agony and I ached in every joint up to and including my hips. Just the walk from where we got off the Tube through the tunnel to the museum entrance seemed endless. Sorry, I don't mean to turn this into a monolog about my feet or go on and on about how out of shape I am. We'll take that as read and go on shall we?

The V&A has long been at the top of my list of world's great museums. There is no way to do it justice really. We decided to concentrate on the newly renovated Medieval and Renaissance Galleries. They were spectacular! The galleries are light and airy and each object seems to float in its own space suggesting the original context yet letting you focus on it in detail. The techniques used in the displays are particularly interesting. Some panels appear to be glass or transluscent marble others are left blank to suggest where other pieces related to the object ought to be. After the clutter of Soane's museum this offered serenity and bounty together.

We had a lovely ramble through the gift shop and the book shop. I got to see the clever house made of books which I loved. Pictures will follow after I get home. That is something I haven't yet figured out how to do with the iPad. Speaking of which I have loved having it along instead of the laptop! I've used the currency converter, the notebook, the various readers, the email, the dropbox, and of course the web browser. Booked a flight back to Copenhagen while listening to a presentation on library science education in India (please don't repeat that!). I've learned how to make an apostrophe without changing keyboards and lots of other cool tricks. Still making a lot of typos as my fingers adjust to the size of the keyboard but practice makesmperfect...

So, back to our last day in London. After the V&A we were off to tea at the Dorchester Hotel. This was a special pre-birthday treat from Michele and it was wonderful. It was served in a little room that is part of the spa and was all white and pink and soft chairs. The tea included sandwiches, clotted cream and jam and fresh scones, a selection of pastries and a fruit tart! How wonderfully decadent we felt. When we were completely stuffed we went back to the club for a short rest. Michele went out to a nearby Boots to get blister plasters for my poor unmentionable feet. Then we spent a couple of hours in the club's non-smoking smoking room working on our presentation. We got talking to one of the club members who turned oit to be quite kmowledgable about the museums we had seen that day which was entertaining especially as he kept working his way through what can't have been his first bottle of the club wine.

At last to bed to rest up for the next stage of the trip. To be continued.