A day in Oxford with Jonathan and family

 Jonathan and Amelia had decided to undertake a journey to Oxford for a different day out and hadn't told the children we were going to be there.  They were very suitably amused and pleased when we joined them for coffee in the cafe at the Ashmolean.  Mary(8) and James (6) were both involved with topics on the Egyptians and the Greeks at school, so that was a useful focus for the visit. We spotted the necessary Grecian Urns and Egyptian Mummies and enjoyed the discussion about the purposes of canopic jars.  The kids were good including Tim who thought we ought to be looking for rabbits.  They were in rather short supply, but we did do a good line in finding sheep, fruit, lutes and horses in 15th Century art! 

This jar has an image of Heracles fighting the lion - objects were not lit well I would say and unhelpful reflections often spoiled their viewing, not just the taking of pictures.

There were a number of vases depicting sporting activity, but this seemed particularly bizarre - one man having shoulder ride to play some sort of basket ball game?! Is there a scholar out there who might correct me on my interpretation?

We were all rather impressed with the feet of No, 14.

and the sceptical gaze of this Wally Bird by the Martin Brothers has wonderful character and I think charm! 

There were some cases of stringed instruments that were especially lovely.  It would be great to know what they sounded like, and the cabinet of Citterns below looked really lovely too. The colour of the wood was amazing.

The children were all intrigue by this installation.  It looked as though each of these had a light on, but actually the artist was interested in exploring the quality of natural light, and using florescent paint / material to create the luminating effect. 

By this time we'd spent a couple of hours at the museum which I think was pretty good for the little people.  I would say that it was a less welcoming place to visit than the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge - it didn't have trails for kids and the gallery staff looked less welcoming and more wary of the children.  Interestingly too, there were almost no other children there.  However, one of the members of staff told Amelia that there was a family room that you could use to eat lunch in.  As they had brought picnic food for the kids with them, we went to the cafe and bought sandwiches for us four adults and had a very private lunch in the family room, another facility that the museum didn't really advertise.  

Having had lunch, and the rain having stopped, we then set off on an explore of the streets of Oxford. We found the covered market - the largest in the country I believe, and that was fun to walk through with market stalls selling food of all sorts but also craft and other shops.  It's not a city I know well, but we managed to steer a course around some of the less busy shopping streets and on those with the more college focused buildings.  I'm not sure which college this is the entrance to, but I loved the doorways leading to doorways leading to doorways.

We passed Christ Church and looked in on the main quad and then walked around passed Magdalen on the street aptly named Longwall Street.  It was indeed a very long wall - it looked a bit like old city walls really. Part way along we saw a new sundial on the wall created in 2000, or MM as it showed on the building.  From a nearby gateway you could see into the gardens which looked rather lovely! 

We were aiming in the direction of the Natural History Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum which are both housed in the same building.  On the way we passed a building with this extraordinary roof - an architect's delight and a builders ???

The museum buildings were created in about 1860, around the time of the Natural History Museum in London.  There is something of the feel of the big hall of the NHM in London, but this is significantly smaller and had some really interesting displays of small items as well as the larger dinosaur skeletons.

This display of arachnids was really impressive, especially the largest crab at the centre.  Swimming off the coast of Japan might be something to think twice about, I suggest.  There were displays of coloured insects which were a real feast for the eyes,

And the white or nearly white one was just as interesting.

There does have to be a scary dinosaur!!

After stroking an otter and realising how much softer it's fur is than that of a badger and feeling the teeth of an elephant and a hippopotamus - it was lovely to be encouraged to touch  - we then went to the Pitt Rivers Museum next door. The contents of this museum were based on the collections of a man called August Henry Lane Fox who later inherited the estate of an uncle gifting him the name Pitt Rivers. He gave his collection to the museum in 1887 and it has been added to since. This is a museum full of 'stuff' and is arranged based on the purpose and use of the stuff, not where it comes from. So there are cases of model boats, of head dresses, of flutes, or drums, of spears, of knives, of clothes to keep you warm, or toys, of painting materials, of jewellery and so on.  It's an amazing place and easy for children to find something to look at that they recognise and then to ask questions about things that they didn't recognise at all.  The museums both had plenty of children in them, and staff who most definitely actively encouraged children's interest.  Hurrah! 

The Natural History section seen from the balcony.

The Pitt Rivers seen from the balcony too! 

And a sample of one of the cases, in this case with flutes! 

So after all of that, we walked back to the boat and played a game of rummikub before dinner of pizza on the boat.  Jonathan went back to collect the car from the park and ride and then collected the rest of his party from a road close to the boat.  Since then it's been properly raining, so I think we actually did very well with the weather for our day exploring Oxford.