Cultcher, I has lots of it - 1

It has felt like a very cultural 10 days or so.

Started with a visit from camele0pard , who was in town on a short visit to catch up with London based friends, which was most welcome. She brought the requested Swedish treats (reindeer-flavoured squeeze-cheese, and Lakrits) plus a jar of whortleberry jam, which is used like cranberry sauce on savoury dishes. The 'too-hot-for-you!' Lakrits proved that Swedes must have very mild tastes for chilies. :-)
After dinner, we spent some time paging through the Luttrell Psalter - an act of culture by definition, really.

(Trying to remember how we spent the weekend, and failing - a bit alarming. We did not do any reenactor shopping though.)

Nov 3rd was the Official Bend Gules Holiday, and as such, was celebrated by Robert and me with a day in the museums (with happy notes from jpgsawyer  and nickajordan - thank you!) .

We visited the Sir John Soane Museum - a house full of architecture and design souvenirs, casts and artifacts, very much in the vein of late 18thc- early 19th c neo-classical revival (he has some medieval bits too, but isn't as keen on them). He established his house as a museum to inspire future students of architecture and design, and even had it protected by an act of Parliament. 

While there, I picked up a flyer about continuing ed, and as a result, have signed up for a short course in drawing skills for grownups. It runs on weekly for the next 5 weeks after work. I'm really looking forward to it; I've always wanted to take a course about improving my drawing and this one will hopefully be a good fit.

This museum borders Lincoln Inn Fields, in the heart of the Inns at Court, so we lunched in the fields (actually a very tame park surrounded by 18th/19thc buildings, just S. of Holborn). From there, we walked to SOAS at UCL to view their treasures, and then on to our real goal in Bloomsbury, the Petrie Museum, which is dedicated to Egyptian archeology. There we found a couple of items worth the whole day - some cross-shaped pendant moulds cut into stone, possibly early Byzantine. Right next to this mould was a second one that reminded me of 'spangle moulds' from the MoL book, but much earlier. Splendid!

After a fortifying half-pint, we wrapped up the day with a short browse in the British Library, and no visit is complete without a dip into the bookshop. My newest treasure...

The only downside was getting home on a Tube strike day, which, on the bus at rush hour, was tedious.

Landline down!

 If you're trying to get hold of Robert or me, our landline has cut out, which means were down both phone and intawebs.
R. has reported it to both home and business so hopefully service returns shortly. Bear with us!