Oh my aching feet!

Our last full day in London was forecast to be wet, wet, wet. So it was fortunate that we'd planned a largely indoor day.

Our hotel is conveniently located midway between the British Library and the British Museum - how convenient is that! First stop was the British Library.Thee architecture is a very stark and modern but it is impressive, and huge. There are a number of displays with assorted themes. One of these features highlights from the Library's collections. These include Scott's diary from his quest for the South Pole, originals of Beatles music and lyrics, and the Magna Carta. There was also an amazing science fiction display, very popular with holidaying children and their parents. Another display featured Mervyn Peake - a 20th century writer - I'd not heard of him before but I'm a little wiser now. There is also a philatelic collection - very cleverly displayed in a small space on slide-out display panels. Stamps from most countries are included. While we were having a restorative cup of tea we watched a staff member retrieving and returning books (all looking impressively old) from the compactus we could see from the cafe. The BL's compactuses are much better looking than the ones in Sue's library.

In the afternoon we went in the opposite direction, to the Museum. This is a very imposing older style building, with an amazing number of galleries - over 90 in all. It was impossible to see everything so we focussed firstly on the Australian Season Walkabout display. This has 5 separate displays in different parts of the museum - a bark shield brought from Botany Bay By Captain Cook, a painted log coffin from Arnhem Land, a water container made of seaweed from Tasmania, a Sidney Nolan painting (part of a large display of Australian art including many by Aboriginal artists), and a garden of Australian plants including grass trees, casuarinas, bottle brushes, everlastings and lots more. We also saw an amazing collection of ancient Egyptian sculptures, all incredibly old. Another collection was of ancient Greek sculptures and carvings including a collection of items from the Parthenon.