Thursday, August 12, 2010
Collections.
Nearly everybody I know is, or has been, a collector.
The variety of things that people collect is tremendous. I have begun and then discarded many collections.
I felt I should discard things because we lack space and I realise that the time will come when there will be nobody to care much about my collections.
The only things I collect now, apart from very many items of nostalgic value, are those things connected with the Olympic games or the Commonwealth games - the Empire Games as it was once known. My most recently acquired item is a set of boxed badges from Beijing, that I bought last Sunday.
I have one collection that I hope there will be interest in when I am gone. I collect souvenir china and things from Crawley and also places with a connection with people on our family tree.
I aim that the Crawley collection will be donated to the museum when the time comes. How good that the local museum looks to be getting a one million pound grant to re-establish itself in the centre of town.
In my way, then, I claim to be a little like Frederick Horniman.
He collected all sorts of things on his travels - and had the room for it all.
Frederick in due course passed on and left his collection for the local community to enjoy. His local community was in South West London at Forest Hill.
Since his death the collection has grown into a fine and interesting museum.
We decided on our first visit that it would be a good place for Ekatarina to explore.
Yes, she liked it too.
She must have taken about 130 photographs!
The pictures below are mostly Ekatarina's.
Frederick looks to have been a kindly man.
Ashley also took a camera around and snapped this African art.
This is, believe it or not, a head dress.
Fantastic gaudy sequined collage.
Ekatarina loves mermaids.
A gigantic mummy case.
A model village.
I love this carving and Ecky has captured it so well.
Cameos.
Eagle.
This one is not stuffed - it is a model.
Downstairs there is a small and interesting aquarium.
Like many of his generation, Frederick Horniman had domed glass cases of stuffed birds.
And he had trays full of butterflies.
Back to the aquarium.
Owls, which Bill took for Ekatarina - showing just how difficult it can be to get a clear image of things in cabinets.
We didn't go in the music room on our first visit.
We could sit and play tapes of many instruments - many very unusual - and learn about them.
Listening to some beautiful music. We liked the Chinese sounding music.
A red admiral butterfly in Horniman gardens.
The butterfly took a fancy to Ashley.
We had our lunch just outside the beautiful conservatory.
Horniman Gardens are both formal and informal.
View over London from the high part of the gardens.
The variety of things that people collect is tremendous. I have begun and then discarded many collections.
I felt I should discard things because we lack space and I realise that the time will come when there will be nobody to care much about my collections.
The only things I collect now, apart from very many items of nostalgic value, are those things connected with the Olympic games or the Commonwealth games - the Empire Games as it was once known. My most recently acquired item is a set of boxed badges from Beijing, that I bought last Sunday.
I have one collection that I hope there will be interest in when I am gone. I collect souvenir china and things from Crawley and also places with a connection with people on our family tree.
I aim that the Crawley collection will be donated to the museum when the time comes. How good that the local museum looks to be getting a one million pound grant to re-establish itself in the centre of town.
In my way, then, I claim to be a little like Frederick Horniman.
He collected all sorts of things on his travels - and had the room for it all.
Frederick in due course passed on and left his collection for the local community to enjoy. His local community was in South West London at Forest Hill.
Since his death the collection has grown into a fine and interesting museum.
We decided on our first visit that it would be a good place for Ekatarina to explore.
Yes, she liked it too.
She must have taken about 130 photographs!
The pictures below are mostly Ekatarina's.
Frederick looks to have been a kindly man.
The first pictures are from the Africa room - concentrating at the moment on the Tuareg tribes.
Ashley also took a camera around and snapped this African art.
This is, believe it or not, a head dress.
Fantastic gaudy sequined collage.
Ecky has managed well to take photos of items behind glass.
Ekatarina loves mermaids.
A gigantic mummy case.
A model village.
I love this carving and Ecky has captured it so well.
Cameos.
One of the ground floor galleries is full of stuffed animals.
OK - sad that they have been preserved in this way; but also really good that we can get up close to see all the details.
Eagle.
This one is not stuffed - it is a model.
The dodo has been extinct for a long time now - too long ago for Frederick Horniman.
Downstairs there is a small and interesting aquarium.
Like many of his generation, Frederick Horniman had domed glass cases of stuffed birds.
And he had trays full of butterflies.
Back to the aquarium.
Owls, which Bill took for Ekatarina - showing just how difficult it can be to get a clear image of things in cabinets.
We didn't go in the music room on our first visit.
The cabinets are full of almost every different instrument known to man.
We could sit and play tapes of many instruments - many very unusual - and learn about them.
Listening to some beautiful music. We liked the Chinese sounding music.
A red admiral butterfly in Horniman gardens.
The butterfly took a fancy to Ashley.
We had our lunch just outside the beautiful conservatory.
Horniman Gardens are both formal and informal.
View over London from the high part of the gardens.
Scroll down a little on this link for some photos of our first visit on 28th May.
So that was a day over two weeks ago.
Today has been a home day.
We have been dealing with photographs - me sorting and Bill printing.
So far this has been a hibernating week - too much hibernating really.
But it sort of feels like summer is over!
Silly really - for soon we will be off to the tropics.
We are regretting that we have opted for the wrong dates. We learned from Jamie months ago that school holidays were "September into October". So we booked for the middle of September, hoping to get it about right. We learn now that school holidays don't begin until September 25th.
We could delay by 2 weeks - but it would cost us over £500; so we think we must make the best of it.
Tomorrow we had better do some things - my body and mind are normally better for some activity.
Labels: family, Places in England
