Day at the Museum

I love walking around the National Museum of Scotland, there's so much to see and the building itself looks brilliant. It's easy and quite good fun to get lost in the new wing, which is now technically the old wing as the older parts have been renovated. It#s built of blocks whose light colour disguises how non-negotiable they are. A wrong turn and you're in a dead end, or you suddenly have a sight-line you didn't realise existed:


I see the Lewis Chessmen whenever I go, memories of my family's set and their animated expressions are worth repeat visits. Each time try to take photos of them and each time I'm unsatisfied with the results.

More hopeful wandering brought me to the "One Thousand Points of Light" exhibition: an exploration of light and looking at UV-reactive minerals.


It's not just the getting lost that slows me down, I always spend ages in the Animal World gallery, a hall stuffed with stuffed animals.




 And some that aren't quite so stuffed any more.




It was here that I completed my UV education for the day, learning that male and female blue tits are distinguished from each other by a UV-reactive crest on their heads. Amazing.