New Year and a bit more

New Year was pretty quiet - dinner in the city and then back to Emma and Brit's place by car, not the underground, courtesy of Mike - thanks Mike. The interesting thing was that by this time a lot of the streets had been closed off because, well, it was New Year's Eve after all and thousands upon thousands of people were gathering in the city to see the fireworks. Not us though, we were going in the opposite direction and it took a while for the driver to find a way out of the centre and over the Thames River. We didn't mind at all because we were quite enjoying ourselves having a bit of a Tiki Tour and the people walking about were pretty interesting as well. We finally got home, got out the port, put on the TV and watched 2014 arrive in various cities across the world until it was midnight in London and time for the massive display happening down on the River Thames. 

Auckland was included in the TV presentation this year, 2013 started in Sydney so Yay for us and even though the fireworks were on a small scale and not quite as grand as in other places, in the end what does it matter? 2014 arrived whether there were fireworks - big, small or otherwise or even none at all. 

On another cold, clear, sunny day Emma, Brit and I visited the Horniman Museum which is in the leafy suburb of Forest Hill. Conveniently, to get there we could get  a bus from Brixton without any changes at all, and the route to the museum wound its way through another part of London that I'd never seen before. I'd heard about this museum from a theatre nurse I was talking with just before I was anaesthetised to have my knee operation last July. The museum began it's life as a rather enormous collection of stuffed animals, stuffed birds, bones and artifacts gathered from all over the world, either by Mr Horniman himself or bought by him from other British travelers at a time when bringing back dead things was the thing to do, whether to sell them or to add to a personal collection. In time Mr Horniman amassed so many things that he and his family had to move into another house. The collection, and there is certainly a lot of stuff, is now displayed in a purpose-built museum building.(look at the colour of the sky)

Along with the main exhibition hall there is an 'African Room', a musical instrument room and a textile room and an aquarium. Amongst all the stuff are animals and birds which are now extinct, a number of items from New Zealand kiwis, kakas, huias, greenstone - and the most famous exhibit is a stuffed Canadian walrus, . It's famous because the taxidermist had no idea what a walrus actually looks like therefore this walrus has no wrinkles at all and looks like it's been blown-up like a balloon and is about to burst. However,  I kind of liked the dodo bird. 

  This is the Dodo

There are skeletons and mummies, and much, much  more - a lot more than I can begin to describe, well worth the visit. I didn't go to the aquarium or the textile room. There is only so much I can look at before I become 'museumed out'. It's a working museum which is now focused on conservation and there is quite a lot about endangered animals including the work done regarding the Kakapo. 

The museum sits on a bit of a hill on rather a large piece of land which has been developed into gardens which apparently are really beautiful in the spring and summer. We were very surprised to see a  fijoa tree growing, looking very healthy, and to read on the label - pineapple guavas. Emma is going back in the autumn to check out if they have fruit on them. 

 a rather healthy looking fijoa tree.

There's a children's animal farm with live animals not dead ones, with the usual rabbits, chickens, donkeys, guinea-pigs along with a couple of very cool llamas.

There is quite a good view from the top of the hill although it was a little hazy but it was also freezing cold so we didn't hang about outside for long. Brixton was noticeably a little warmer probably because there was no wind in Brixton whereas up on the hill in Forest Hill  there had been a bit of a breeze. Dulich looked like a nice enough area but not as interesting as Brixton.

view from the garden.

There are possibly better, and certainly there are different views of the city from other parts of the garden, but it was too cold for me to wander about looking at the views from different vantage points. 

 sometimes I feel kind of grossed out when I look at the photos of the birds and animals and what they represent as in the era and the thinking which enabled the killing and taking of wildlife just to show them off in some big house to add to someone's prestige. However, I was chuffed to be able to see the dodo bird.   A conundrum!  Also, lots of other stuff as well so mmmmmmm.