Leave of Absence of Mind

Right, I've got to go on leave now. The hols have just been piling up untaken, and it's use 'em or loose 'em by the end of March. So today I set of via Sutton, Manchester, Lythan, Ambleside, Whitehave and Durham to Edinburgh, to pick up the work batton again for some lovely project stuff with the University of Edinburgh and other super people.

I shall have another mini break at the end of the month around Easter- probably not to Spain and the Sierra Nevada as I had hoped- no idea where at all in fact! Suggestions on a postcard please.

Oh, and yesterday I popped up to the National Maritime Museum for a nose around. All very lovely and interesting, and both Geof, my septuganarian Father-in-Law and I reverted properly to type and started playing with all the hands on experiments. However, with the exception of the brilliant 'Bridge Simulator' there was not so much as a cabin off a ship there! THis really surprised me, and to behonest, although there were some great bits to the museum (Art and the Sea being one highlight) overall it didn't really hang together to tell a story, or even a linked sequesnce of stories. For instance- there was a section on Artic exploration (all very heavily staged with fake ice caves etc.) and a section on antarctic exploration, but no sense that the two were in any way related, or the point of any of the exploration. In fact the artic exploration had been a really political and economic effort and hugely important, but you just came away thinking it was jolly cold. And it so needed ships. A maritime museum without ships is rather like a bread sandwich- it can be as substancial as you like, but you can't help feeling it's missing something vital.