Done like dinner!

(photos to follow whenever Michelle can find time)

Tonight I am absolutely shattered after another day at the museum. It was pouring with rain today as we set off for the Victoria and Albert museum so we decided to eat lunch there. Michelle had a write up which said that this was the best of all the museum cafeterias and we can now certainly confirm that it was good. We both ordered roast pork, roast potatoes, veggies and gravy and as the guy piled it all higher and higher we realised that we could probably have been perfectly happy sharing one meal. It was amazingly good considering the number of people going through the place and better than other restaurants at which we had paid much more money.

The entrance from the subway and the foyer of the museum was swarming with people so having picked up the floor plan we headed for the top floor to try and get away from the crowds. That worked pretty well and I hope you all enjoy the pictures of the amazing pottery from around the world. We were absolutely staggered by the number of pieces and you can see that the cases housing the exhibits run from one end of the room to the other. Michelle took literally hundreds of photos and she'll have trouble picking the best ones.

Shelves of China

(This is just a quarter of what was in this room.   This is only half of the row of shelves and there is another row behind it.  There were at least 6 rooms like this.)

 Lovely Dinner Plate

 Large Decorative Plate

Panel of Tiles - Bull Motif

 Serving Platter

Panel of Tiles - Urn Motif

From there we made our way down the floors. We saw many different sections and I'll leave it to Michelle to label them so you have some idea although we haven't made any notes so can't be too specific. I just loved the tiny Japanese carvings with so much detail and also enjoyed the beautiful furniture. Roger has taught me to appreciate good wood working and some of the pieces are exquisite.

Table Sue Really Liked 

 Statue of St Peter

 Information on Japanese Netsuke

 Netsuke Man

Netsuke Cock 

 Netsuke Man Riding a Horse

Netsuke Beast

At 4 pm we'd been walking around for 3 hours and I was starting to feel a little tired so we headed back to the cafeteria for our afternoon tea. I just hope that all this exercise is taking care of the extra few calories. Previously we've both had a cup of tea and shared a piece of cake but today it just looked too good to share. The cafeteria is divided into several rooms and here are the photos of the room where we had tea.

Stained Glass Window

(This was the room we had our tea in) 

Second Room in the Cafeteria 

Third Room in the Cafeteria

After another hour I just couldn't stand it any longer. The lower we went in the building the more the crowds increased so we headed for the gift shop and decided to call it a day after that.

Although the exhibits in the museum were absolutely wonderful I found this gift shop quite uninspiring and ridiculously expensive, more so than others we've visited, so I headed for a seat outside while Michelle continued to wonder around. Outside on the benches I ran into the other walking wounded and felt a lot better after a man at least 20 years younger than me said that this day was more tiring than a day at work!

When we got outside it had stopped pouring and seemed quite a nice evening so we decided to walk down to Harrods. Well...I've run out of words to describe the crowds but Harrods was the worst yet. Michelle wanted to buy a Dr. Who toy so we literally fought our way through masses up to the 4th floor. For those of you who don't know, Harrods covers a city block and the 4th floor is divided into toys for boys, toys for girls, designer clothes for children and who knows what else. It was totally nuts and Michelle kept saying "no way would I ever bring my child here". In the end we couldn't find what Michelle wanted and so we got out of there as fast as our little feet could carry us.

By the time we got home I didn't even have the energy to make a cup of tea and so Michelle has been catering to me all evening. Tomorrow we are off to see my aunt so I doubt we'll have much to tell you.