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February 11th, 2002 11:11 pmAnother busy couple of days. Went to the Ashmolean Museum with the parents yesterday which was really nice. The collection there is so varied - they've got some wonderful art (there's a beautiful portrait of Henrietta Maria by Van Dyke (I think)) as well as a wonderful collection of Egyptian artefacts, mediaeval (the Arthur Jewel for example) and a gallery of modern Chinese painting which I've never seen before and which was beautiful. Then in the evening, we went back to the Petit Blanc. Once again, it was wonderful - a quality meal and a lovely evening was had by all.
Today was shopping day. We went into the city and I bought some of the things that I'll need for my potential cats and then we met up with some friends of Mum and Dads who were in the area (ish). We all headed off to the Ashmolean cafe for tea, sandwiches, scones and chat - very British I know :) I went into Blackwell’s with Alex and discovered that they'd finally received my copy of This Sceptred Isle the 20th Century box set so I used his discount card to snap that up (I'm listening to it in bed now - I love the delivery and attention to detail of the series. Soon, I'll be as good on 20C priministers as I am on 19C ones :) )
After that, and a brief sojourn in Borders we adjourned to the cinema to watch the Lord of the Rings. I was the only one of us (me, Alex, Mum and Dad) who hadn't seen it but the others all wanted to see it again. Although there were a couple of niggles (I wasn't sure about the way they'd done Saruman or Boromir) I thought it was great and very impressive. They'd had to chop some of the storytelling around to make the pacing suit the film better but that generally worked pretty well and the tricks they used to make the hobbits look small are not really visible at all which is pretty impressive. I also found it really scary in some places, even though I know the plot. The black riders were terrifying and the mines of Moria had me gripping Alex's hand for dear life too. I think though, that when the loud bits are making the speakers in the cinema rattle then it's too loud :)
Today was shopping day. We went into the city and I bought some of the things that I'll need for my potential cats and then we met up with some friends of Mum and Dads who were in the area (ish). We all headed off to the Ashmolean cafe for tea, sandwiches, scones and chat - very British I know :) I went into Blackwell’s with Alex and discovered that they'd finally received my copy of This Sceptred Isle the 20th Century box set so I used his discount card to snap that up (I'm listening to it in bed now - I love the delivery and attention to detail of the series. Soon, I'll be as good on 20C priministers as I am on 19C ones :) )
After that, and a brief sojourn in Borders we adjourned to the cinema to watch the Lord of the Rings. I was the only one of us (me, Alex, Mum and Dad) who hadn't seen it but the others all wanted to see it again. Although there were a couple of niggles (I wasn't sure about the way they'd done Saruman or Boromir) I thought it was great and very impressive. They'd had to chop some of the storytelling around to make the pacing suit the film better but that generally worked pretty well and the tricks they used to make the hobbits look small are not really visible at all which is pretty impressive. I also found it really scary in some places, even though I know the plot. The black riders were terrifying and the mines of Moria had me gripping Alex's hand for dear life too. I think though, that when the loud bits are making the speakers in the cinema rattle then it's too loud :)
