London, Day 2

Off to Cambridge

 Day two we were up early ~ this is a view from my loo window~ how cool is this!  The big grey dome is the London Oratory House, and just to the right, you can see the cream tower of the Victoria & Albert Museum...just a hop and a skip from our townhouse!

 From London's King Cross Station we are off to Cambridge to visit the Fitzwilliam Museum for both a private study session, and to view the Sampled Lives exhibit.

 Cambridge is a beautiful city, full of higher learning and soooooo much history. I could have spent an entire day just walking around enjoying the architecture. The above are the front doors of the Catholic Church of Our Lady &The English Martyrs

 Even the door hinges are wrought with feeling and life ~

 I loved this little fellow. I have 2 unicorns I'm working on my flat top casket~ I hope I can bestow upon them as much character as he has~ just walking down the street from the train station to the Fitzwilliam, there he was, contently perched atop  the Hobson's Conduit Monument.

    The mighty Fitzwilliam Museum~ it certainly does not disappoint. It's magnificence in size is absolutely matched by the objects they hold in their collections...but as we were  a tad early, and it wasnt open yet, we continued up the road a little

  One could not help but be drawn in to the lavish grounds of Pembroke College~ this passageway makes me dream of the book 'The Secret Garden'...I can just imagine my little mice dollies scurrying about beyond it

 Visitors are most welcome to walk the grounds of the college(established in 1347) as long as they are quiet, and stay off that gorgeous green grass~

 We had about an hour before our study appointment to view the Sampled Lives Exhibit~ which absolutely was not long enough~ we went back again after our study session was over! Click on the link above and you can read about the exhibit, and if you cant get there in person(running until April 2018), they do sell a marvelous exhibit catalogue in the museum's shop.

 The samplers are all presented up close and personal, with adequate lighting that made it easy to really study them up close, and take as many nonflash photos for personal use as one was inclined to.

 I cannot have asked for better, more helpful staff who went above and beyond to pull our special objects for us to study~ one of which was casket T.8-1945, which is special to me because I based the inside embroidery of mine on the embroidery inside its lid. Between the sampler exhibit and study session, I went thru two Nikon batteries and took nearly 8GB of pictures......

    After all that learning, a trip to Il Papiro in Covent Garden was in order~ I bought two new pens, some ink and a sheet of hand marbled paper for something special while there.  Again, I could have stayed and mingled in Covent Garden for an entire day easily....but hey! I needed to get to Fortnum & Mason for some tea! No time to doddle on vacation people.....

I hope you visit the link~ oh . my. golly....the most wonderful store~ with every tea and biscuit you can imagine, and then some.  And its a beautiful store~ its an event in itself to just experience the atmosphere, especially knowing everyone else around you loves tea as much as you do!