History and Hockey
I've had a great first week of the summer holidays with the whole family off work at the same time, a rare occurrence indeed.
On Tuesday we headed up to London and the British Museum. The museum houses incredible historical artefacts stolen from countries across the world. The museum was full of people, especially Japanese tourists stereotypically taking photos of everything in sight. The crowds meant it was difficult to see everything clearly but the museum is so vast you could visit every day for a year and probably still not see everything. That's fine though because you can focus on certain things.
I love history. I think many people see it as dull, thinking it's all about kings and queens, battles and endless dates. For me though history is all about people. It's the story of people who lived before we did and there's so much to learn about what being human means.
I enjoyed the Egyptian section, largely looking at mummies and the fascinating Egyptian belief system of the afterlife. Many mummies were buried with shabti, little statues that it was believed would come to life and help the person to farm or whatever else they would need to do in the afterlife. Even mummified cats had shabti.
Then there's the Lindow Man, a guy from the Iron Age whose body ended up in a Cheshire peat bog and was well preserved. He's a nightmarish sight but is still fairly well preserved for someone who died so long ago. We know that he had healthy teeth and had arthritis and even know he ate some toast and some cereal grains not long before he died. To know the everyday details about someone who lived two thousand years ago is incredible!
The main purpose for visiting London was to go to the Women's Hockey World Cup, held at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre in the Olympic Park. My brother is well connected in the hockey world so acquired free tickets which were only a few rows up on the half-way line. It was the perfect place to sit.
As much as I enjoyed watching England at the world cup, hockey is a much better sport to watch. It's so quick with the equivalents of free kicks and throw-ins happening instantly. Even the gap between each quarter is timed so there's no waiting for things to happen. Equally the discipline is much better, with players rarely complaining about decisions and being sin-binned if they step out of line. It just makes it a much more pleasant sport to watch when there's no time-wasting and no players behaving like idiots.
We saw two round of 16 matches, India vs Italy and England vs South Korea. It was exciting to be able to cheer England on, especially as that they were always going to win the match against the poorer side. Korea constantly tried to send the ball up in the air for a forward to control and get into the D with but as this appeared to be their only tactic England could intercept it every time. In the end England lost the quarter-final against the Netherlands, who will likely win the tournament.
We had a pub lunch one day, my brother and I went to see the latest Marvel film Ant-Man and the Wasp, I did a day at holiday club and did a lot of walking in the rare spare moments. It's lovely to find myself busy in the holidays when in previous years I've usually been feeling unfulfilled by this point in the holidays.
I'm not quite sure when my next entry will be as I'm heading to Rome for five days next week but I shall write a little about the trip on my return.
On Tuesday we headed up to London and the British Museum. The museum houses incredible historical artefacts stolen from countries across the world. The museum was full of people, especially Japanese tourists stereotypically taking photos of everything in sight. The crowds meant it was difficult to see everything clearly but the museum is so vast you could visit every day for a year and probably still not see everything. That's fine though because you can focus on certain things.
I love history. I think many people see it as dull, thinking it's all about kings and queens, battles and endless dates. For me though history is all about people. It's the story of people who lived before we did and there's so much to learn about what being human means.
I enjoyed the Egyptian section, largely looking at mummies and the fascinating Egyptian belief system of the afterlife. Many mummies were buried with shabti, little statues that it was believed would come to life and help the person to farm or whatever else they would need to do in the afterlife. Even mummified cats had shabti.
Then there's the Lindow Man, a guy from the Iron Age whose body ended up in a Cheshire peat bog and was well preserved. He's a nightmarish sight but is still fairly well preserved for someone who died so long ago. We know that he had healthy teeth and had arthritis and even know he ate some toast and some cereal grains not long before he died. To know the everyday details about someone who lived two thousand years ago is incredible!
The main purpose for visiting London was to go to the Women's Hockey World Cup, held at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre in the Olympic Park. My brother is well connected in the hockey world so acquired free tickets which were only a few rows up on the half-way line. It was the perfect place to sit.
As much as I enjoyed watching England at the world cup, hockey is a much better sport to watch. It's so quick with the equivalents of free kicks and throw-ins happening instantly. Even the gap between each quarter is timed so there's no waiting for things to happen. Equally the discipline is much better, with players rarely complaining about decisions and being sin-binned if they step out of line. It just makes it a much more pleasant sport to watch when there's no time-wasting and no players behaving like idiots.
| Regular readers may notice how I manage to find a related Peanuts image in most entries. There's a panel for everything! |
We saw two round of 16 matches, India vs Italy and England vs South Korea. It was exciting to be able to cheer England on, especially as that they were always going to win the match against the poorer side. Korea constantly tried to send the ball up in the air for a forward to control and get into the D with but as this appeared to be their only tactic England could intercept it every time. In the end England lost the quarter-final against the Netherlands, who will likely win the tournament.
We had a pub lunch one day, my brother and I went to see the latest Marvel film Ant-Man and the Wasp, I did a day at holiday club and did a lot of walking in the rare spare moments. It's lovely to find myself busy in the holidays when in previous years I've usually been feeling unfulfilled by this point in the holidays.
I'm not quite sure when my next entry will be as I'm heading to Rome for five days next week but I shall write a little about the trip on my return.
Comments
Post a Comment