ossamenta

I've been rather busy lately, working on a new PhD proposal. Admittedly, there is unlikely to be any post/grants announced before summer, but that's no excuse to wait until the last minute. This time I will leave the crafts mainly behind, instead focussing on animal husbandry strategies (well, that's seriously simplified, but it will have to do) in Early Medieval Scandinavia/southern Baltic area. Oxford's libraries don't have everything I need for background research, but luckily I can use the copac database to see what other UK libraries have available. So last Saturday I headed into London and the British Library. Photocopying/scanning is rather expensive there (25p/single page, no spreads allowed), and unfortunately my tired brain didn't think to check academia.edu until afterwards. So I spent £3 on an article I could just have downloaded for free... Note to self: have lunch first so the blood sugar levels are up before you make any financial decisions! But it's a good library, with excellent sit-writing facilities. There are usually lots of students (and others) there, so it might be hard to get a seat unless you come early or use the reading rooms.

(For London tourists: the BL's permanent exhibition is very good, ranging from medieval manuscripts to Beatles' songs. They usually have interesting temporary exhibitions too, so worth checking out)

I've also found a new favourite café for writing: upstairs at the Natural History Museum. A lovely view over the collections, enough far away that the children downstairs create ignorable white noise, and as a bonus there are small glass cases along the balcony so you can learn something as you have your tea/coffee.