Hey Blog! Here’s a post about an art exhibition that’s currently on near me, which focuses on one artist known for light, shadow, and dramatic paintings: Joseph Wright of Derby.

Not Left of Derby. Nor even Right of Derby. Wright of Derby was a famous painter in the late 1700s, a contemporary of Richard Arkwright (the mill owner, spinning machine inventor, and richest commoner in England) and painted his ‘official’ portrait, the one that is seen in all the posters. Wright also painted Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of the famous Charles), local gentry, and various landscapes of mills and nature. He led a very interesting life, visiting Italy (like all gentlemen of the age, who went on the Grand Tour) and being inspired by Vesuvius in particular. Learning in London from fashionable portraitists, he lived at the time of the founding of the Royal Academy, the start of the ‘golden age’ of British painting, and was apprenticed to the same painter who taught Joshua Reynolds, the Academy’s first president. Though later in life his paintings took a more reflective tone, with thicker brushstrokes and a concentration on unusual scenes, his greatest talent, employed throughout his artistic career, was something called tenebrism. Coming from the Italian word meaning darkness (in the senses of mood, knowledge, and absence of light all), this style makes darkness the defining, focal feature of the painting. It describes a style where shadow is just as important as light to make the artwork stand out, which is what Wright is famous for.

If you look at some of Wright’s paintings, like Bird in an Air Pump or The Orrery, then you can see how the use of shadow impacts the work. Darker examples, like The Gladiator and The Alchemyst, have darkness taking up most of the frame, and highlight the few bits of light that are seen. The best way to get an idea of his paintings and idiosyncrasies would be to go to the exhibition that’s on in Derby Museum and Art Gallery at the moment, which I can recommend!

One of the things I like about the current exhibit is that it is neither too small, containing a couple of paintings and a tiny bit of information about the artist; nor too large, so by the end of it you’ve been arted-out. It’s the perfect size, with enough information and beautiful paintings, but placed in such a way that you don’t get exhausted by the sheer display of detail and beauty in the paintings. It’s also well situated near to several very good cafés, so once you’ve finished, there’s something else to do before the train home…!

Hey Blog! Friday two weeks ago I went to something I haven’t seen for years – a concert!

I realise that you don’t go to see a concert. You listen to one. And this was a very good one, by my (very limited) knowledge of concert standards. Moreover, it was given by the National Scout and Guide Concert Band and Symphony Orchestra, the NSGCB/NSGSO. And due to my ever-growing circle of contacts within the Scouting movement, there were three if not more people I know or have met playing; one from my own Explorer group, one from the Jamboree group, and one that I randomly met while taking exams. As you do.

The concert was held in Birmingham, so we stayed in the same Travelodge as we did for some of my exams this year. As such, we knew exactly where to go for transport, sustenance, and sleep. We went down in the evening, dropped off our bags, and went straight out to the venue to attend. Even though we’d booked relatively late, our seats were very good – in the front row of the top balcony, and directly in front of the middle of the stage, so there was a very good view of what was going on. The Friday night programme, when we went, was the Concert Band first and the Symphony Orchestra second, with a short interval in the middle.

In total, there are nearly a hundred Scouts and Guides in both the Band and Orchestra, so about 200 put together. They come from across the whole country and there are even some from overseas. The Orchestra started 51 years ago, and the Band 11 years ago – we missed the huge anniversary one last year, but I think it might be a regular thing now (except that the next one will be when I’m in Poland on the Jamboree – might have to get the CD for that one!). The pieces they played range from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody to Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture, and were all full of musical passion and Scouting enthusiasm. I think the Orchestra had the harder pieces, and playing second at nearly 10 o’clock at night had to work harder to keep an audience that was already saturated with the Band’s playing. The Band had a larger selection and from more diverse styles, as well as having the people I knew in it. Both, however, were astonishing – especially as all members only have one week to learn their part of the arrangement, including solos! Having a lot of people playing at once means that even when one makes a mistake, the others can keep going, and they can catch up – still, having such as short time to learn makes it even more impressive!

As a person who hasn’t gone to many concerts at all – probably less than 10 in my life – I have some catching up to do. Maybe I’ll go to some more now I’ve got the inspiration… and who knows, I might even learn another instrument and take part one day!

Hey Blog! This post is about two workshops I attended last weekend. Both were making workshops and they were in different materials. The first one, at the Museum of Making in Derby, was a blacksmithing afternoon.

I have, a very long time ago (in Home Ed at the Forge, January 24), told you about blacksmithing. That time, I was at the High Peak Junction forge making a poker. This time was making an ornament, an ammonite-esque spiral form, in a workshop delivered by the same smith that I met at the careers day last year (see Creative Careers, December 25), and made of rebar. This use of a material that is chosen because the pattens on it match the final form is something that seems so obvious, but I’d never have thought of. We were using the museum’s ceramic forge, which is very powerful and makes the metal really easy to work. I think I did well; the piece I made looks good and hangs very nicely as a necklace, though it’s quite heavy. It resembles another spiral pendant I have, that came out of a goodie bag years ago, and is an amazing design. I think before long I’ll be making some more, similar, and maybe I’ll finally make that forge in the garden we talked about before…

The second workshop was at the leathercraft fair they have every year. This is the shop the archaeology team got the pieces for the hnefatafl boards from, and I got a free spot because of this, being the team member who was interested in it and able to go. We were making a luggage tag, complete with rivets, buckle strap, and flap for reading the label. It was such a good experience, because the only leathercraft I’ve really done is tails for mice, a put-it-together-yourself card holder, and my phone purse that I designed myself. This pouch is lined and has a flap to hold it all together, and was until now the most progressed thing I’d made in this area, but adding some brass pins and buckle, as well as using some very nice red colour tanned leather, has instantly pushed the bar higher. I think I’ve got the hang of saddle stitch, the classic stitch for leather; I was even advancing the technique before everyone else in the workshop had really started. The premise of the workshop was that by using all the same techniques, you could make a belt or indeed anything out of leather. At the same event, I bought a strip of gold leather to make a fancy belt (and am now on the quest for a buckle) and some thick pale leather to practice with. I may expand the products I offer at sales to include coasters, bracelets and even more, if I continue to learn, so the future looks to be very interesting indeed!

Hey Blog! Just a short one today, about an event in Scouting that gave me my first opportunity to camp without knowing anyone there, and help with a whole plethora of activities for Scouts of all ages.

Activation is something I have mentioned before. I attended in 2019, as a Cub, and last year, as a Young Leader with the archaeology team. This year was the first that I have helped as a Young Leader on the whole site, with all activities. They have a team of Explorers each year who help the adult leaders, and provide a halfway point between old and young. The biggest job is asking the younger sections, “are you exited?!” telling them to drink lots of water and stay in the shade, and that no, they can’t actually go for an ice cream because their next activity starts in one minute and they need to be on the other side of the field so go NOW. I like it because you get to interact with the younger sections, and tell them about your time there, and hopefully encourage them not to be so scared of coming alone for a whole day. When one is only eight, that’s hard.

There is a camping space set apart for Young Leaders, because Scouting rules mean that people in the older sections can’t share a sleeping space with either adults or younger ones. There were quite a few of us there, almost all of whom were complete strangers, and by the end of the weekend, we weren’t. We’re still in touch, occasionally. That’s one of the things I love about Scouting and activity camps in general – they make you get to know people you’ve never met before, spreading the circle of people one knows ever wider. In everything except sleeping we were fully integrated into the camp life: collecting breakfast crazy early from the canteen (which had to serve over a hundred people three meals a day for two days, so the chefs were busy!), waiting around while everyone was off at their activities and walking around talking to them when they were back onsite for breaktimes and lunchtimes, and assisting the adults in taking the children down to be picked up by parents at the end of the day.

So, that was Saturday, with the Cubs. Sunday, with the Scouts and Explorers, I chose to help with the Archaeology group again, where we were making hnefatafl boards. This Viking board game is family-friendly yet Viking-accurate, unlike the swords, axes, and large heavy helmets* that most people associate with this ancient Norse people. Far from being exclusively bloodthirsty warriors (though they were very much so at times) Viking culture was rich in gaming, drinking, and singing; often these were combined, for instance battle and gaming in the ancient boardgame hnefatafl. The h at the beginning is a bit like the k at the beginning of knot, in that it’s knot not pronounced. We don’t actually know how the Vikings pronounced it, nor do we know all the exact rules they would have used, because the original form of the game died out completely. However, from records and similar games that have survived, we have rebuilt them. I have heard that one of the rules was that you weren’t allowed to attack the winner with an axe just because they beat you, which I think is pretty good advice, whether it’s original or not!

The boards we made were of leather, decorated with marker pen, and tied up with string to form a pouch to carry the pieces. Our counters were glass pebbles, like those often found in vases. I think all the Scouts who came to us enjoyed it lots, and one of the best bits was they could take the game home to play with friends and family, further spreading interest. As a side note, the leather we used was from a local leather shop, which invited anyone from the team to come to a workshop on their open day a few weeks later, so there will be a post about that coming very shortly. Watch this space!

* No, sorry, Viking helmets didn’t have horns. The few contemporary depictions which do include horned helmets are most likely of gods, not men, though absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and one day we may find an actual horned Viking helmet. Probably not though – it’s hard to attach the horns. Apologies if all you have heard of Vikings is How To Train Your Dragon and the Norwegian football team; neither represent real-life historical culture, much as they might represent modern culture, sadly.

Hey Blog! As part of my Jamboree journey, there are certain activities the unit needs to complete. These are the camps and unit days, which are spread throughout the year and a half to go before we’re off to Poland. Because of the long pause, which I am now rectifying (five days in already! See, I can do this), I have two such events to tell you of – the two night camp at local Scout site Drum Hill, in March, and the day in Derby in June.

The camp was fun. We had everything from balloon tying (great fun) to bridge building (even more fun) to cooking dinner (still fun) to archery (also fun!). Everyone had been asked to bring cake to share, with the result of us all having far more cake than was good for us, but hey, it’s a Scout camp, you can’t go wrong with a bit more cake! We got to choose our unit uniform and badge, with final designs to be voted on at the next event, and chose our nickname: Derbyshire Dragons! Not sure why dragons, because there aren’t any in Derbyshire that I’m aware of (if you do happen to live locally and have a pet dragon or know where one is to be found, please let me know and I will correct this bit), but the idea was seriously cool. Who wouldn’t want a massive dragon on the back of their hoodie, with flames on the head and wings on the arms?! This won out against dragonflies (which there are plenty of around), dodos, donkeys, and dinosaurs. In addition to all this, there were teambuilding challenges, practical tests, and lots of time to talk to the other 39 people who are going.

The next camp will be later this summer, but I’ve already had another meeting with the group, because there was a day in June. This involved a morning walking around town, taking pictures with creative licence to fit a number of prompts: climbing a mountain, underwater adventure, and hole in one to name just three. Bonus points were for more elaborate attempts, or thinking outside the box. It was really good fun, and talking to strangers on the street was good practice for life in general and also for Poland, where there will be several thousand of them speaking all sorts of different languages. Also, every photo had to be with the dragon mascot each team was given. My team somehow won, on bonus points, after racking our brains for creative ideas and occasionally stealing one from another group that were going round. Then we had to make our way to a park, for lunch, and immediately afterwards, paddlesports.

Bell boating will always have an important place in Scouting for me – it was what I did in my first ever Cubs session, eight years ago. I’ve only done it a couple of times. It is still amazing fun, though, and helped solidify my love of water (that’s actually such a bad ironic joke, as well as a paradox). Returning to the same stretch of water, in the same craft, was wonderful. We went further than ever before, I think because there were more of us, and almost made it through the rapids. On the return, we were able to souse the other boat’s crew by splashing them with paddles and tipping bailers on them, and rotated being figureheads on the prow, swimming to the stern and coming back forward. I also helped keep time so we all paddled together and kept going straight, and we all joined in shouting “one, two” in such a loud and bloodthirsty voice those on the other boat apparently got scared. The downside of such brilliant boating was we all had to go and have a shower before going back to the park to do a final decision on the badges. In the end, we have gone for one with a green dragon with yellow spines, curled around a British and Polish flag, on a field of blue. The unit hoodies are purple, and will feature that dragon on the back that we were so thrilled about before, just a little smaller. And without the flames. Still, I think we’ve got a fantastic group and a fantastic dress code, almost ready to show up in Poland. Just a little more learning on Duolingo to go.

I have also been selling my wood turning to raise funds. The next instalment, in September, is currently a major focus. Besides all the other focuses that need my attention. I hope I can manage it, but I think I need some more opportunities and ideas to fundraise before then. Hmmm. Well, I’ll think about that later, but for now, do widzenia (goodbye!).

Hey Blog! Once again, I have returned to the cricket pitch this year, and now I’m playing for the Under 17s, I thought I’d let you know how this season has gone.

I have relayed the specifics of cricket before: hit ball with bat far as you can and run, other people catch ball, throw ball to hit sticks, when sticks get hit you get out. Of course it’s a bit more complex than that, but the principle is the same. There are three jobs: batting, bowling and fielding – the latter being the one you spend the most time doing, as it takes up half the game. The fielding team is also the bowling team, but it switches after an innings (half the game) and then you bat for the rest. Generally, it’s 11-a-side, and this is how I play all the matches at the moment. Since you bat in pairs, ten wickets means the end of the game as there isn’t a last pair. However, this is rare because at my level, there are only 20 overs (sets of six balls) in an innings, so as the rate of wickets is low, we’re generally only about 8 men in by the end of the game.

While I haven’t been able to play many matches, having had exams at the beginning of the season, I have attended all the training I could, and my batting and bowling have improved as a result. My biggest difficulty has been that my style of bowling needs to go higher than the roof of the net where we practice, so I have had to experiment, diversifying into spin bowling. In batting, I need more practice sending the ball in different directions, rather than just attempting to hit it the same way most times. Unpredictability is helpful in getting runs and wickets both. My most likely method to get out is still to be bowled, however, so I need to work on my defensive shots as well.

As I was in exam mode for the beginning of the outdoor season, I haven’t played that many matches and as a result haven’t been able to make much of a contribution overall. I’m good with that – if I wanted to be in the middle, I’d have to practice a lot more. And with the finger that I broke last year, I both lost some training time and am careful not to break it again. One of the coaches has broken a finger so many times it doesn’t open properly, and I don’t want that when I play the piano. I get enough small bruises as it is without adding phalangeal trauma to the mix! So sit back, clap, and watch the game.

Hey Blog! Over the past few months I have been doing some additional volunteering, mostly for my Duke of Edinburgh’s Award but also for the experience and some community service. Where? The local Oxfam Bookshop, in Belper.

Books, as one may guess, are a big part of my life. Not a day goes by without reading something. What is the best way to buy books, that is at once a lucky dip, has choice, and is cheap? Second hand bookshops. I was drawn in by the 99p specials that quickly filled my shelves instead of theirs. I have gathered so much that honestly, I need a clear-out because all my bookshelves are nearly overflowing, so maybe a return of some of the old ones is in order.

The DofE requires you to volunteer for at least six months if you’re doing Silver. I was aware that Oxfam Belper offered this, and so went in to ask – one of the people running it being an old Cub leader of mine. Once accepted, I was able to do a quick bit of training online (including: be polite, help customers, don’t pick up heavy boxes you can’t lift, and wear shoes…) and come in to work. Mostly, this has been Tuesdays, as I had to be in town anyway, but it has since changed to weekends because that’s when it’s busiest and they need most people. I have worked downstairs, in the shop and the storerooms behind, but I have also been to the online department upstairs where the more expensive and niche books are sold.

Unfortunately, it isn’t all sitting around and reading books. It’s much more work than that. There are prices to stick on books, people to direct to particular books, books to sort into children’s, adults’, throw away and dozens of other piles. There is the layout to learn, and the constant restacking and replacing where customers buy from. Occasionally the shop needs decorating, before the school holidays for instance. This means lots of standing on chairs hanging up spellbooks (currently we have a Harry Potter theme going) and carefully folding paper aeroplanes to go with them. I have sorted through CDs and DVDs, removing those that have been on display without sale for more than a few weeks, and filling up from the stock in the back room. It’s been a really valuable experience for me and I feel like I have done some good for society, or rather everyone who reads books (the best ones, of course! Except if you have a rich oral tradition which is essentially the same thing, just in vocal form rather than paper form). Getting part of a major award at the same time is also a bonus!

Am I going to continue working there? For now, definitely. I’m continuing after the DofE period runs out as well, like I did with Young Leadering at Beavers, and it all forms my version of national service – the Kit’s Voluntary Service, or KVS if you will. I prefer this to joining the army. Part of it also fosters cooperation and friendship, which removes the need for armies anyway. Currently, I will remain in the bookshop, trying not to read instead of help, and soak in the thousands of words that pass through my hands.

Warning – attempting to contact a Reading Kit when it is face first in a book, lost in a made up world, can be problematic and unsuccessful; it may say “yes” without hearing the question and take a long time to return from the pages. Approaching and engaging a Reading Kit is difficult and must be undertaken at your own cost. Habits: solitary and reclusive when in possession of a book. Reward for capture of its attention: comprehension of the intent you bothered it with.

Hey Blog! Back in April, I went on two amazing trips, one walking, one sailing. And both in the same week. Let’s see how tired I was at the end of it all!

The sailing trip was with the Island Trust, the organisation I’ve sailed with before. I was back on Johanna Lucretia, JL, the boat I’ve sailed on twice previously, and it was a blast. I think I’ve almost broken the storm curse, because for the first time we were actually able to get out of Plymouth Sound and go somewhere else by sea. First of all, we headed to Fowey. Pronounced Foy. It’s a beautiful little place, built on the side of a natural harbour formed by a bend in the mouth of a river, protected behind high cliffs. In the sunshine, at a mooring, with blue-green water all around you, tunes on the radio and a bunch of other young people who all like sailing next to you, it’s fantastic!

After a day in Fowey to visit the ice cream shop (I can wholeheartedly recommend!) and practice rowing/paddling round the boat, while simultaneously avoiding the remains of the storm that was passing down the coast, we made our next move to Falmouth. This was a long sail in almost flat calm, so a chance to sit back, enjoy the sunshine, and learn some navigation techniques – calculating bearings, position fixing, nautical chart reading, and course plotting. And practice riding the bowsprit as the ship is moving – which helped for the next day…

By the time we got to Falmouth, I had ticked off another buoy from the long list of different types – this one being the isolated danger mark, with the important double black sphere topmark – managed to accidentally inflate my lifejacket by pulling the emergency release cord while bending over the bowsprit trying to take the inner jib down, and sailed up a winding river that was as verdant green as a tropical island, past millionaires’ yachts and a decommissioned warship. We stayed the night there, playing games and chatting, and watching a seal that had come up to the end of the pontoon we moored at for a rest.

By the morning we were back underway on an epic sale the full distance back, in one go from Falmouth to Plymouth. We achieved record time for JL, making it in less than 10 hours, and almost broke the speed record, going at over 8 knots for parts of it. There was a good wind and quite a swell going back, and we heeled (tilted to the side) some way at times. I was chosen to do a swift and much-needed takedown of the inner jib sail while going at least seven knots – scary, but a brilliant experience and very helpful for any future escapades in rough weather at sea. You don’t notice the rocking so much when you’re hanging over the water, tying up large quantities of canvas. The wind brought us back into harbour early, ready for the cleanup on the last morning.

After getting off the boat, a lift to the train station, and two train journeys from Plymouth to Ambergate, a lift home, and a shower later, I was off again. The bag was (thankfully) already packed – all that was needed was to change over the washbag and sleeping bag, and I was back out to go on a DofE practice expedition. Though I was falling asleep on the train, once I got back in the car I was (somehow) ready for another two nights of camping. And long walks to get between the campsites.

The rules for a practice expedition at Silver level are that you must do all the regular DofE things, but you only need to do two nights and two days, as opposed to the two nights three days for the qualifier. While the expedition had in fact started in the morning, I wasn’t able to join it until the evening, which still called for some jiggery pokery with regard to logistics. However, we managed it. Staying the first night just west of Bakewell, we walked south to Nine Ladies stone circle and the nearby campsite. The next day, a trek to Cromford, the High Peak Trail and halfway up a hillside. All wearing enormous rucksacks which probably slowed us down considerably. We could have walked a longer route if we hadn’t needed to take quite so much. As it was, we made very good time and finished much earlier than all the other groups, both for Silver and Bronze. We still need to do it all again elsewhere – in August – but having taken part in this, tired as I was with the previous week of sea, sun and sail, I have no doubt that we can manage the real thing! I’ll tell you how it goes then.

Hey Blog! Well, that idea of doing a post a day for the next week failed. However, I’m not going to let it fail entirely, and therefore will do one post a day for the next week – but several weeks late. Better late than never, as the saying goes!

Here’s the first one now.

This post is about how I do GCSEs and iGCSEs as a home educating child. You may have heard some of this before, if you’ve been reading for a long time, but here it is for the newer readers – plus bonus material never before seen outside my mind.

So, I had thirteen papers between my six exams this year. As I have no access to a school exam hall other than as a private candidate – which is very expensive, not often granted, and still probably inconvenient – we used an organisation called Tutors and Exams, which we found a few years ago. T&E offer sittings for almost every exam, and the most easily accessed centre of theirs is, for us, in Birmingham. I attended the opening of this centre, two years ago. There are three floors: the ground floor, which is for the invigilators to do their mysterious rituals to identify candidates, and the two upper floors, where we all sit to take the exams. I have used exam rooms on both levels, this year and the past two, so I’ve had both experiences. Surprisingly, it’s not that hard to make friends going into exams; this despite that “candidates may not communicate with, ask for help from, or give help to, other candidates. If you wish to speak to an invigilator, please put your hand up and wait for one to come to you” as I have memorised from the speech they do every time you go in. I’ve heard it thirteen times this year, enough to do that now.

The Invigilator Announcement is all pretty obvious. No devices, no technology, no books (unless allowed by the board, as some do – that would be lucky, because you can select any part of the text you like, but unlucky, because I’d just end up reading the book rather than writing the answers!), no talking, and no time. Or so it feels. Exams go very quickly, but thankfully I find the going in easy. Not if I’ve had time to think about it – it’s unnerving and makes lunch not feel like a good plan – but once I’m there, I’ll be fine. Morning ones are definitely easier to go to, but do have the drawback of needing to go down the night before just in case the trains aren’t running in the morning. Also because I’d need to get up at a ridiculous hour of the morning to get there on time, and it’s much easier if the hotel is five minutes round the corner. Whatever the situation, by that point, Mum’s probably (read: definitely) more nervous than I am.

During the exams, I haven’t had any issues. Basically, all one has to do is look at the paper, don’t look at anything or anyone else, concentrate, and if you don’t have an answer immediately think of all the variables you know and work out what else you can find with them first. There are some cases when I have found the exams a bit tricky, but I’ve never seen a paper which is unexpectedly hard or easy. The principle of starting from what you know works for English as well, with just an added pinch of creative flair. Imagination will serve you well in that, if you can keep your imagination under control – this was my greatest downside in the practice papers, because either I fixed on the first idea I came upon, without considering, or stayed to think of multiple ideas and then became paralysed by indecision, wailing about which one to choose. It was only in the last few days that I consistently began to both think of multiple ideas (the first one is always the one that everyone thinks of) and choose properly. And write well. If anyone could read my handwriting.

Now that I’ve finished all the exams – all thirteen sittings of them – and am into a free summer, I find the huge weight of study that has been there for four years, from the start of studying EM to the end of the Physics paper, has gone. I have forgotten what it’s like to not have things to do, but whatever it is, it’s not the same as just doing nothing, which is practically literally all I have done since. I really need to devise a plan for my future, and not just one in my head – one that others can actually read (mind reading not having been developed successfully by me yet, despite all this knowledge). More on that in the next post.

So here ends Fantastic Exams, for they are all taken. The final test I have to take is living life to the full, which doesn’t end this year. I guess that’s what I need to do with the rest of this summer!

Hey Blog! One Friday in February, I went to Derby Museum and Art Gallery (DMAG) to attend the opening of the revamped archaeology and nature galleries!

DMAG is a museum I have attended for a long time now. It was the place where a lot of groups and activities went on when I was younger and I used to roam around the museum taking in all the exhibits. It’s near the cathedral and contains artefacts from ancient Egypt to the mediaeval, from Derby to the other side of the world. It also has a large and interesting art gallery, as is in the name. But the galleries for the archaeology department and the nature department hadn’t been updated in any significant way for years, so last year the museum decided to give them a change.

Previously, the archaeology part felt very like a 1960s chronologically ordered nutty-old-professor-trying-to-explain-to-a-bunch-of-schoolkids local, white-walled small museum. There was some fascinating stuff, from the bronze age log boat to the carved stone sarcophagus to the gold noble of Henry the Fifth, but it was set out in a way that was only interesting to people who were already interested; that is if you didn’t already understand the history and value it you would skip straight to the Viking swords and miss the other cool stuff like flints and tiles with Roman dogs’ pawprints on. The nature section was fascinating, though again it felt very formal though without the mass of information you get at bigger museums, with a hippo skeleton and drawers upon drawers of specimens of rocks and beetles and other wild stuff, as well as Mr Fox, the one taxidermy animal that was not in a case for people to touch. He’s now retired, and his “retirement party” was the excuse to get a whole bunch of people together for the reopening!

The party was a large one. There were people from all the derby museums, from organisations that have funded the new galleries, and people like us who had come up with an idea for an exhibit – Derbyshire Scout Archaeology team strikes again! Back in 2022 the Youth Committee had turned up to help design a temporary exhibit while the gallery was being refurbished, but eventually this never materialized while the gallery was closed. Instead, a small section was devoted to the idea of youth engagement in archaeology and how the DSA has furthered this. Included are a few badges and some information about us, so hopefully more Scouts will be inspired to join us. As Dad was staying around to pick us up after work, we couldn’t stay long, so I spent most of my time while not on tour listening to the speech and talking to someone from the Museum of Making about one of their projects to create bronze spearheads. But what about the galleries now?

Apart from regular turnover of artefacts and exhibits, nothing was removed. Quite a lot was added. There is a lot more colour, now, and the order of the galleries is changed so you’re meant to walk in the other direction, but the best thing is they have been melded into a combined, two-room Science and Nature gallery. I would not have thought of this – but it has been expertly handled and the look of Birds-of-Paradise specimens near the ceiling looking down on Roman dice is one that I’m sure will stick in the head of many viewers! If only we hadn’t had to leave so soon; it’s a pity I didn’t have half the time to look around that I would have wanted, but I hope to go back soon and have a proper look around the place. By the brief glimpse, it should be very good indeed!