When I was a little girl, I loved visiting my Dad’s geology lab at the school where he taught earth sciences. I loved the musty dustiness of it.  Pulling open the thin, sliding drawers and exploring the tiny white cardboard specimen boxes filled with pink granite, green serpentine, glassy obsidian and other glistening, silvery, shiny, crystallised occupants, I was particularly powerless against trilobites and ammonites and other ancient dead things.

My first museum.

Museums encompass the world, just there, waiting for you to explore. The possibilities of museums are endless. For me, there is a delightful anticipation for museums, as exciting as travelling to an unfamiliar country or a different age where there are new experiences to be had and things to discover.  Museums are as inspiring as a poignant poem. They change us, if we let them. They challenge us, if we are open to it. Museums amuse us, bring us joy and inspiration, provoke us, urge us to question, cause us to pause or muse or ponder or wonder.