I'm embarrassed to say it. But i've developed a strange ann unnatural phobia of museums. I'll tell you why.
About 2 weeks ago i was bored, it was sunday, i had slept in and decided it was too much effort to go anywhere far. I had fully intended to go off somewhere for a day trip like i usually do but had unfortunately forgotten about daylight savings and this had but my whole day out of whack. So i did the normal sunday thing. Went for a walk to somewhere interesting, went to the markets, had a buffalo burger (a new fetish of mine, theres this store at the markets that sells them and they are bloody awesome) walked around a bit more, think i may have gone up another of the many hills in Winchester, looked at the view, took a photo, cursed the shitty weather and when back down. After all of this and on my way home i passed all the military museum places. They are all in this one area and are housed in these gorgeous georgian buildings. I had heard good things about the gurkha museum and tought i would give it a look. I think it was about 410 in the afternoon, the museum closed at 5 but i thought how long can it take?
So i wandered in and i must say it was pretty damn good even though i was the only one there. And big. With lots of stuff to look at. So it came to about 5 to 5 and i hadn't even gotten halfway through. The curator guy came through to where i was a said that they were closing so would i mind going now. No dramas.. so off i plodded round the rest of the bottom floor, up some stairs, quickly through the second floor (realising how much i had not yet seen but oh well) and finally to the exit. Which was locked. I jiggled the door and pulled and pushed for a few minutes cursingand thought that he must have meant to go back the way i came cos it was closer. No drama, back i went through all the top story, down the stairs to the bottom floor, on a little bit, then......darkness. Oh shit. Pitch dark, in a place that was like a bloody maze and had about a 1000 sensor that all set off war sounds shooting bombing screaming, in the dark, locked in a museum. It was so dark i thought bugger this i coundn't find where the hell i was and decided to go back the other way. Through all the bottom in the dark, up the stairs, through the top, the lights were on but i was mildly frazzled at this stage worried that i was locked in, finally to the end where a smiling curator said to me 'thankyou, there was no need to rush'....i nearly punched him.
So this experience was not something i would like to repeat. I thought is was maybe a one off. Scary at the time, getting locked in a war museum in the dark, in an old building. So yesterday on the isle of wight i decided 'oooh a wax museum that looks good!' i perhaps should have thought a little clearer. Old wax museums as they are, are naturally creepy. Nothing like madame tussauds.....more crazy house of wax. I was the only one in there. It was quite close to closing. And it was bloody creepy. Part of the museum was in this old house which was built in the tudor period and was apparently haunted by this old french count who was murdered in his bed in the upstairs bedroom (which they so delightfully depicted). Most of the museum was in semi darkness and you could only see the displays if you turned on these little switches which would light up the wax figures mostly in a quite eerie light. In the house i just felt plain uncomfortable, thoughts of getting locked in the damn place by myself made me not enjoy the creepy wax figures for as quite as long as i might of had i not been alone. In that damn house there was alot of unexplained bangs.
Strangely enough the place i was least uncomfortable in was the chamber of terrors. They had all of these tourture implements from the 1600's on display that had actually been used to tourture people. They were on loan from germany. Trust the germans hey ! What a sharing caring people to share their tourture implements with us so we can enjoy them too.
Anyhow as it wasi have never been so glad to get the end of the museum to a bright shop which actually had people in it. I must have gone through at a fair pace. It was quite a strange museum really, not only did it have creepy wax figures, real tourture implements, but also the largest collection of taxidermy i have ever seen. Some bugger really liked to stuff animals.
So from these two experiences the thought of going into another museum alone fills me with a sense of dread and makes my heart race. I'm not sure that i'm scared of museums as a whole, just old creepy ones, right near closing time, that are empty. If in fact i do find myself in this possible situation again i think i may bring a friend to hold my hand.
I'm such a sook.
