Despite my careful note-taking, the days are blurring together a little bit. The cold isn’t helping one bit. I’m easily tired, finding myself breathing heavily after only a short walk. It sucks. Lots. So much for that “I’m so lucky I haven’t gotten sick” thing. I cursed myself, obviously. I knew it would happen. I just wish it hadn’t happened in the middle of vacation when there are Things to Do and See and I have no time to just crawl into bed and recuperate.

We returned the rental car this morning, but were able to rent the mobile phone for another week, the phone having proved exceedingly handy this past week. How did we live without them? I still don’t like to receive chatty calls on them, but for travelling, they’re brilliant.

Anyway. We then went to the V&A to see its Gothic exhibit. Also brilliant. I didn’t have the brain power to retain much information, but I was suitably impressed by the artwork and manuscripts and wood carving and jewelry and dishes and… I had to sit and rest once, and the place was a little crowded, but all in all, definitely worth it. It ends in a few days, so if you’re in the London area, don’t miss it. We did buy the book, and some gifts for various friends.

Then we went to the LotR exhibit at the Science Museum, meeting up with a guy from the BMW list, Dave, and his wife, Elsie. This exhibit was _way too crowded_, despite the fact that they sold tickets for certain times to control traffic. (At 11 a.m. or so, the first showing we could get into was the 3:45 p.m. I heard that earlier, there was more than a week’s wait.)

The exhibit itself was awesome: costumes, armour, weapons, pieces of sets, etc. A Rohan saddle. Galadriel and Celeborn’s circlets. Rings of Power. Banners. Examples of swords made three different ways for different scenes (plastic, aluminum, steel)—I lay my hand on the pommel of an Elvish sword…

The crowds, though. Not good. The displays all had written explanations, but they were extremely basic (e.g., “Galadriel is the queen of the elves…”), so I avoided those. There were screens showing various small clips about how things were filmed, or how the armour was made, etc. A brief glance showed us that these were extras from the DVDs. So we concentrated on the objects themselves. Unfortunately, the bulk of the people crowded around the screens like hypnotised drones, and in doing so, often blocked the objects. I swear some people barely glanced at the displays themselves.

ARGH! We hates stupid peoples, we do, don’t we, preciousss?

If not for the stupid people (and the resulting heat), I could have spent all day in there. As it was, we went out for a lovely drink with Dave and Elsie. She’s from Venezuela, but when I asked her where she was from, for the life of me, I heard “Minnesota”. I blame it on the cold.

We regrouped at Melisende and John’s and then went with them to a gaming night, because it was an opportunity to hang out with more of our friends: Valius and Meesha, Elffin and Signy, and Lucrezia. The cold was full-on at this point—no more namby-pamby sore throat for me, oh no. I was starting to lose my voice, and nasal spray had become my constant companion. Anyway, we had an entirely unhealthy supper of cheddar and burgundy crisps (Melisende and I pretty much devoured the bag), various cheeses, and crackers. Yum.

It occurs to me that actually it was tonight that they plied me with Lemsip, but no matter. Small detail in the overarching scheme of things. Onwards to tomorrow.