Work experience!

Above; a lovely reconstruction of the Isle of Wight cretaceous fauna by Mark Witton bears a resembelance to the picture that I am working on at the moment.

I have been doing work experience lately in a museum on the Isle of Wight. A lot of folks were teling me it was going to be boring. It was not. Even when I got mandatory jobs like shredding paper I just had a chat with anyone who was around. A lot of the time I was out on the local beach assisting field trips and eating burgers from the nearby cafe anyway. I only found a place that did good sandwiches on the last day and that was too late.

Above; a Megalosaurus skeleton near the entrance to the big hall.

Anyway my primary job was general assistant; doing errands and being the tea lady; ect. That is basically what everybody else does. Even though they have assignments like "curator" and "education officer" they all do a bit of everything. The cleaner even does Jimmy Savile impressions.

Above; an Iguanodon model near the centre of the big hall is part of a reconstructed scene featuring all of the island's well known dinosaurs.

The curator Steve asked me to do a drawing for a new cabinet they were working on. I will have it done by the summer when I next go the the island. I may redraw it on a larger piece of paper because it is smudged and worn at the moment, which is a shame. I will also have to use color which is not something I like do often because I am a coward, but the last time I did use it on a Gorgonopsid reconstruction, it was fine.

Above; the curator of the museum Steve Hutt.

Frustratingly when on the beach I found what may have been a Therapod tooth (really rare); even one from a Baryonyx (even rarer). I gave this to one of the kids on the field trip thinking it was a bit of plant debris. When it was properly identified I was of course annoyed that I had given it away, but to add insult to injury it was lost!!!!!!! I spent about an hour scrambling around the part of the beach where it was lost, but never found it. Hopefully, with all of the regular trips onto the beach it will eventually be located.