The House Husband

Today I was back to the medical apparatus. I updated an enormous quantity of hexagonal pewter jugs, the medical use of which, I can only imagine. There were no photographs so I don’t even know what they look like.

Last week, I had my three monthly review at the Science Museum, after working there for five months. One of the things I was asked was if there was anything else I’d like to volunteer for. The museum has a Pegasus computer, which looks like something out of an American 1950s scifi movie! It runs on valves and is very big. Anyway, the conservators are taking it apart, cleaning it and, ultimately getting it up and running, with the aim of preserving the technology and anything that’s on its databanks. (I’m not sure if it has databanks but it just looks like a machine that should.) This is something I’m very interested in.

Anyway, Nick suggested I email the guy who is running the project and let him know I’m interested. This I did and then I emailed Ollie, the guy in charge of all volunteers, to make sure I wasn’t breaking any rules by volunteering for too many things. Ollie is notorious for not getting back to people. So I didn’t hear back from him. but I met him on the stairs today on my way to lunch.

It seems the taking apart, cleaning and getting it running bit is too much surrounded with health and safety nonsense for me to be risked (I wonder how we managed to work on building sites without health and safety, dad?) but Ollie said when it’s time to boot it up and start to play with it, I will be considered!

I was ecstatic. What a dream project. I know it sounds sad but I’m REALLY looking forward to it. He also mentioned that the museum was going to try and get Babbage’s Analytical Engine up and running as well and I might get a go at that. Genius. I feel like the little kid who asks for a train set for Christmas and gets…A TRAIN SET!

So, I popped up to the computer display at the museum briefly after work and took the photo below to share my joy and delight. if you’d like to be really bored, there’s a Wikipedia article here.

Pegasus computer, Science Museum, London

And something I forgot to mention from Sunday…while we were outside, waiting for Stevie & Lara to emerge so we could throw organic confetti at them (it’s an organic farm and so we can only throw organic confetti…go figure), we saw a stoat dash across the lawn! A real, honest-to-goodness stoat! Boy, was it fast. At first we thought it was a squirrel but it was clearly a stoat. A wonderful thing to see. Everyone else was otherwise occupied so only Mirinda and I saw it. Poor them, I say.

By the way, a silver sick siphon has nothing to do with vomit. It is a silver, hollow tube with a little hook on the side. It is a metal straw for sick people to suck up liquid in Victorian hospitals – the hook sits over the lip of the glass or cup. They also have a tiny little filter in them to stop big chunks of food from suffocating people. I had to try and find where one was made today. I love my job.

Today is/was Ada Lovelace Day. For those that do not know, Ada was Lord Byron’s daughter who married a man called Lovelace and lived in East Horsley, where we lived happily for a time. She is pretty much universally accepted as the first computer programmer. She worked closely with Charles Babbage on his mathematical machine which was the first computer. Interestingly, the machine is featured in a book put out by the Science Museum but the entry, while raving about Babbage, does not mention Ada. This is not so amazing as she wasn’t credited for a long time but, eventually, her name was honoured by having a software programme named after her. It is the one used for air traffic control systems.

She was an amazing woman but died relatively young. I wonder what she could have achieved had she lived to a grand old age.

Anyway, the thing about Ada Day is that people are supposed to blog about a woman scientist who has inspired (or inspires) you. I’m going to choose Mary Beard, Head of Classics at Cambridge.

I saw her speak at the archaeology conference and have read a lot of her work. I admire her greatly. She makes the ancient world seem very real. She is an excellent speaker and writer. I read her blog every time she makes an entry.

So…happy Ada Day and salutations to Professor Beard.

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The poodles finally had their winter coats removed today. When they returned from Kate’s they had been halved in size! They are so cute.

Here’s what they looked like before they went:

A wee bit like sheep

and here they are after:

Now more like lambs