Lazy days; Crazy foot!

It's Friday, June 11th and we spent Wednesday and Thursday being lazy and productive at the same time.  Lazy in that we sat at our computers for hours, me writing and doing research, John doing I don't know what!  Posting his pictures on facebook, I think.

Today we plan to go to the Tate Britain Museum and he is planning our route, he says that's what he's doing!

On Wednesday and Thursday, we were up early but didn't get out either day until 2:00.  Sort of nursing my foot as an excuse.  Wednesday, we had lunch at 3:00 at a recommended Indian restaurant, Chula, in Hammersmith.  Although we were at the tail-end of the Noon to 4 lunch buffet, it was still warm and delicious.  No dinner that night was necessary!  Then we took a tube trip into London to find the elusive location of the seminar I am taking tomorrow, Saturday, on travel writing! 

Yes, just for kicks I am taking a course on travel writing taught by a bona-fide travel writer,  and who knows?  This blog has been a lot of fun and I have learned a lot.  Not only how to do it, but I have learned a lot because of all the side trips I have taken on the internet to make sure I am giving you correct information - which is why this takes so long.  I get very interested in what I'm checking and one link leads to another and 30 minutes later, I realize the time has flown by.  So when I found the information on a seminar given by a travel writer on travel writing, I thought why not??  John's brother Robin arrives tomorrow so they will have the whole day to do boy things before we meet for dinner, perhaps at The Anchor on the Thames.   That's a great pub with great atmosphere.  Shakespeare and all his cohorts used to go there, but we hear the food has gotten really bad, so maybe just a pint and a look across the river at St. Paul's and up the river for a peek at The Globe Theater - solidly booked for the next month or so. Soak up some local color.

Anyway, after locating the seminar location, we went to Covent Garden where the London Transport Museum is located.  John wanted a DVD on the history of the Underground that he had spotted on a previous visit and I wanted little London presents for friends.  It's always fun spending money on others!

I love Covent Garden, all the hustle and bustle of London, all the history, all the street actors - The Bronze Man who looks like a statue until he moves and scares you to death - see him back there in the crowd?   The sword swallower, the Houdini character - and all the colors of all the vendors of quality and junk!

However, my foot was giving me a fit again.  Don't know what this is all about but it hurts!!  One of the reasons, really, that we have been getting out so much later in the day is to try and give this foot some healing time before traipsing off on it again.  It's a long walk from the house to the tube station so I tried to take it easy.

Yesterday, Thursday, same sort of routine but out a little sooner and off to the Tate Modern.  I'm not a big fan of modern art, I'm more an Impressionist fan myself but it was pretty exciting to see original Picasso's and Miro's.  And there was one very large Monet that just made me sigh.

I love the humor of this shot that John took!

As I said, not being a big fan of modern art, my purpose was to see the building more than the art and I wasn't disappointed; it is awesome.  What a trite word for such an incredible space, but it is.  Kids love it.  On the ground floor, the entrance space is like a huge driveway (and probably is because some of the art and sculpture on display would need a space like this just to be delivered!).  It is a temptation to children to just RUN!  How clever to make the delivery zone a playground!  I was standing on a bridge over this area and this little fellow, running with glee, was the last of a pack of children to run through the space.

The building used to be a power station and it has been converted into this incredible museum'  To quote the Tate website:  "In the late 1980s it became clear to Tate that its collection had outgrown its home on Millbank. It was decided to create a new gallery to house Tate's international modern art, and a search began for a suitable site to build on, or a building that could be converted.  The redundant Bankside Power Station   proved an astonishing discovery; a building of enormous size, great architectural distinction, superbly sited opposite St Paul's Cathedral and in a fascinating and historic, if neglected area, next to the rebuilt Globe Theatre. An international architectural competition was held, which over seventy architects entered, including some of the world's most distinguished. The final choice was the young Swiss practice, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron."

The same architectural firm is now involved in adding 3-4 times that space behind it.  Models of the new addition show that it will be worth a visit once again just for the architecture.

I did fall in love with some of the textiles and this was one of them.  I think, looking at this picture though, I realize that you have to be there to appreciate it!!  This stood about 12' high and I was dwarfed by it.

Here's another by the same artist.  I can just hear my designer friends now - "Come on, tell us, - who's the artist?!"  Her name is Magdalena Abakanowicz; she calls them Abakans and your client better have a mighty big house. Here's another and the rope is obviously suspended from the ceiling but you can barely see the tie.

Then there was this one:  I don't recall the name of it - something like "statue with rags".
I called it "Laundry Day"!  Isn't that more appropriate?? 

Now this one was very close to home.  You know John drives a VW camper and we camp quite often.  Well, the camper we have now is our 3rd one.  The first one we got in 1976 was a 1972 which nowadays would look about like this.  We belong to a club of VW campers and some of them do look like this! 

It had many sleds leaving it like lemmings and I never could quite figure out what that was all about.  But then, it's art and we're not supposed to understand it!!  Little do our friends know that they are driving art!  I haven't quite figured out the sleds which looked like lemmings to me but they were "pouring" out of the back.

Anyway, we spent about 2.5 hours at the Tate and I could have spent the day.  John's opinion wasn't quite the same; I won't repeat it, but he did say that he was glad that he had come.

We left and went to a rather modern pub on the Tate grounds and on the Thames for a snack and a pint.  Folks were on the riverside porch wrapped in blankets the pub provides.  Yes, I said blankets.  It's still very cool here - yesterday was in the low 60's and very windy.  If you look closely you can see two men on the left side with blankets and the fires lit in those towers to keep their outdoor customers cozy.   (Sorry for the blue tint.  I had the camera on the wrong setting.  That's why John takes the pictures!) 

I don't normally like contemporary pubs but this one was terrific.The view of St. Paul's was great.

Actually, when we were in the Tate Modern, I saw another great view of St. Paul's through a double paned window which was dirty so this isn't so great but it's a great view across the Millenium Bridge (which crosses the Thames) from the Tate to St. Paul's.  Whoever thought of this is a genius!

After leaving the pub, we expected a quiet walk to the tube station to head home but forgot about the 6.5 km marathon going through the city during cocktail hour!  Here they come over the Millenium Bridge -we all had to move over to one side to let them by.

It was a lot of fun to be there at the finish line - the end of the bridge - to cheer them on.  I found it hard though to imagine doing a marathon after your work day!  Seems to me that the work day is the marathon!

Today, Friday, we got out early - 12:00!!  Headed by tube right to the Tate Britain.  Now this is my kind of art museum: Constable, Gainsborough, Hogarth, Turner, van Dyck, sculptor Henry Moore.  After five hours, my feet just ached but my mind and my heart were filled with the beauty and the God given skills of these artists.  I don't think I have ever had the privilege of seeing this many of my favorite artists all in one day.  I mean an entire room full of John Constable's work!  It was a very fine day.

This sculpture by Henry Moore is the one picture I took in the Tate Britain today and I got in trouble for that!  The Modern didn't seem to mind your taking pictures but the Brit sure did.  So no pictures of Constables.

We left the Tate and walked down the Thames toward Parliament.  It was an approach I had never seen before.  Usually I am across the river or coming up the other side from Westminster Abbey.  This approach was breathtaking and as we approached it on the tower side, we were close enough to see the intricacy in the building's surface carvings.  It's like a cathedral and it's hard not to just stand there and stare at it.

Across the street there was a field of totally different kinds of buildings - in fact, an entire village of them - a tent city in protest of the Iraq war.  You might want to click on this one to see it up a little closer.  There is always something going on in London!

And finally -  here's a sign we spotted in a church a couple of days ago that I wanted you to see but forgot to include.    Don't you  just love it?   My dogs would.