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Meanwhile in England
May. 8th, 2014 12:15 amI haven't quite finished posting about our Tuscan holiday (we've been back over 5 weeks) and I have been neglecting talking about what we have been up to in London too.
We have been to a couple of exhibitions in the last few weeks: 'The Vikings' at the British Museum and 'Veronese' at the National Gallery.
The first one would have been really interesting if the number of visitors hadn't been so high. You had to queue everywhere! The first room had the labels that accompanied the artefacts at knee level: not a good idea when there's a mass of people blocking the display cabinets.
Things got a bit better (or perhaps we got used to the crowd) and we enjoyed the rest of it.
In my opinion, the British Museum just sold too many tickets for each time slot.
Veronese on the other hand was superb! We were given a little booklet with the painting descriptions and you could spend as much time as you wanted looking at them.
As always with paintings produced by one artists, I'm always curious to read about which museum or collection they belong to.
I found it rather poignant that some paintings which were created to be together are now continents apart.
For instance, these portraits of a noble family from Vicenza were re-united: the men are in Florence, and the ladies in Baltimore.
(Pictures courtesy of Wikipaintings).
I wonder whether at night when the gallery is quiet, they all have a nice chat?
Before going on holiday, we went to the theatre to see Angela Lansbury in Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit", her return to the London's stage after almost 40 years!
It was very great fun and we were amazed at how sprightly and nimble she was on the stage!
The day after we came back from Tuscany we visited the RHS Great London Plant Fair at the Horticultural Halls in the evening.
The week leading up to Easter was very busy.
At the week-end Sue came to visit us - we didn't really do much (although we spent a couple of hours at a local charity fair selling our floral cards).
On the Tuesday evening we went to listen to Bach's St. John Passion at Westminster Cathedral.
Very nice, especially because of the surroundings (no pictures allowed) but an experience not to be repeated for a while.
On Thursday Linda and Bert (two neighbours from the other end of the street) came for dinner:
On Good Friday, after Veronese, we went for a very naughty steak lunch
before watching 'The Punch Game' at the cinema.
On Easter Saturday we ventured out of town, going to Hastings for the day, thanks to some very cheap train tickets that we had booked ages ago.
We really enjoyed the day out.
The highlights were the ruins of the Norman Castle and the old town.
The castle can be reached via one of two funiculars
The castle was the first one built by the Normans in England after their successful invasion in 1066 and used to cover much a larger ground (much of it has been lost to erosion)
Here we watched an introductory video and then had a walk around the ruins, admiring the views.
We walked down to the old town.
It could have been an episode of 'This is your life!' as within 30 minutes we bumped into Carole - who used to live across the road - in the park near the castle with her dogs, then Paul and Antony whom we hadn't seen for about 10 year (before they moved to France) and finally Lynne (who has moved to Hastings) and Miranda (but the last meeting had been arranged) who were later joined by Sue, yet another neighbour.
We had tea and a slice of cake with Lynne, Miranda and Sue at St. Leonard's.
Lynne drove us back to Hastings.
We had a look around the Stade - the shingle beach - which is apparently home the largest fleet of beach-launched fishing boats in Europe.
(These tall, black sheds are used to store the nets.)
We went on a ride on the other funicular
and then strolled around the old town, before catching the train back to London (2 hours to London Victoria!)
The week-end before last Fiona - Adrian's sister - and Inigo visited.
On the Saturday we went to the William Morris Gallery at Walthamstow (very interesting!) and had a walk around the nearby park.
When we got home, I was 'dragged' (I hate parties!) to Linda and Bert's leaving do at a bar at Crystal Palace. We stayed for about an hour and then came home to cook dinner, and play Perudo afterwards. (I won, I won, I won! LOL!)
Last Thursday we had an evening out in town.
We had dinner at the camp-looking restaurant Salieri on the Strand,
followed by 'Handbagged' at the nearby Vaudeville Theatre.
The play was simply superb!
The idea is intriguing: on the stage you have the present-day Queen and Margaret Thatcher (the play - I believe - was written before the former Prime Minister's death) reminiscing about their private meetings and their relationship. (The Queen meets the Prime Minister every week privately, so no-one knows what is said).
The stage is shared with another Queen and another Thatcher who are contemporary to the events that are narrated, and with 2 actors who play an array of part from Dennis Thatcher to Neil Kinnock to... Nancy Reagan.
The result is hilarious, in spite of some of the subjects that are being covered, which certainly are not.
Having 2 pairs of Queens and PMs on the same stage is a brilliant ploy. And the way that they interact with the audience is very clever: in a way, they keep you on your toes!
The actresses are so convincing (appearance, voice, mannerisms) that sometimes you forget that they are not the 'real thing'.
For instance, when the Queen stated that at the time of the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton she was in America on a private visit to 'inspect some studs' there was only some hesitant sniggering in the audience to start with, before we all erupted in laughter. Surely Her Majesty wouldn't say such a thing! And no, she wasn't amused at all!
On Saturday we went on a Downton Country location tour but it's a tale for another post.
We have been to a couple of exhibitions in the last few weeks: 'The Vikings' at the British Museum and 'Veronese' at the National Gallery.
The first one would have been really interesting if the number of visitors hadn't been so high. You had to queue everywhere! The first room had the labels that accompanied the artefacts at knee level: not a good idea when there's a mass of people blocking the display cabinets.
Things got a bit better (or perhaps we got used to the crowd) and we enjoyed the rest of it.
In my opinion, the British Museum just sold too many tickets for each time slot.
Veronese on the other hand was superb! We were given a little booklet with the painting descriptions and you could spend as much time as you wanted looking at them.
As always with paintings produced by one artists, I'm always curious to read about which museum or collection they belong to.
I found it rather poignant that some paintings which were created to be together are now continents apart.
For instance, these portraits of a noble family from Vicenza were re-united: the men are in Florence, and the ladies in Baltimore.
 |
 |
(Pictures courtesy of Wikipaintings).
I wonder whether at night when the gallery is quiet, they all have a nice chat?
Before going on holiday, we went to the theatre to see Angela Lansbury in Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit", her return to the London's stage after almost 40 years!
It was very great fun and we were amazed at how sprightly and nimble she was on the stage!
The day after we came back from Tuscany we visited the RHS Great London Plant Fair at the Horticultural Halls in the evening.
The week leading up to Easter was very busy.
At the week-end Sue came to visit us - we didn't really do much (although we spent a couple of hours at a local charity fair selling our floral cards).
On the Tuesday evening we went to listen to Bach's St. John Passion at Westminster Cathedral.
Very nice, especially because of the surroundings (no pictures allowed) but an experience not to be repeated for a while.
On Thursday Linda and Bert (two neighbours from the other end of the street) came for dinner:
On Good Friday, after Veronese, we went for a very naughty steak lunch
before watching 'The Punch Game' at the cinema.
On Easter Saturday we ventured out of town, going to Hastings for the day, thanks to some very cheap train tickets that we had booked ages ago.
We really enjoyed the day out.
The highlights were the ruins of the Norman Castle and the old town.
The castle can be reached via one of two funiculars
The castle was the first one built by the Normans in England after their successful invasion in 1066 and used to cover much a larger ground (much of it has been lost to erosion)
Here we watched an introductory video and then had a walk around the ruins, admiring the views.
We walked down to the old town.
It could have been an episode of 'This is your life!' as within 30 minutes we bumped into Carole - who used to live across the road - in the park near the castle with her dogs, then Paul and Antony whom we hadn't seen for about 10 year (before they moved to France) and finally Lynne (who has moved to Hastings) and Miranda (but the last meeting had been arranged) who were later joined by Sue, yet another neighbour.
We had tea and a slice of cake with Lynne, Miranda and Sue at St. Leonard's.
Lynne drove us back to Hastings.
We had a look around the Stade - the shingle beach - which is apparently home the largest fleet of beach-launched fishing boats in Europe.
(These tall, black sheds are used to store the nets.)
We went on a ride on the other funicular
and then strolled around the old town, before catching the train back to London (2 hours to London Victoria!)
The week-end before last Fiona - Adrian's sister - and Inigo visited.
On the Saturday we went to the William Morris Gallery at Walthamstow (very interesting!) and had a walk around the nearby park.
When we got home, I was 'dragged' (I hate parties!) to Linda and Bert's leaving do at a bar at Crystal Palace. We stayed for about an hour and then came home to cook dinner, and play Perudo afterwards. (I won, I won, I won! LOL!)
Last Thursday we had an evening out in town.
We had dinner at the camp-looking restaurant Salieri on the Strand,
followed by 'Handbagged' at the nearby Vaudeville Theatre.
The play was simply superb!
The idea is intriguing: on the stage you have the present-day Queen and Margaret Thatcher (the play - I believe - was written before the former Prime Minister's death) reminiscing about their private meetings and their relationship. (The Queen meets the Prime Minister every week privately, so no-one knows what is said).
The stage is shared with another Queen and another Thatcher who are contemporary to the events that are narrated, and with 2 actors who play an array of part from Dennis Thatcher to Neil Kinnock to... Nancy Reagan.
The result is hilarious, in spite of some of the subjects that are being covered, which certainly are not.
Having 2 pairs of Queens and PMs on the same stage is a brilliant ploy. And the way that they interact with the audience is very clever: in a way, they keep you on your toes!
The actresses are so convincing (appearance, voice, mannerisms) that sometimes you forget that they are not the 'real thing'.
For instance, when the Queen stated that at the time of the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton she was in America on a private visit to 'inspect some studs' there was only some hesitant sniggering in the audience to start with, before we all erupted in laughter. Surely Her Majesty wouldn't say such a thing! And no, she wasn't amused at all!
On Saturday we went on a Downton Country location tour but it's a tale for another post.
