We were exploring London today ... I saw the Albert Memorial and the Albert Hall for the first time today. The Albert Hall was smaller than I expected.
The next stop was the Serpentine Gallery, where we visited Damien Hirst's choice of his "murderme" collection. Some of the works I had seen before at Saatchi's Gallery on the South Bank, especially the Sarah Lucas pieces. I particularly liked a collection of bejewelled skulls, which had large false eyes and were very evocative of people, and I spent a long time reading a Sean Landen painting, which was a stream of consciousness over two large canvases.
We were near the Diana Memorial Fountain, so we decided to wander on and have a look. To say I was underwhelmed is to put it mildly. I prefer the more extravagant Albert memorial, maybe with some water spurting out all over the place ... H liked it, though ... he thought its flatness reflected the idea of Diana being down to earth, "the people's princess". I thought it was a bit silly and very boring. However, it does make a nice sound, so maybe it would be relaxing sitting in the middle of the circle of water on a hot, sunny day, reading a good book and only having to listen to the water, not to look at it ... and perhaps paddling now and again.
We then walked back down the road to the Natural History Museum. The open air ice-rink has now been installed - however, it was fully booked, so we had to be content with watching others skating around. Behind the ice rink was a Christmas fair - we warmed our hands with some chestnuts roasting on an open fire ... and wild boar and apple, and pork, venison and mushroom sausages. Delicious!
A short queue, then we were inside the museum. Greeted by a diplodocus, I took charge and said I wanted to see the dinosaurs. I was most excited by seeing the tricerotops and the stegastorus, my favourite dinosaurs as a child, and still, obviously, today!
After a long walk we finally saw Tyrannousarus Rex, in all his roaring glory ... although about a third of his fully grown adult size.
After that, we had a hot chocolate in Waterstone's at Piccadilly, then went to Camden for dinner ... and ended up in an eat all you can for £6 vegetarian Chinese place ... we didn't realise it was vegetarian until we were filling our plates with soya this and soya that ... fortunately it was very flavoursome food, and I was filled up quite quickly.
So, that was our day. The only other interesting comment is that I got my flu jab yesterday. And today my legs and arms have been a bit achey. But maybe that was my heavy bag and all the walking! A good day.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment