The Imperial War Museum

Today we walked from Limehouse to the Imperial War Museum which was about 6 km, a mixture of riverside and urban walking. We had lunch in the museum café before spending the afternoon looking at the displays on the 2nd World War (James) and the Holocaust (both of us.) The displays have been updated since our last visit (at least a decade ago) and were very good, we were there for several hours without realising it. We met Cat for dinner at Koha before going just round the corner to Wyndham’s Theatre where we met Ally (who had had a late work meeting) to see a comedy called The Unfriend. As we went in I had the tickets all ready to display on my phone screen, but for some reason when I showed it to the ticket checker, a photo of Ally swimming at the Fairy Pools in Skye came up instead! The show was amusing; it starred Lee Mack and really had the vibe of an extended episode of his tv show Not Going Out! Lee Mack’s physical comedy was excellent, he is very funny, and supporting actors Frances Barber and Sarah Alexander were very good too. We all enjoyed it. Back at the flat we had hot chocolate and said our goodbyes before bedtime because we will be leaving tomorrow while Ally and Cat are at work. 

Courtauld Gallery

There is always so much to see in London. Ally and Cat were back at work today, and after a leisurely breakfast in their beautiful flat (although it’s not quite the weather yet for sitting out on their balcony!) we wandered the streets of the big city happily. We went to the Courtauld Gallery, to see its Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, including of course the very well known A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Édouard Manet and Vincent van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. We have never been there before (Andrew recommended it) and we were very impressed. Although small there is plenty to see, and it has some good medieval and renaissance paintings too. It also has a small but pleasant café where we had a relaxing lunch. Then we went to Leicester Square to watch a film (a spy thriller called Argylle - it was ok but not great.) When we arrived back at Ally and Cat’s flat in the evening Cat made us a delicious vegetarian lasagne and we had a very pleasant evening chatting and watching film clips about the history of Limehouse. 

Bill Thomson

While we were on our way into London on Friday we got unexpected and very sad news from Alison, that Bill died peacefully the night before, a few hours after suffering a massive stroke. We were shocked and so sad. Bill was a very fit and active 76 year old, who had spent the previous week skiing in the Dolomites. Alison and Bill came round for coffee just a couple of weeks ago and I can hardly believe that we won’t see him again. 
We have such good memories of Bill. We met him and Alison on a ski holiday to Villars, where we were in the same hotel and found out that coincidentally we all lived in Cambuslang. We all hit it off including the children; Rachel and Cameron were on holiday with them, and we kept in touch afterwards. I remember when Jamie was in Hairmyres waiting on surgery for a badly broken finger, Bill passed the window of the room we were waiting in and did a huge double take, then came in for a chat. And a few years later Bill very kindly took Jamie to do a week of work experience at Hairmyres and Jamie had a fantastic time with him; Bill even took him into the operating theatre with him which I suspect may not have been officially approved by the hospital admin! They also had some heart to hearts in the car on the journeys (Bill even gave him a lift there and back every day) which Jamie appreciated.
The world is a poorer place without this remarkable, kind and generous man. My heart goes out to Alison, his children, grandchildren and his wee great-granddaughter. 

Day out with Ally and Cat

Today was Ally and Cat’s Christmas present from us, in the form of a day out with several hopefully pleasant activities. We started with brunch at our favourite café, The Two Magpies, and then headed for Stratford to ABBA Voyage! This was our second visit and Ally and Cat’s first. Although I knew what to expect this time I was amazed again by the Avatars and their realism, and Ally leaned over at the end and said “How do they do that?” which was just what we had said the first time! I think that Ally and Cat really enjoyed it, although very clever and commercial the event has such a joyful feel. We then strolled the short distance along to Stratford shopping centre and had coffee and cake, before it was time for our next activity; the Horizon of Khufu. This was a Virtual Reality experience set in Ancient Egypt which I had booked on a whim. I wasn’t sure what it would be like and it turned out to be absolutely fantastic. With our VR headsets firmly in place we set forth to see the Egyptian Pyramids. We even had a VR guide to tell us all about it, and we were joined by Bastet the Cat God. We went inside the Great Pyramid, which Ally and Cat assured us was very true to their real life visit last year. And thanks to VR we were guided to a “platform” which floated us up through the higher part of the pyramid to see how it was constructed, and then we walked out on to the very top of the pyramid where we could see all around us. We sailed on a boat along the Nile, and learned about mummification techniques. It was amazing. It did occur to me that we would have presented an amusing sight to anyone watching us, as we picked our way carefully around an empty warehouse as if balancing on the top of a pyramid! 
After this we headed to Marylebone, calling in for a brief visit to Selfridges, which I didn’t realise is Ally’s favourite department store. He likes the way that it’s organised. We saw a man who had a cat on a lead, and were gratified to see that it refused to walk on the lead and he had to pick it up to carry it!
Our last experience of the day was dinner at the Chiltern Firehouse, a popular restaurant which as its name suggests is housed in an old fire station. In fact our table was right beside the old fire engine doors. It was very busy. The staff were effusive but not the most organised, and the food was really good but a bit overpriced for what it was. If I was to return I think that I would go for breakfast or brunch and I would sit in the attractive outdoor courtyard. The most important thing about our day was of course the company and the four of us had a fine time. 

Macbeth (2. David Tennant)

This evening we met Gordon, Sheena and Peter at the Monmouth Kitchen for pre-theatre dinner before going to the Donmar Warehouse to see David Tennant in Macbeth. This was our second Macbeth in three weeks, not the way we would have planned it but how could we choose between Ralph Fiennes and David Tennant? We were instructed to wear the headphones plugged in behind each seat. This clever device meant that we could hear two levels of dialogue; that which was publicly spoken and that which was whispered. This totally made sense; after all, why would the Macbeths hatch their evil plans out loud, even in their own castle, rather than murmur them quietly into each other’s ears? It worked very well. David Tennant was, quite simply, brilliant. As James pointed out, he didn’t seem to speak in a stagey way at all, he just spoke the lines so naturally that I would defy anyone even to notice that the language was Shakespearean. The rest of the cast were excellent too, and Cush Jumbo was a subtle, gradually disintegrating Lady Macbeth. The death scene at the end was really poignant, Macbeth showing his old bravery at the last, and again Tennant’s acting was peerless. 
So to summarise my two recent Macbeths; Ralph Fiennes was excellent, but David Tennant was in a class of his own. 

National Gallery with Andrew

We are down in London for a few days, visiting Ally and Cat. A while ago we asked Andrew to give us a tour of the National Gallery, to show us some of his favourite paintings. Today was the day, and we met him in the basement coffee shop of the Gallery before sallying forth on our tour. I had asked him not to prepare, we just wanted an informal tour from his perspective, and it was great fun. He took us to a couple of Medieval rooms that we had never even been in before, where we very much enjoyed all the gold leaf and the beautiful colours. Then it was on to the Northern Renaissance, quite a few of which we hadn’t seen before in our October trip - Andrew knows his way around the National Gallery extremely well. He then showed us a few more favourites before we all headed for lunch and a chat. My favourite new (to me) paintings of the day were both modernist; firstly “The Kien Valley with the Bluemlisalp massif”, painted by Swiss modernist Ferdinand Hodler in the summer of 1902. The bright, steep-sided valley, the dark green trees, the blue mountains and sky beyond, convey a beautiful scene captured in time. The other was painted in 1905 by Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela of Lake Keitele, which lies about 350 km north of Helsinki. The water is painted naturalistically, with different patterns where the breeze is touching it, and it’s stunning. 

Feeling hateful

Today I have felt hateful all day. The reason that I use this expression is that years ago I was reading an online article about embarrassing things that people have said or done during their early years in the workplace. One woman had contributed that when she was in her first year of work after graduating she asked her manager if she could go home early one day “because I’m feeling hateful.” I seem to recall that she said that her bemused boss acquiesced! Anyway, I thought that this phrase was very funny and it stuck in my mind. 
And today I have indeed felt hateful. Usually when I feel like this there’s a reason for it, whether personal or professional. However today I have just been in an off mood, for no particular reason that I can think of other than a fairly large admin task that I really needed to do. As I had anticipated it took up the majority of my day, and when I finished it I didn’t really feel much of a sense of achievement. In fact I even felt a sense of foreboding. Even my much loved French evening class (by Zoom) didn’t lift my spirits much. 
It may be because I’m feeling a bit under the weather, it may be that I’m a bit wistful after our lovely ski holiday; I should be grateful that there’s no specific reason. Tomorrow is a new day!