friends: tubbins

hello Mr. Tubby

holiday: adventures 2

This week there were: more adventures with kids, plays, lovely friend time, museums, galleries, tubby baby, tiled pubs, and fancy dress parties.

Starting out Tuesday with a new group, we did things a bit backwards this time, and had time to add some new adventures, like Thomas Struth at the Whitechapel Gallery, and more time to explore the Tate Modern.

some bathroom graffiti at Whitechapel

very cool sculptures at the Tate, these were long rectangles of wood that the artist had cut back by following the natural knotting of the wood to uncover the branch roots again.

Taking photos of Japanese Bauhaus photography, who knew?

knees from the above

A Modigliani that brought tears to my eyes. I like his still sadness.

One of Robert's favorite photographers, John Heartfeld, who was a photomonteur for A/Z before and during the Nazi regime; he used sature to expose the deceptions of politics. This type of photo montage literally required cutting negatives, much more hands-on than today's photoshop world.

the cross becoming a swastika

his images are powerful

lying on the turbine hall floor to get a great group shot

walking down the southbank, this time the end destination for dinner was Covent Garden. The kids went off to get food and, like last time, I was invited to dinner and the theatre afterwards, where we sat up among the clouds and spent most of the time making airplane and heights jokes. It was great.

Mr tubby, aka Phoenix, aka MASSIVE! He's grown so much.... in a week? On Thursday I spent about 45 minutes dancing with him, he is quite particular about how he dances. By the end of the time I felt like I had been in the gym for a couple of hours, talk about a sack of flour! But I'm going to help out again today :)

Very cool tiles near Liverpool St, can you see where the tiles end and the painting starts?

Cat double phoning it!

And last night's fancy dress party at Zoe's, her flatmate is going away traveling with a friend... for a year! so you had to dress like a thing or person he may encounter on the journey. There was border control at the door, so Zoe and I had to make a border control hat of course.

:)

holiday: adventures

Through a big coincidence my best friend happens to be in England right now as well. He's teaching on a program that travels to Oxford, Paris, then Tuscany... jealous yet? Did I mention that they spend a week at a private villa in Tuscany? Yea...

On Friday he came to London with his class of 6 students and I joined as an art historian/someone who knows their way around.

It was a blast.

free piano outside the Museum of London

Diane Arbus at the Tate Modern

challenging the kids to do their own street photography, resulting in hilarious events

And taking the Thames Clipper to Greenwich (one of my favorite things in London).

Not only did they pay for my tickets to exhibits, the program also invited me to dinner and paid for me to join them at a great show at the Soho Theatre. All in all, lots of fun was had. And it was great to spend some time with someone who lives the equivalent driving time away from me in the USA as a plane ride to London.

Hoping to have an encore this coming Tuesday. I may re-jig their schedule if I'm allowed, take out some of the things that weren't so great, and add in some other photo exhibitions that look promising :)

scandinavia

I have an affinity for mid century Scandinavian design.

I have a greater affinity for finding deals locally.

We acquired a pair of these chairs yesterday via a Craigslist ad. Adding these two dining chairs to the two we already have, we can now have others over for food and they will not have to use an office chair :)

apologies for the delays in service

Last weekend I stopped into Liberty (surprise, surprise), mainly to see their newest fabric collection. I was excited to see that they have expanded the fabric section and have added a lot more Liberty of London lines using both old and new fabric patterns.

teapots and toiletry bags and coasters etc

cutting fabric

new season fabrics

jackson pollack -style prints

rich coloured florals

the fishes

beautiful shawl (a mere £295 or so...)

Zucchini pancakes for Sunday lunch!

mm mmmm

Girls' night on Wednesday :)

Last night's Dark and Stormy

(yummy- I'm not a rum person really, but this is rum, ginger beer and lime, and it's good)

:)

morning components for today's breakfast biscuits

I couldn't resist the new LIberty fabrics, so I got a meter each of these three :)

And, last but not least, my newest tile addition-

Sherwin & Cotton circa 1900, I think it's reminiscent of a seahorse...

camping

So then we went camping, not too far out of London.

And camped in a farmer's field, the farmer had not been letting people camp on his farm very long so he was a bit eccentric but very nice and gave us a raised fire pit to use at night.

tent view

morning chicken inspection

wheat field

We went for a long walk on the Saturday along a bit of the Ridgeway (an 85 mile path that has been around for ages), and then along the Grand Union Canal (the same canal that cuts through London)

the gang

horses!

The wind caught our map and plopped it in the canal so Ste had to borrow a fisherman's net to fish it out. The fisherman commented that "I hope that's not the only thing I catch today!"

Cool camouflaged house

Then on the Sunday we went to see the nearby windmill, which was the oldest windmill in England, built inn 1695, until it was a bit destroyed in the 70s, but now it has been restored and is owned by the National Trust.

Puussssshhhhhhhhh!

(you can see who is making the most mock-effort)

And then we went to a Pick Your Own farm, where we did our weekly vegetable shopping

Yum yum!

What a wonderful and exhausting week!!!!

bwakers!

I went to visit my friends Matt and Vicky yesterday and got to be the first visitor to see their three new chickens as well! We went to a handy city farm nearby to pick up some Limestone Flour (to mix with their food for calcium), Layers Mash (their favourite food), and some chicken tonic to keep them healthy. We then went back to let them out of their run and into the garden, and it was a blast running around after them and figuring out their personalities.

The white one is a purebred named Margo, and Vicky is thinking of naming the black one Poppy or Penny.

Margo in their eggloo extended run. They got their eggloo off ebay and picked it up from a couple in Essex.

They got their chickens from a chicken farm in Essex as well that has loads of different species and hybrids. Although Margo is a purebred (and the first one to lay 2 little eggs!), the other two are hybrids. Margo has already asserted herself as the dominant hen.

The black one is the shyest and doesn't make much noise, whereas the red one lets you pet her and goes around mumbling under her breath all the time :)

Bwak!