I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. Mine was relaxing with a time to reflect on the meaning of Christmas before the presents, food and TV!
Yesterday I had a good day out in London. I went to see the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts called 'The Glasgow Boys'. The 'boys' were a loosely knit group of 20 young painters from the late 19th century who sought to liberate art from its staid, dark toned narrative paintings coming out of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The principal artists were Guthrie, Lavery, Crawhall, Walton, Melville, Henry and Hornel. It was an enjoyable exhibition, lots of lovely natural paintings of ordinary people going about every day stuff. I was lucky because it wasn't too crowded, which is what I'd hoped as it was just after Christmas. When I got there I found I'd lost my Art Fund Card but because the man on the till saw me hunting high and low for it he still let me have my ticket at a discount. What a lovely man.
After the exhibition I took a stroll down Burlington and Piccadilly Arcades where the shops are so expensive they don't have prices in the window. They have things like 30% off, but off of what?! I did see an offer of two pairs of socks for £55! Still it was nice to look into the windows and also see the lovely decorations in the arcades. After lunch at EAT I walked down to the South Bank and went into the Royal Festival Hall and went up to The Poetry Library where I spent time looking through poetry magazines and taking down details of those I felt might be useful and may accept some of my poetry submissions. Then after a wander around Foyles book shop, resisting the temptation to buy, I came home.
At some point I am thinking of changing my blog again - perhaps splitting it so that my writing is all in one place. But I won't be doing it just yet as I have a lot to think about.
After all the snow it's nice to see it all gone (though I know some parts of the UK still have it). It is a little warmer and life can get back to normal again.
I wish everyone a very happy New Year. See you in 2011.
Yesterday I had a good day out in London. I went to see the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts called 'The Glasgow Boys'. The 'boys' were a loosely knit group of 20 young painters from the late 19th century who sought to liberate art from its staid, dark toned narrative paintings coming out of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The principal artists were Guthrie, Lavery, Crawhall, Walton, Melville, Henry and Hornel. It was an enjoyable exhibition, lots of lovely natural paintings of ordinary people going about every day stuff. I was lucky because it wasn't too crowded, which is what I'd hoped as it was just after Christmas. When I got there I found I'd lost my Art Fund Card but because the man on the till saw me hunting high and low for it he still let me have my ticket at a discount. What a lovely man.
After the exhibition I took a stroll down Burlington and Piccadilly Arcades where the shops are so expensive they don't have prices in the window. They have things like 30% off, but off of what?! I did see an offer of two pairs of socks for £55! Still it was nice to look into the windows and also see the lovely decorations in the arcades. After lunch at EAT I walked down to the South Bank and went into the Royal Festival Hall and went up to The Poetry Library where I spent time looking through poetry magazines and taking down details of those I felt might be useful and may accept some of my poetry submissions. Then after a wander around Foyles book shop, resisting the temptation to buy, I came home.
At some point I am thinking of changing my blog again - perhaps splitting it so that my writing is all in one place. But I won't be doing it just yet as I have a lot to think about.
After all the snow it's nice to see it all gone (though I know some parts of the UK still have it). It is a little warmer and life can get back to normal again.
I wish everyone a very happy New Year. See you in 2011.
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