Blog: A Tourist Trip To That London

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Over the weekend The Sights On My Tour and I went round That London looking at SIGHTS and having GOOD TIMES. It began on the evening of Good Friday, when we went to the new Mother Kelly's craft beer place near us, to meet The Hewitts and drink Kolsch-style (not Kolsch-actual) BEER and then go a couple of doors down to DINE IN at our local chippy. I tried some of this here "Banana Blossom" stuff that is meant to taste like fish - it DID a bit, which was weird as I've not eaten it in about 25 years, and I'm not sure i liked it! What I DID like, however, was walking into the shop and most of the staff saying "HELLO!" to me. I felt like NORM!

On Saturday we went into London town for a wander around. We started off in Westminster, where we saw the Extinction Rebellion protests. They had closed off the whole of Parliament Square, which was LOVELY as it meant there was no traffic but lots of happy people wandering around, including several Tour Guides who seemed to be REVELLING in their sudden freedom from traffic watching. We then went to The Tate Britain to see the Van Gogh And Britain exhibition, which was dead good but CRIKEY it was a bit LONG. The actual famous Van Gogh paintings that were in it were GRATE, and some of the Early Stuff was interesting too, but the curators seemed to have decided to pack it out with other stuff as much as they possibly could, which I guess is OK from a Value For Money point of view, but did make it a bit hard going. The daftest example of this was the room where they had one of the Sunflower paintings, surrounded by some other paintings of sunflowers "in dialogue" with it. The ACTUAL Van Gogh Sunflowers was AMAZING - crumbs, you get a real sense of What All The Fuss Is About when you see it "in person", it is LUMINOUS and ASTONISHING - but the other paintings just looked a bit rubbish in comparison. Similarly, towards the end, there were some other paintings by other artists using "strong colours" that just looked wishy washy in comparison. Having said that, there WAS a Constable which was ACE, and as I say, the Van Gogh Actuals were ACE.

We then had a stomp via some sunny PARKS across town for LUNCH in Tibits, popping for a look at the old Apple Building on Saville Row on the way, then went round to The Royal Academy to see the Renaissance Nudes exhibition, as the aforesaid Tickets In My Raffle had won us a couple of free entrance to see it. This one was MUCH more sensibly sized, filling five small rooms which I could happily WHIP round in half an hour, which to be honest is about my level of concentration for this sort of thing. The best bit was the room of SKETCHES by Leonardo, Michaelangelo (and all the other turtles etc etc) which were GORGEOUS. As the NOTES gently hinted, there were a LOT of pictures of Pretty Young Men Without Many Clothes On, notably a LOT of pictures of Saint Sebastian, who seems to be the saint of being penetrated (by arrows) and not seeming to mind. WOT can it all mean eh readers?

Then on SUNDAY we headed out to our old stomping grounds in Wanstead Park, where we went to look at the BLUEBELLS. We weren't sure if they'd be in full bloom yet but MY GOODNESS they were. The "Bluebell Wood" area has had WALKWAYS set out on the ground for the past couple of years, which has had the result of making everywhere else a stomping-free-zone, so that the flowers have MULTIPLIED so that it is an Ecstatic SHOCK of purpley blue as soon as you are among them. If you are in the area I would HIGHLY recommend a visit, if possible taking in a trip to the tea hut along the way - it is ACE!

posted 24/4/2019 by MJ Hibbett

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