London, Tonbridge and home
Saturday was our last day in London, before we headed down to Tonbridge to spend some time with Jan. It became the great day of overdoing things, as we has left the V&A and Tate Britain until the last day and had then booked a concert at St Martin’s-in-the-Field at 7.30.
This was all daft as you could spend a week in each place and still not set around – and, like every other museum and gallery in Britain, there were new galleries planned (medieval). The Tsars exhibition was on and we has a good look at that, but for me the showstoppers were the Elizabethan galleries and the newly restored Hereford Cathedral screen, Gilbert Scott’s masterpiece. In the end we just had to leave: there was just too much and I had promised myself some time at least in the Tate Britain.
We wandered through Knightsbridge, amazed at Harrod’s Foodhall, the so-called sale prices on their menswear and the sheer bad taste of the Diana and Dodi memorial. A quick bite and we wandered through Westminster towards the Tate.
I probably would have been happy to look at the 19th Century stuff all day, but Paula came with gallery back, which is hardly surprising when you consider the load we lugged from place to place in Europe. I modified my usual obsessive-compulsive approach and we selected some good bits. Notwithstanding the many things that Paula and I agree on, there are interesting anomalies, and visual arts produces most of these. We have some very distinct differences in taste! This does not mean the end of marriage – just a new area for discussion…
The concert, a very simple program of Handel and Mozart, was a perfect conclusion to our wanderings. Investigating the church’s new East window produced a Francis Thompson poem I did not know to be saved up for use some day. The full house was an indication of the continuing function of the church, as was the crypt, with its cafe, shop, function areas and chapel.
We collapsed to bed after a late supper. The weather overnight had been dreadful – our first really bad weather of the trip, if you discount the Paris blizzard. Mass at Brompton Oratory was an eye-opener: very formal but only 80 people in the massive building.
We made it to Tonbridge early and Jan gave us lunch and a walk in Ashdown Forest before we has dinner with Fiona and her partner John, as well as two very amusing friends of Jan (John and Monica). It was a great dinner party and we heard lots about art, car restoration and British concerns about the economy.
Jan had a lecture to attend the next morning, which allowed us some time to figure out the complexities of packing bags within weight restrictions.
