It’s raining this morning. Classic cold English rain. I drink my coffee and watch children heading off to school with some serious jackets and gear on - they are well prepared. I do a little bit of writing before Jordan surfaces and then we make our first scrambled eggs and avo toast breakfast in ages.
We’re off to the Tate Modern; a museum that I’ve heard so much about. On the walk we find a box of things on the street - I come away with a bag scale. Something that I’ve often found myself wanting. Finding free things on the street that people are throwing out is truly such a special gem in London.
We take a bus and manage to get the front row seats on the top deck. As always I’m immersed in watching the beautiful streets, buildings, people and parks blur by. The bus takes us to the Millennium Bridge where we cross the Thames to get to the Tate. Georgie had told us to watch out for painted pieces of bubble gum in the bridge but we don’t spot them.
Before we enter we do the very clever thing of eating a sandwich on the bench outside the museum. Prepared and fed we enter - and are greeted by thirty meter tall mobile type drapes hanging from the ceiling. Jordan has to feel them. Sounds accompany the piece and we’re thrown into a world of art.
I edge from one work to the next, often reading the accompanying text with wonder. I know that it’s just not possible to see everything so I begin skipping some here and there. I wonder past what looks like a Picasso, double back and am amused to see that it is indeed a Picasso.
One serious called “Flirt” really draws me in. It’s a style that has made a bit of a resurgence as of late and I’ve always been so intrigued by it.
I walk into a room and am immediately captivated by a blue rectangle whose light seems to both dominate and suck in the room. I walk up to it immediately and am enraptured by it for quite a while. The blue itself is like no other I have ever seen, it doesn’t seem to be a static colour like the rest of the work in the Tate - it seems to be feeding or feeding off the room. It turns out to be a colour that Yves Klein invented for this series of work.
I have a call with Etienne to discuss the plan for when I come back to work on Wednesday - I’m oddly excited. Jordan and I finish the rest of our sandwiches and snacks in the tea room overlooking the Thames and St. Paul's Cathedral.
We head over to Marks & Spencer to do some grocery shopping. It’s basically Woolworths in London - we even find one hand wash with almonds that has exactly the same label and bottle as the equivalent product back in South Africa. We struggle a little bit with the automated checkout machine but Michael the assistant realises that we are suffering and lends many a hand.
We wonder back along the route that we came, with shopping bags and a pumpkin in hand. This time around we spot the paintings in the chewing gum along the millennium bridge. There are hundreds of them - I’m not sure how we didn’t see them the first time around.
We’re home. We’re tired. We devour the rest of the chocolate digestive biscuits and look at the animation work that Georgie has been doing. Both Jordan and I begin slowing down and the day winds to a close.
I have a catchup call with Ben ahead of me coming back to the office and then Jordan and I get stuck into making roast vegetables for dinner.
