Category: The Arts
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Chatsworth in the Van
We stayed in a small campsite about 40 minutes drive from Chatsworth. I like these little sites run as a side-line to a pub or farm. This one was called Poplars Farm and seemed to have about 5 hard standing pitches, plus a couple of “cottages”. It cost us £19.00 per night with LX hook…
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Notes from the East Coast – London to Wrabness
After a hectic year it was with some relief that we were able to slip out of South Dock on a late Sunday afternoon tide with two weeks of sailing ahead. There were no exciting voyages planned just a bit of gentle sailing around the muddy waters of the Thames Estuary. The tide kicked in…
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John Virtue Sea Paintings
1st March 2015 Eastbourne Towner Gallery One of the reasons the Eastbourne Half Marathon appealed was that there was an exhibition of John Virtue Sea Paintings which I was intrigued to see especially after enjoying the Norwegian Pedar Balke Exhibition at the National Gallery. John Virtue’s paintings are, like Balke’s, mono-chrome but much bigger than…
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Sailing Cancelled!
South Dock, Rotherhithe 11th January 2015 Boff! I was really looking forward to a long weekend away sailing to the Medway but had to bottle out when the best forecast I could find (after shopping around) was westerly gale force 8 becoming severe gale force 9. That may just have been workable but the wind…
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TR2 Theatre Royal Plymouth Workshops
As we were in Plymouth, Grit and I thought it would be really nice to visit the TR2 centre which is the impressive workshop base for the Theatre Royal Plymouth. We phoned Julie Perrin who is actually a freelance scenic artist who leases the large paint frame. TR2 was immediately very impressive, new, and on…
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Falmouth Art Gallery
This was a very pleasant surprise. A relatively small gallery but with some fine works interspersed with quirky working models with wind up handles. These acted as a great “eye rest” from viewing too many paintings. I particularly liked a painting by Sir Frank Brangwyn called Construction of South Pier Mevagissey. There were some good…
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Christopher Williams Artist
In the morning we took a walk along the promenade to “Kick the Bar”, which is apparently the done thing. That took us to the end of town with Britain’s longest vernicular railway (which isn’t very long at all) but made up for missing the train up Snaefell in the Isle of Man. At the…
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The Isle of Man
What a friendly place! Everyone is so kind and relaxed. Yesterday we went to watch the motor bike road racing which looked pretty dangerous. We sat on a gate post at a road corner hoping no one was going to hit the cottage on the corner. It was a 4 mile walk from the boat…
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Louise Bourgeois
Tim and I went to the Island National Gallery on Thursday. There was an exhibition by Louise Bourgeois and some of her pieces felt strangely familiar. There were disturbing nightmarish shapes. Many were ghastly un-namely things of no colour and some were puce. Frightening bulging shapes bursting out. Then I remembered Tim’s splendid duff that…
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Reykjavik
Now I’m sitting in a cosy café sheltering from the gale. We moored outside the new concert hall next to Thembi at 02:30 this morning before the wind got up. It was a grand sail but the wind eventually dropped off. There were continuous gale warnings on the VHF so we decided to start up…