Hello Dear Readers,

Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes yesterday! I set out to have a great day and that's what I did. Apologies to those with no interest in Art History as this is a very link heavy arty post, but you can glaze over the links if you don't care.

I started off going into work with Chris to see what he does all day. I took the train into Victoria Station and went into the great glass building that is his office.

I headed around the corner to......


that's right, the queen's house. Not sure if she was home, but plenty of tourists there watching guards swapping guns in a very British, formal way. I rounded Victoria circle and headed down The Mall with the help of my handy laminated "Streetwise London" (thanks Toni Garrett!) towards.....

Trafalgar Square, specifically to the National Gallery to catch the 11:30 free hour long tour of part of the collection. It was so fantastic, all the fun of my days studying art history without any of the exams or actual studying! After discussing the architecture of the newish Sainsbury Wing, we covered The Annunciation and it's companion piece Seven Saints, a brief stop to admire the double sided Durer then Rubens' A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning, rounding it out with Madame de Pompadour, where I correctly identified her as doing embroidery, not writing (how did I know?). After the tour I took the opportunity to play one of my City Walk London cards number 36 to tour the Embankment/Leicester Square (theater district) area. Among the sites I found the narrowest "street" in London:


I didn't even try to walk through, it seemed like an invitation to disaster. I also found a rather large (especially for London) bead shop and made a mental note to bring certain visitors there (Mary, Madeleine), or at least incentiveise them to come visit me! I wandered into a dance shop where they sell my favorite ballroom shoes (Freed of London), looked at the Victoria Embankment Gardens, and had "vegetarian" fish and chips for lunch on Leicester street and generally had a good what I'll call "wander around" (read: walk briskly through the streets searching for fish and chips with my nose in the map, wondering how London seems to defy my usually excellent navigation skills).

At 2:30 I went back to the gallery for the second tour of the day, viewing the San Pier Maggioro Altarpiece and comparing it to the San Benedetto Altarpiece painted 30 years later. We visited a room with some experimental hangings where the pieces were arranged not by artist or century, but rather a grouping of works that all dealt with the human figure. Or, as our tour guide put it, our (read: male patron's) obsession with looking at "Nudie Ladies" under the guise of being high art,and for good measure sticking some reference to Greek mythology to make the nudity ok. We looked at Titian's Diana and Actaeon compared to the later Death of Actaeon and debated whether the punishment of accidentally viewing a nudie Dianna merited the punishment of being torn apart by your own dogs.....

Finally we discussed Turner's Ulysses Deriding Polyphenus. Or as one old lady in our tour put it, Odysseus giving Polyphenus the finger. Five points to anyone who can actually find Polyphenus the one-eyed giant who is hidden in this work, and five more points if you can see the horse heads pulling the chariot of dawn. This painting has particular resonance with me because as someone who is always traveling (not just vacation traveling, but you know, 16 moves in 28 years kind of traveling through life) I really identify with Odysseus/Ulysses. Also, our nephew (Chris's sister's kid) is named Odysseus and his christening is coming up. Maybe I should get him a print of this for his wall, it's never to early to appreciate good art. The National Gallery even has a program for 2 year olds!

To round out the day I spent some time on the phone with Molly, Cat and Jeff, Chris's mom, and my Gramma, phew! Then Pat and Chris came home and delivered lots of lovely goodies. From Chris came a selection of shampoos (plus carrying case), soaps and face washes from LUSH wrapped in a nice scarf which is THE fashion accessory here in London, so it will be put to good use.


Patrick thoughtfully got me a card with knitted animals enjoying a birthday cake and 1000 m of lace-weight cashmere/silk blend wool in baby blue. It's so nice I said I just wanted to let it sit in my stash with my other skein of cashmere and just look at it....touch it.....put it against my cheek.......... sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, Patrick said he knew I would say that but that I HAVE to use to make something for myself. He also gave me a gift certificate which I have been instructed to use to buy a Knit Kit for myself. Between that and my interchangeable needles I have the perfect knitting travel kit, just add local yarn and I'm good to go! I'm taking any and all requests for knitted objects so I can use my fun toys!

So that was about it. Wow, what a long post.......but it was a long day, and good. Here's hoping to many happy returns.