Our day started with breakfast at Drury 188-189. It was wonderful and the coffee – exceptional! I was happy.
Banksy is an enigma. We stumbled upon The Art of Banksy on Charing Cross Road, an exhibition neither authorised nor curated by the artist. Works were on loan from private collectors. It was such a weird experience. His work is provocative, clever, amusing and cringe worthy. We were both overwhelmed with the hypocrisy of the exhibition. The main point Banksy makes is that capitalism is basically the root of all evil while this exhibition is so into ‘merchandising’. Such a confronting mix of emotions!!
My fellow genealogist issued me with a challenge to find a portrait of her 4xgreat grandmother in the National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately Sue’s relative was not on display at this time but we did find quite a few portraits by the same artist- Reynolds. The NPG is always wonderful and this time we indulged our taste buds at Richard Corrigan’s ‘The Portrait’.
Covent Garden never fails to surprise, entertain and delight. We were quite taken by his art and engaged in conversation with Chris for ages. He had many stories to tell and we were totally charmed. The crazy contortionist was insane. Oh all buskers are tech savvy and along with their hats, boxes, baskets, trays there is always a credit card reader or two or three, often set up to accept five pounds.
Max and Paul were still on Summer break and agreed to meet up with us at the pub. Well of course! Where else? And of course we couldn’t just have an ale at one pub. There are a lot of pubs in London one which is the Lowlander – a Belgian bar with over 100 Belgian and Dutch beers. Later we were joined by the lads who had been to see a football game. It is always surprising to discover how easy it is to pass a few hour with friends who are such good company.
You would think we would learn. We had all day to get to the hotel so we took our time. Tube to Gatwick airport South Terminal, get lost trying to find the North Terminal. Seriously how we could do that? I don’t know. Walking in and out and about trying to find the right bus stop. We needed the local bus and not the national service. Then we discovered the bus trip would be three minutes. Three minutes? Really? Yes first stop. OK. Then there would be a six minute walk. We mentioned the Raddison Red to the bus driver who avoided the first stop and very kindly dropped us off ‘closer’ to the hotel. Well his heart was in the right place. Our six minute walk became twelve (read twenty!) and it was along a very narrow dirt path beside an extremely busy and dangerous highway. We really have to remember, sometimes we don’t have to take the challenge of public transport -we can get a taxi!