Thursday 26th July 2018 - What we did yesterday - part 1

But first I must say, when I clicked on the blog to start this post, the picture that I drew of flowers  came up, and looked across at the fireplace where they all are, and saw

they don't look so happy this morning! But I can't easily go and get some water for them yet, as all doors to the kitchen are closed to prevent the cats escaping - they are due for their annual trip to the vet in half an hour and we don't want to spend that time hunting them round the house. At least they can't get under the bath anymore.

We spent the day in London yesterday - it was sweltering. I can't remember it being this hot since 1976, but at least we haven't started water shortages yet. The plan was to visit the V and A museum and see an exhibition called "The Future Starts Here" or something similar. Then to go to see a musical called "89 Days" at "The Other Palace Theatre", which has been written and is being performed by a group of students in and around Bristol University. My reason for going is that I know the lyricist, Clare Packham; she did her grade 5 theory with me, and I accompanied some of her violin exams (but chickened out of her Grade 8 - too many notes for the pianist)

We never made it to the exhibition - it's like looking something up in an encyclopaedia (remember those) or a dictionary - you meet so many interesting things along the way...

In a fit of extravagance after a particularly tiring morning at the Royal Brompton earlier this year, I took out a membership of the V and A, which gives free access to exhibitions, and also access to the Member's Room, a lovely, lovely lounge/restaurant on the fifth floor. At the time I tried to pretend to myself that I hadn't been totally reckless - the truth is that it was a brilliant idea. We had lunch in the member's room - He had steak, I confused the system by having two starters. All the dishes were excellent. Then we started. There were a few things we wanted to see;


Gloucester candlestick, falcon flagon, Serilly Cabinet,


and a whole load of things we didn't set out to see such as the Mirror Cabinet, glass virginals

this extraordinary wallpaper in the children's area of the silver collection

where some of the boxes had doors, with little showcases of silver models inside

and an exhibition of early computer generated pictures

and, right at the beginning of our visit, I saw a flight of stairs... Roman? or Greek? going nowhere...

Having trawled through various floors and rooms (how my mother would have loved the Gilbert collection, and also the Dutch items from when Amsterdam was the richest city in the world) we went back to the Members' Room for revivifying tea or coffee and cake, before heading to the theatre.

(Is this post too long? OK, I'll start a new one)