State of the Tate
(The members terrace at the Tate Modern: London, UK)
Having friends that have privileges afforded them is a very wonderful thing and my friend Tania and I didn’t squander the opportunities that her Tate membership entails. She and I spent a merry afternoon in the Tate Modern, though it wasn’t quite as culturally packed as I imagined. What was stuffed to the gunwales was the exhibition on Gauguin; there was a huge collection of his works on display, and whilst it was actually a well thought through exhibition, as well as being enlightening about Mr Gauguin, the amount of other people attending it at lunchtime on a weekday was entirely unexpected. Armed with Tania’s membership card, we both had free entry to the (rather expensive) exhibition. Well, as an aside, and to be fair, the exhibition is about average for London. Interestingly, I could scarce dream of paying such a sum in Glasgow for any event, save a live show of some kind, but somehow London manages to eke it out of me (possibly because I don’t have a choice but to pay the going London rate for everything from food, travel to entrance tickets). Whilst in London, the most I paid for entrance to any exhibition was £10, and to a location, it was in the region of £13 (Kew gardens and St Paul’s Cathedral were pretty much tied on that score).
Anyway, the free afternoon at the demanding Gauguin exhibit was so overwhelmingly tiring that we repaired to the member’s lounge for a spot of tea. I say tea, but once we had arrived there, Tania presenting her card at the door, we decided to engage in a more convivial beverage; a glass of red wine on the outdoor terrace. It has superb views across to the North Bank; St Paul’s is the most obvious landmark in sight and it was radiant. It was somewhat windy, as you can see from the reaction of my hair, but almost boisterously sunny. However, I can’t account for the facial expression; I was perhaps attempting to be both regal and commanding, yet amused. I hadn’t noticed the clouds behind me – as you can see we beat a hasty retreat inside within about five minutes of the left hand picture being taken. The striking windy warmth was replaced with lashes of rain that were as riotous as the light they had replaced. We sat indoors gazing out at the damp diehard Tate visitors streaming across the river for a further hour or so before visiting Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds.
For anyone who is counting, I must admit even I didn’t notice that yesterday was the 400th post I’ve written! I feel that if I hit the 500 mark, I should throw a party or something. Perhaps by then, a bored publisher might have somehow stumbled across this site and I could celebrate a book deal. Well, alright, but a girl can dream.
– Today Rosie is cutting, folding, then going to a Chinese food tasting session in Glasgow, UK –
