Art Appreciation

I sometimes forget that I live just 24 miles outside one of the biggest and most vibrant cities in the world. I always say you can't get bored this close to London.

Today was one of our Fun Scheduled Sundays and I choose for us to visit The Courtald Institute of Art at Somerset House in London. I wanted to see the Guercino drawings exhibition. I know some of you are wondering what in the world the children would think of all this high falutin' art stuff. They loved it.

Walking into the museum, Seb pointed to the sculptures in the entrance hall and told us to look at the centaurs. Now this shocked us only half as much as it shocked the lady from whom we were buying our tickets. But the best was yet to come.

The children weren't all that impressed with the drawings (although they were spectacular). We gave them pencils and asked them to draw what they saw whilst Marc and I finished our whistle stop appreciation. Then we moved on to the painting collection.

As we walked into one room, Seb had a look around then pronounced "Mummy, I do believe that one is by Kandinsky.

OK, now he had our attention. Then we had a very long discussion about how Monet used dots and Van Gogh used lines. Everyone in the gallery was staring. I was staring. My jaw was dragging on the ground so far you could have parked a bus in it.

After the museum we stepped out into a beautiful London spring day. We walked up to Covent_Garden and at lunch at the Covent Garden Kitchen. The food was great but the service was appalling. Marc & I waited for our mains for over 30 minutes by which time the children had finished their meal and were ready to get moving. We had to inhale ours. then we walked up to Neal's Yard, a groovy part of London that neither Marc nor I have ever visited before.

We had some ice creams, took a taxi back over the bridge to our car and headed home. It was a great fun day!