Exhibtions.

I have been really looking forward to today. The weather couldn't have been any better either! On our arrival in London just had to take photo's of interesting buildings, like you do.

Nickie was on the look out for interesting gates and doors for her barriers project. This was taken at just after 10 this morning and already there was a eat haze over the Tower.

We stopped at Trinity park last time for a photo so just had to do it again today, a different season.

We loved this sundial, such lovely textures in the pictures depicting the history of London.

Then it was the V&A, the reason for the trip to London. We hired the I-Pods, and it was worth doing so, we learnt so much more from listening to it, and being able to zoom into the quilts, to see close up details was a bonus.
No photos of the quilts I'm afraid, not allowed. There were some lovely quilts but others were quite thought provoking. If you get a chance to go, do so.

We got in at just after 11, and couldn't believe it was 2.30 by the time we had seen all the quilts, no wonder we felt hungry. Lunch on the V&A lawn in the sun, watching the children paddling in the pool-great.
We then went to the National Portrait Gallery to see the Indian Portrait exhibition, exquisite work, so fine and a lot of it was miniature. I don't know how they painted such detail without the use of a magnifying glass, it made my eyes hurt to look at it! As we were leaving we saw a sign for an exhibition called Contemporary Connections: The Singh Twins. I put my hands up, I am very ignorant when it comes to art and I had never heard of them- but their work, WOW! It is styled on Indian traditional mixed with contemporary Western influences. Well worth visiting if you get a chance, but see the Indian Portrait first, to see where their work is coming from.
In spite of working in London for a couple of years when I left school, I have never been to China Town, so we did a little detour.

The sights, sounds and smells!

Loved the dual language signs everywhere, I am always looking at the text marks used by other nationalities.

Loved the colours on these papaya's.

We don't know what these were, they are quite large, almost lelon size-prickly pears maybe?????

We couldn't resist getting one of these Japanese ice-creams. Take one very thin crepe and decorate with cream,

add sliced strawberries and banana,

then some kiwi.

Embellish with chocolate sauce and add a scoop of ice-cream.

Fold in half, and roll up. I am going to have a go at making some of these for the family.

It was delicious. Time to make our way home, stopping to do some brass rubbings on the sundial we saw this morning. We used a foreign newspaper as our sketch book paper was too thick and we couldn't find any drawing paper to buy. We got some very strange looks but were used to that.

A fantastic day, but oh my legs ache! Thank you Nickie for a great day out!;0)

Tomorrow night Nickie and I are off to Embroiderers' Guild.