Somerset House

Out of Sync

We finally got along to Somerset House the other week.  There were a few exhibitions there I was kind of keen to see, though they turned out to not be as good as what I had hoped.  The main one was in the courtyard of the building, it was called Out of Sync and was thousands of clay daffodils planted in turf.  It looked kind of cool, not that the weather has been particularly spring-y lately, what with the almost daily rain.  Finally we are getting some more traditional English weather.  The rain here is very particular to England though, it's this almost fine mist, it very rarely seems to rain that heavily.  It's like you're walking through a cloud rather than a rain storm.

The current Somerset House was built in the 1770's after the previous Somerset House had to be demolished due to neglect.  Even though the courtyard now seems to be one of the more used parts of the building, what with the art and the ice skating, and one of the more attractive views, it was only opened to the public in 1997.  Prior to that the Inland Revenue used to be housed here, and the building was all closed.

View towards the city

It's in a great spot, almost opposite the London Eye, and looking off the balcony you can still see the debris from New Years Eve.

Houses of Parliament, across the Thames

Homeless person art

As well as seeing the daffodils there were a few other exhibits on, all free, the main galleries were closed.  The other galleries were not quite as impressive.  One had works by homeless people, another was with weird art/fashion jewellery and a third was by a Japanese tattoo artist.  The art jewellery was kind of cool, the lady exhibiting claimed to be the person who invented the nested ring, you know where multiple rings all fit together on the finger.

It's funny walking round inside the building, there are very few signs up and the way the exhibits are laid out it almost feels like you can just wander anywhere you want.  It does still feel very like an old office building, in that there are a lot of doors coming off the corridors.   And you do wonder if there may be more art hiding behind some doors.

There is also what looks to be a very fancy restaurant there, so perhaps Dave and I will have to come back one night to check it out.

More homeless people art - these doors are the same ones used in Somerset House

Japanese tattooist art

Amsterdam

Canals in Amsterdam

We went to Amsterdam for a weekend a while back, back when it was still cold.  This must have been the third or fourth time I've visited, I seriously love that city!  Though it was a first time for Dave.  We wandered the canals, saw a lot of art, unfortunately their main museum, the Rijksmuseum was undergoing major renovations, so not a lot of stuff was on display.  The Van Gogh museum was great as always, though incredibly packed, as always!

I didn't take a lot of photos, I guess third time round the canals hold a little less fascinations, still pretty, just a little more blase about them perhaps.  I did manage to get to the red light district this time, the first time I've visited.  It was more weird than what I thought it was going to be.  You hear about the girls all sitting around in the windows wearing not a lot, but they don't tell you there's a bed in there with them, and they're not just sitting around, they are all trying to entice you in.  When we went it was still incredibly early, in fact it was still light outside, so a lot of the other people walking around were families.  But you would still see big groups of guys disappear into houses together, the curtains were drawn at those houses!

Gotta get some art in Amsterdam

The West church, trying to collapse into the canal

The main square, with the Jewish exhibit at the right

Something else we saw which I haven't seen before was a Jewish history exhibit inside an old church.  Strange mix there, but perhaps the Nederlanders are atoning for their history. I suppose with Anne Frank having her own museum it's hard to forget.  I was hoping to learn a little bit about their beliefs, it's one group that in Australia we don't have a massive exposure to.  I think I know more about Islam than I do about Jews so I was keen to find out more.

There is a large Jewish population here in London, every morning there are a lot on the train, with their little skull caps, or the big black hats.  So I was keen to find out a bit more of their history, and the answers to the big questions, like why are their two types of hats, and why do they wear them?  Unfortunately none of that important stuff was answered.  Though I did learn the difference between a synagogue and a temple, and what a sanctuary is, it's like a portable temple where services were performed during Moses' flight from Egypt.

Cate Blanchett Killed It!!

We saw the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Gross und Klein (Big and Small) a few nights ago.   It was at the Barbican, which was the first time we'd seen something at this complex.  The Barbican is a funny place, when we first moved to London our temporary flat was literally across the road from it.  It is way more than just a theatre though, it's a massive maze of courtyards, flats, passageways and staircases.  You walk in there looking for a shortcut through to the tube and end up walking up and down flights, desperately scouring maps and feeling like you'll never escape.  All the times I went in there I never once saw any sign of the theatre, cinemas or concert halls which are all located there.

Luckily this time we came in from the other direction, and that way it is much easier to find.  Once you find it the complex is pretty good, so much space, except for the bathrooms.  It's like they built this wonderful arts centre and then at the end someone goes, oh no, we forgot to include toilets.  So they had to convert some broom closet into toilets.  Apart from that it's great, the most comfortable theatre I've ever been to.  Another thing which I really loved is that instead of just the usual 4 entrances to the stalls, every row has it's own door.  Then when the performance is about to start, all the doors close simultaneously, pretty freaky seeing something like 40 doors all swing shut together.

But on to the play, look it was weird, German surrealism, written in the late 1970s.  I thought it was pretty good, but then I went in with incredibly low expectations.  I knew Cate Blanchett was going to be great, but none of the reviewers seemed to have any idea what the play was really about.  It's about this character, Lotte, Cate Blanchett, who through 10 scenes tries desperately to form any sort of human connection, but is constantly rebuffed.  And that's about it.  But that sells Cate Blanchett's performance massively short.  I mean without her, you would have left at the interval, but she was that mesmerising.  The whole play was basically a vehicle for her to strut her stuff, and she has some serious stuff to strut.  It's hard to describe how good she really was in it, but if you ever get the chance to see her on stage I would leap at it with both hands.

I took it to be a comedy, I don't know if that was intention, but I think if you like surreal humour then there are some cracker moments.  I loved the fact that all the actors were Australian too, and it felt like the translation had been done by an Aussie.  I guess it was kind of fitting then that I was watching a 1970's German surrealist play in the middle of London, and feeling like I was back in Sydney.

You're Nicked!

We had a bit of excitement round our place today, Dave was at home, I was at work, and one of the neighbours told him that she'd seen people loitering in the back courtyard.  This is highly suspicious behaviour, so Dave was now on high alert.  A bit later he found someone trying to force open our back door.  Good luck with that, it doesn't open even when it's unlocked.  Dave rushed out and questioned him, apparently he was looking for a "Simon" who he thought lived here.  Nice way to visit your friends, by forcing their back doors.  At this stage another neighbour was coming in, so Dave ran over to tell him what was going on, and at this point the would-be burglar ran off.

We then had our first interaction with the coppers over here, or rather Dave did, I had to live vicariously through him.  They have a new, non-emergency number for these sorts of things, and whilst they said they would come round I was sure we wouldn't see them for weeks.  But about an hour later they were already here, taking some details of what was really a non-event.  Must have been a slow day in Hampstead, as they even sent someone round to dust our back door for fingerprints!

Guess it's time to get some house insurance.

Hampstead Butcher and Providore

We have this awesome butchers in Hampstead, it's where we got our insanely large goose for Christmas.  They do a lot more than just meat though, if you are picturing sterile white tiles, plastic strips hanging in the doorways, and ridiculously cold with a funny smell, then you are completely off about our butchers. It's more of a deli come wine shop come organic grocer come butcher and looks to be an old house conversion.  No plastic strips in sight!

As well as selling a lot of food they also do butchery classes, which I would love to do, and tasting evenings.  The other week we went along to one of their tasting nights.  You all sit together on a long table and they serve you 4 courses and 4 different wines.  They also give you about a 10 minute intro to each wine you are drinking as you go along, so I learned something as well as feasted.  Then once you are suitably boozed up they open the shop again at the end of the night, with a little discount for you.

Now you wouldn't normally associate a butcher with fine dining, but another thing this place does is catering.  If you are planning on having a dinner party and want to impress the guests, this is Hampstead after all, you get their caterers in to cook and plate everything up and then you can pretend you cooked it all.  And that's literally how this butcher sells it to you.

We got to meet some Hampstead locals as well, which is a bit funny, Hampstead very much has a Mosman feel to it, at least the locals have that feel.  So some other people at the table knew my CEO and apparently hung out on his yacht together.  Only in Hampstead really.

The food was good and so was the wine, I learned a little bit more about European wines.  I was surprised that there weren't any food bloggers there.  I mean if that was Sydney I would be sure that at least one person would pull out their DSLR and start taking snaps of each course.  But perhaps food blogging hasn't yet hit these shores.

If you want to check the butcher out for yourself here's the link.

London Zoo

A cool bird hanging out near the gorillas

I have to say that I like a good zoo and the other weekend we finally got along to London's.  It's in the middle of Regents Park, so I've already had a free peak at the African hunting dogs, though I thought they were hyenas at the time.  Regents Canal actually runs through the zoo, so when we walked along it we also got to see a bit of the aviary.  We had attempted a visit on one of the glorious September days we got last year, but were foiled by the 400m long line.  So this time we came armed with internet tickets, I tell you we are turning into hardened tourists!

The zoo was opened in 1828 and contains over 600 species.  I actually think the age wears on it a bit, it must be hard having to use enclosures that are over 100 years old and still try to implement modern zoo practises.  I think perhaps the old enclosures wear on the animals a bit too.  There was one giraffe there which I was sure was crazy.  We watched it for maybe 5 minutes and it just kept doing the same action over and over again.  It would walk to one end of it's indoor house, take a bit of hay, throw it's head back, turn in a circle, walk back through the door to the other end of the house, put it's head in the food trough, and repeat.  The keepers did talk a lot about "enrichment" which I think was their way of trying to gloss over the fact that their animals were bored out of their minds.

I always wonder why they don't feed some of their animals in a more natural way, you know release live fish into the otter and penguin enclosures, or maybe some mice in with the owls.  You couldn't feed them this way all the time, because the weakest members would probably starve to death.  I guess the argument is that it's cruel to the animal to be eaten, but then is it more cruel for the animals in the zoos to be going crazy with boredom?  Actually I think if people saw a lion hunt they would probably be horrified.  So perhaps not for the big cats, maybe balls soaked in blood or something for them.

Though I do wonder about keeping the big animals in zoos anymore, can't you keep them in semi-safari conditions, like Western Plains zoo or something.  They just seem to need so much room to move around in.  And in zoos I don't think they could even run.  And the bonus would be if you moved all the big animals the little animals could get more room too.  Maybe the keepers have some place outside of London where they rotate the animals, give them a break from all the people.

The Galapagos tortoises

They had a few animal shows, most of them were just where they fed the animals.  Though they did have one bird show, which was kind of cool, though nothing on the bird show they have at Taronga.  I think Taronga is a better zoo to be honest, the animals seemed happier there, and the enclosures were a bit more fit for purpose.  It seems a bit like perhaps London zoo should just bulldoze and start again, or just turn it into a petting zoo, so all the city folk can see what their dinner looks like before it ends up overly packaged in Sainsburys.

It wasn't all bad though, they did have one awesome rainforest enclosure, which was a massive building and all the animals were free to roam around together, so the monkeys could be hanging out in a tree right above the boardwalk, if you were lucky.  That was really cool, it was like you were walking through the jungle.

I have to say though that the aviary near Regents Canal was a bit of a let down.  I mean they had black swans in there, and ibises, they are not special birds by any stretch.  But I guess because that aviary was a fair way away from the main buildings, and separated by the canal, they probably couldn't put their endangered birds there for fear of bird-rustlers.

Would I recommend it?  Maybe if you had small children and it was a really nice day, but in that case definitely take tickets with you!

Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

We spent a weekend up in Edinburgh, also during winter, like I say I have a lot of catching up to do!  It was kind of due to this trip that we tasted all our whiskys, we had to know at least something before we headed to it's heartland!  It's a great city, like a Scottish Disneyland, but incredibly cold.  We went on a night walking tour and I think I almost lost my toes.  It's also the first place where I've seen the pavements being gritted.  At first I couldn't work out why there was this dirt everywhere, but once I started losing feeling in my feet I realised why you might lay dirt down.

The first place we visited was Edinburgh Castle, it really dominates the city and I would be impressed if you manage to visit Edinburgh without seeing the castle.  We are turning into hardened tourists so came prepared with our pre-booked internet tickets, meaning no queue for us!

Looking out over the old city, snow on the distant hills

The cemetery for dogs in the castle grounds

Edinburgh castle is built on top of an extinct volcano and has buildings dating from the 12th century.  The Scottish royalty used to live here though it's had a bit of a turbulent past, being captured by the English and Scottish in turn and being dismantled by Robert Bruce to prevent the English ruling over the Scots from it.

Mary, Queen of Scots, gave birth to James VI of Scotland and I of England in a tiny room in the castle.  At the moment  Scotland is again looking for independence, and are due to have a referendum on the question in 2014.  But then their crowns were unified under this James VI/I so doesn't that really make them the same? I suppose the unification cause wasn't helped when James IV's son, King Charles, was executed by the English parliament.

Looking out over the new city and the Firth of Forth

We went on a guided tour of the grounds whilst we were there, I would recommend that.  You don't go into any of the buildings, but the guide gives you a bit of an idea as to how everything fits in, and a very brief overview of the history.  The royalty of England and Scotland is so intertwined and there only seem to be about 5 names between them all, it makes it very confusing to work out who is who.  For a little while I thought Mary Queen of Scots was the same as Bloody Mary, Elizabeth I's half sister, they were all living at almost the same time.  I bought a book just listing the kings and queens of these two countries, just so I could try and sort them all out.  I imagine this is something that kids at school here have to memorise, or perhaps they used to, I think history teaching has moved away from rote memorisation.

Mons Meg - a massive cannon

Looking down the Royal Mile

From the castle is fired a 1pm cannon, though obviously not a real cannon anymore.  It used to be used by the ships in the Firth of Forth as a time signal, though because sound travels so slowly, and the ships are a fair way away, maps were made that showed the precise time the shot would be heard in different parts of the harbour.  Though the cannons there are now all for show, they used to be fired straight into the city, pretty much as they are pointed now.  Though once a building got destroyed by a bad shot, they stopped that practise.

After the castle we felt the need for a bit of nature, and a break from history, so we headed down the Royal Mile to Arthur's Seat.  This is a great park, in the middle of Edinburgh, the actual hill is about 250m high.  It's a really popular spot, especially on such a good day like the one we had.  There were an awful lot of people enjoying the view from the top.  I would really recommend it if you are in Edinburgh, it's a pretty easy climb, so long as you approach from the correct direction, and it really gives you a good idea of Edinburgh's layout.

Arthur's Seat in the distance

Dave on top of Edinburgh

Beautiful day in Edinburgh

The guy in the picture below is a random, but the view over Edinburgh was so good, I had to include it.  You can see the castle rising in the middle of the city, it gives you an idea as to why the Scots would destroy it, rather than have the English rule over them from on high.

Sun setting behind Arthur's Seat

This picture shows you the wrong way to descend from Arthur's Seat, it looked like a path, but it was deceptive.  Unfortunately once you realised it was the really wrong way to go, you were too far down this unbelievably steep, crumbly cliff.  And there was no way to return, you had to just grip the grass and hope the few remaining rocks hold firm.

Don't come this way!

National Museum of Scotland

The next day was art day for us.  We started with the National Museum of Scotland, which had a stunning main hall, and an awful lot of stuff.  We spent quite a bit of time in the history section, which unfortunately didn't give us as good an idea of the history as we liked.

We had to do a quick whip round of their other famous exhibits at the end, including Dolly the Sheep.  We also saw the National Portrait Gallery, which was actually a little disappointing, there seemed to be a lot of filler, and only one or two rooms where there were pictures of the real key figures in history.  Our final art overdose was at the National Gallery.  There were some nice paintings in here, no photos allowed.  I would say it's worth a visit, if you have time.  One place we didn't get to visit, which I would have liked to have seen, was the Modern Art Gallery, but that's a little further out of town.  Maybe next time.  I'm picturing some more trips to this part of the world, if only to see the wilderness.  I've heard exciting things about the Cairngorms.

More celtic art in a cup

An early fiddle in the Museum

I love these googly eyes!

Dolly!!

Awesome clouds in Edinburgh

Scott Monument

Ice Skating at Somerset House

Ready to skate, or at least to cling to the railing

I'm definitely running behind with my blog posts, I'm going to have to try and catch up to my more recent exploits. But before that there are still things from winter which need to be recorded.

Something else I did over the winter was partake in one of the many outdoor ice skating rinks which are set up around the city.  There are a whole stack around the place, and you are inundated with the advertising on the tube.

I ended up going to Somerset House, which is an art gallery/exhibition space along the Thames.  The tickets I got were for a "Club Night" so I'm not sure how the session I went to would compare to other nights.  It was pretty good, they had a DJ on, which was what made it a club night.  It was definitely a bit of a date night for a lot of people, but being so focused on not breaking my bones I wasn't really noticing.

Each session only goes for an hour, but to be honest, because I was so bad it felt a lot longer.  The ice marshals were good, they take pity on you after a while and try to give you some pointers.  In fact I think the most dangerous feature were the other beginners around you, as they were liable to fall over with no warning and drag down the nearest people with them.  It was a good idea to give them as wide a berth as you can.

They had these penguins though, which you could sort of lean on and push around in front of you.  They really made you feel a lot more stable on the ice, but apparently those were only for children, and after awhile the marshals made everyone return them.  I should put in a plead for all those people who grew up in the tropics, to make adult-sized penguins for next year!

Ice penguins - only for children unfortunately

The ice was pretty wet, which you can see in the below photo, I guess another side effect of the incredibly mild winter we had.  I also spent most of my time hanging off the railings and staring at anyone who dared to loiter on the railings until they moved so I could continue my weird grasping around the rink.  The lights were wonderful though, and it's definitely an experience, to skate around the courtyard of this beautiful old building in the middle of London.  This is the second time I've been to Somerset House, the first was when we went to see the Lord Mayor's fireworks and I used their bathrooms.  But I still haven't actually gone to see any of their temporary exhibitions, I really should try to rectify this.

Somerset House - beautifully illuminated