Taking Time Out: Coventry Cathedral

It’s been pretty quiet here as of late. I’ve just started a new job (which I love) in a marketing and press office, and am writing another essay. I did have loads of lovely things planned for the other weekend when I went home - we were going to go out for lunch, out for dinner, to a pottery, the lot - but alas, that was not meant to be, and we were all struck down with the norovirus instead. It was a horrible time.

Anyway, I feel like I’ve been giving off this vibe recently that I’ve gone off art. I won’t talk to people about it, I haven’t been in a gallery in weeks, I put off writing my MA personal statement for as long as possible etc etc.

I have to confess now though, this is all a massive front and actually I still love everything related to art, culture and heritage.

I needed to have a break from things I think, after the nightmare that was my dissertation. You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that…

So I kind of accidentally started nurturing my inner culture vulture once again. I’ve been living in a bit of a bubble recently and I needed to get out of it, so I absent mindedly boarded a bus with the intention of clearing my head, and found myself at Coventry Cathedral.

There's absolutely nothing special about this post whatsoever, I just wanted to write something. This place is beautiful - probably the only good looking thing in the whole of Coventry - and it deserved a little mention.

My friends told me I was getting old when I told them I'd spent my day sitting in the Cathedral ruins, and whilst I kind of agree with them, I do think it did me the world of good to get out and clear my head.

Everyone needs some peace and quiet now and again. Everyone needs a break.

It's done. A year in the making, and it's finally over. I feel a little bit sick about it really - no way is it my best piece of work, but I'm just so glad it's all over so I can get on with life again. Today was the first time I'd left my room in 4 days - I was getting pretty miserable!
I've hidden it in my room now so I don't have to look at it. Hand in is tomorrow and I won't find out my mark until the end of June, so that's a long time to forget about it.

I wish I had my little one with me right now. I want to squidge him and eat some cake to celebrate.

Half Term Fun; The Tower of London

We continued playing the tourists last week and paid the Tower of London a visit. Louis had the best time - being a typical boy, he loved all the suits of armour, swords and cannons. It was a pretty miserable day, with on-off showers, but that didn't stop us queuing outside to see the Crown Jewels! Louis watched Johnny English over the summer and since then has been quite fascinated by them. Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take photos inside, but we got plenty in the White Tower (where most of these photos are taken). Louis particularly liked the massive dragon made out of various weapons.
It's actually really nice to do the touristy things in London. I'm so used to being in the city for work and study that I often forget to visit places that aren't galleries or libraries. Once my dissertation's done, I'm going to make more of an effort to see more of England, I think. There's so much I haven't seen, not just in London, but throughout the entire country. Road trip anyone?

Half Term Fun; The Science Museum

This week just gone was Lou's half term, so we all hit London for some fun.
Cecilia works at the Science Museum at the moment, so we headed there on Monday to meet her for lunch and to see some cool stuff.

Lunch time came around pretty quickly, so we headed to the cafe to wait for Cecilia.
Louis took my camera, and this was his attempt at a selfie...

(I steadied it for him)
Then he went a little bit mad taking photos of me, all of which were unflattering and came out like this...

But I don't care. Every funny photo like this holds a memory of a great moment between us, and I love that.

After lunch (and a long chat with Louis about why he couldn't have a brownie AND a piece of chocolate cake) Louis and I headed off around the museum on our own.
We hit up the da Vinci section first, where we learnt about Leonardo's flying machine.
Louis actually stopped me mid-sentence when I was reading out the description and went 'Wait, I thought he was an artist?' I've never been so happy in my life I swear. I didn't think he ever paid attention when I spoke about art.

We moved over to the planes and engines bit after that, snapping lots of photos to send to Daddy (he's an engineer)

Louis was an angel, and we had such a lovely time together. He held my hand the entire way round, and didn't run off or scream and shout like the hundreds of other kids there. I was so proud.

^^^What a cutie, I love him so much.^^^

London Life

I seem to be frequenting London a lot at the moment.
I guess it's to break up my time on campus (living out of town again is like being back in first year, just without the fun and with significantly less impressive lodgings) but in this hugely important term, it's not something I should really be doing.
Oh well. I need something to keep me sane!
Here are some snippets of my double life as a Londoner...

So, one of the reasons I headed to London on Sunday was to see my sister's new flat.
I'll be joining her there when I graduate so I wanted to check it out.
This will be my room (excuse the mess, they hadn't unpacked or sorted anything out when I came snooping).
I'm excited to see what it looks like when I've finished with it - I've got big plans for this room.
It'll be a really fun project. Watch this space.

There's a huge mirror outside the bathroom. Cecilia has appropriately dubbed it 'the selfie mirror'.

I haven't just been gallivanting around London having fun 24/7. On Tuesday, I spent all day in the National Art Library doing dissertation research. That this library is so beautiful certainly made working more bearable.

This awful picture is of my Pad Thai at Oaka. I know I've blogged about Oaka before, but I love it so much I made Cecilia and Josh come to dinner with me. I had a citrus flavour ale too! Josh paid. It was great.

There we go. A few snaps of what I've been up to. Now back to the somewhat neglected dissertation research!

Quidam and the Toulouse Lautrec

The family regrouped in London this weekend.

It's become something of a tradition that every year, Dad gets us a box at the Royal Albert Hall for Cirque du Soleil.

This year's show was Quidam, and we were all super excited to see it.

Saying that, this pickle did seem a little apprehensive about what was in store...

Although after some drinks and nibbles in the box, he was happy as larry

I invited my friend Alex along too (see above).

Apologies for the picture quality - it's really dark in the boxes!

The view from the box is spectacular. 

When the performers are doing rope work, they're at your eye level. Tickets may be expensive, but I'd definitely say they're worth the money.

The show was, as usual, phenomenal.

There's always a huge 'wow' factor - my Dad always gets really overexcited and omits little cries of 'woah' and 'corr', followed by applause almost loud enough to drown out the rest of the audience!

After the show, we all piled into taxis and headed over to the Toulouse Lautrec - a brasserie in Kennington.

We had the function room because there was quite a lot of us. It's down in the wine cellar...

After copious amounts of wine, we devoured the absolutely exceptional food they serve there. 

I went for French onion soup to start...

Followed by a whopping 11oz steak (rare, of course) and chips, with peppercorn sauce.

Unfortunately for you guys, I couldn't wait to start and I was a fair way through before I remembered to take a photo.

Absolutely stuffed, we skipped pudding and made our way up to the top floor of the building to the jazz bar for some after dinner drinks and music.

This is by far my favourite family tradition. Big thanks to my father for organising it!