Since the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, Trafalgar Square and St. Martin in the Fields are just around the corner from Charity and Ian’s flat we can cover a lot of gallery and site-seeing ground in one day! In addition to spending some quality time in the next-door museums, Charity and I took a bus to the Tate Britain Gallery and then a boat down the Thames to the Tate Modern. SO much fun!
The Tate Britain is one of my favorite galleries in the world. They always have a new exhibit and this is the one for this year: (Thanks again to Charity for these pics. We only have one working phone and Rick/Dad had it).
This dazzling gallery includes one of our family’s all time favorite paintings
, since this piece been hanging in our living room for many years. We saw an artist painting a replica of The Lade of Shallot on one of our trips to that gallery and Richard immediately recognized the talent and bought the replica on the spot. A trip to the Tate just isn’t complete without seeing that girl!
Our favorite at the Tate Modern was this Bread Bed. It is encased in glass and is made entirely with slices of white bread at different stages of demise and then glazed with wax. Who could think of that? The mind of an artist is so amazing!
We also loved the color and design of this painting:
These paintings and creations always make us think, “I could do that,” but actually ….no!
What could be more festive for Covent Garden (also around the corner from Charity) than this new installation indicating that Covent Garden is the heart of London. At night the lights make this mass of balloons look like a beating heart!
On our last night, our newlyweds (until next month when they will celebrate their one year anniversary) skillfully led us to the magnificent St. Paul’s Cathedral where we saw spectacular views of that magnificent monument to God from a roof-top.
After having dinner there, we were excited to find out what “the surprise” was that Charity and Ian had been saying they had in store for us for the past two days. We walked across the Millennial Bridge and as we neared the London Eye, we saw a crazy swing that went up a poll which was taller than the London Eyre…at breakneck speed. As we approached, we have to admit that we thought “I hope that’s not the surprise,’' which you should never say because….indeed it was! Yikes!
Ian, Rick and I were terrified as they strapped us into those contraptions and Charity was giddy with glee!
We survived. It was a ride we won’t ever forget!
London! What a dazzling place for Ian and Charity to start their first jobs and lives together. They are saying that they will be there between 2 and 10 years. It was a delight to be with them in their new ward on Sunday and experience their new environment!
All their belongings from the States have not yet arrived and it looks as though it won’t be there for several more weeks. It’s amazing how beautifully they are surviving as they continue to live out of suitcases for all these weeks! They have two air mattresses (one for them and one for us), four bowls, a set of four plastic knives, forks and spoons and 4 glasses. They have an almost perfect two room flat. I say almost because there are no electrical plugs in the bathroom so Charity sits on the floor in the hall near a plug with no mirror to dry and/or curl her hair. They are amazing troopers! Ian loves his very demanding job and Charity is grateful that she has a flexible job working with a group of charter schools.
We are so grateful that they can both take time off to go on a cruise down the Adriatic Sea which is coming next!
