Maggi and I returned from France last night and I met up with Garry today at Pinner. As usual I found him sitting in his seat as I jumped into the carriage, hoping that I would see him there.
We continued on to Aldgate and then walked down to the Thames and passed by the Tower of London. We crossed the thames at Tower Bridge.
The bright sunny but cold day make walking in the capital very pleasant as long as you are wrapped up warm. Both of us had prepared well for the weather with woolly hat and in my case long jones as well as the usual scarf and several layers.
After awhile we found a coffee shop and sat down for a drink and meandering chat about something that I can no longer remember.
We walked on through Borough Market and then decided to enter Southwark Cathedral where a woman in a wheel chair declared that entry was dependent on a voluntary contribution to the church fund. It didn’t seem to be that voluntary and we both committed to a £3 donation.
The site of today’s church lies on the ruins of a Saxon convent. In 1106 it became an Augustinian Monastery in which role it continued until the reformation when it was downgraded to a Parish Church. In the 1920’s the parish became a Cathedral.
The place is steeped in history one of the monuments in the church remembers John Harvard founder of the US university.
From Southwark we passed along past Set Thomas’s Hospital founded by the Augustinian Monks with its wall dedicated to the victims of Covid. We continued our journey along the southern bank of the Thames to Lambeth Bridge where we crossed back in order to have lunch at Tate Britain and visit the exhibition of Sarah Lucas. We both had a nice salad in the canteen there and then went upstairs to walk around the exhibition.
Sarah Lucas seems to be obsessed with sex, virtually all her exhibits are related to sexual parts of the body and in particular to breasts.
This sort of art has no appeal to me. It appears that an exhibition like this has devoted from the concept of art as emotionally appealing or any sense of beauty. The object is to shock and only the insiders will understand the nature of the images, i.e. art for elitists only.
Garry and I both agreed on this. While the exhibition didn’t take up much space we both left the halls very quickly and continued on our walk. Our route from Tate Britain to Green Park Station took us past Buckingham Palace where King Charles was in residence according to the flag high up on the pole.
From Green Park we took the train home.