May 29: Tate Britain, Westminster Abbey, London Film Museum, British Museum Part II, Jamie Oliver's Italian Restaurant, Hay Fever.

Another lovely day in London.  We saw the Tate Britain Museum, Westminster Abby, the London Film Museum, and the British Museum.  We enjoyed a wonderful meal at Jamie Oliver's Italian Restaurant in Covent Garden.  We ended the day by seeing Hay Fever, with Lindsay Duncan, Kevin McNally, and Jeremy Northam.  Afterward, we went and stood by the stage door, and Alanna finally worked up the courage to get an autograph!  Jeremy Northam slipped away before I managed to gush all over him.  The play was excellent!

Alanna and Freddie Fox

Today we took the tube to the Tate Britain Gallery.  A lot of it is under renovation, but as is so often the case, the exhibits chosen to represent the collection were well selected, and we saw most of the works that we had hoped to see.  We did the walk through of the Twentieth Century, some of which we liked, and some of which was puzzling.  We particularly enjoyed the Pre-Raphaelites and the Gallery of Victoria Sentimentality.  Although one isn't allowed to take pictures, I've borrowed a couple from the Tate website.

Alanna's favourite:  "Sympathy"	This "Lady of Shallot" I thought suffered from overexposure in poster form.  However, like the Ophelia that Alanna bought to take home, the colours were amazing.  I was surprised that some of the pictures, particularly "The Awakening Conscience" were quite small.
I really love the energy of this sculpture.	This is called "The Ballad seller"

 There was an exhibition called "Migrations" at the Tate, and I was fascinated to see portraits of people who were slave traders, or who had built their fortunes through the work of slaves from Africa.  They look so ordinary, and I was somehow expecting to see some evidence of their inhumane acts in their faces.

We walked along the Thames, and got to see the flag raised above Parliament.  We got stopped by a policeman's whistle to let a car into the car park, and poor Alanna, who does not like London traffic at all, just about jumped out of her shoes.

Our next stop was Westminster Abby.  Not only is this a beautiful building, but so full of history.  Alanna has trouble with crowds, we've discovered. but was enduring the chapels with gritted teeth, and without complaints, until suddenly we got to Poet's corner.  We were ridiculous, the pair of us, as we found that we knew and admired so many of the people in the little section.  Ironically, it became poet's corner because of Chaucer's grave -- and he is buried in the abbey because of his day job, not because he is a great poet.   As we couldn't take pictures, I weighed myself down with a couple more guidebooks.

Released into the hot sunshine once again, we went into St. Margaret's church, which is quite substantial, but which looks like the Abbey's garage.   Sir Walter Raleigh is buried there, but I found it a quiet reverential place, and stopped for a moment to give thanks that we have had such a safe, happy, and inspiring trip.

We walked over the bridge and went to the London Film Museum.  We were glad to get a 5 pound reduction on the 13 pound usual admission.  We enjoyed the costumes from Iron Lady, and the film props, and that one could photograph many of the exhibits.  We also enjoyed reading about the early history of film production in London. However, neither of us is  particularly interested in Charlie Chaplin, and we found that there was sort of a randon hodge-podge selection of stuff. I liked seeing the stop motion figures of Ray Harry Housin, especially those from the 1981 Clash of the Titans, and Alanna liked seeing the TARDIS and the Daleks, as well as the Goblet of Fire.

We went by tube to the British Museum, where I forced Alanna to look at the Sutton Hoo helmets, and the Medieval Europe and Roman Britain exhibits.  What we really enjoyed was seeing the Enlightenment exhibit in the quiet and cool library.   

We walked through Soho and Covent Garden to retrieve our tickets, then went back to Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant, where we had the most amazing bruschetta of all time.  Four different toppings (each) on excellent Italian bread:  pea and mint "ripple"with ricotta and lemon; mashed broad beans (Alanna;'s favourite); wilted spinach; and aubergine.  Alanna had tuna fusilli and a "humble green salad" -- she raved about the buttermilk dressing -- and I had pea and mint ravioli in asparagus and marscapone sauce.

This evening we saw Hay Fever, a play by Noel Coward at the Noel Coward theatre, appropriately enough.  It was a treat to see a play performed by such professionals.  Although I am still in love with Jeremy Northam, he was unrecognizable in the role or the spineless diplomat.  We howled with laughter.

Tomorrow is our last day!