January to March 2019

The year began, as usual, with Paul going off skiing.

I visited Cheshire for my granddaughter’s birthday and we had some snow!

Nothing like Paul’s snow in Colorado and Utah though, and sledging on a bin bag was not a success, I’m afraid!

At the beginning of February, I made a second visit to the Burne Jones Exhibition at Tate Britain, and would have liked to take something home!

I was worried Paul wouldn’t like my choice though, so the reproductions remained in the shop I’m afraid. (It’s a mystery to me why all my photos of paintings come out squint!)

Later in February, my daughter-in-law and grandchildren were back for a further trip to the French Consulate, then I was off to Edinburgh again to visit friends. There are few photos of Edinburgh this time, but we did visit Glasgow and Dundee.

In Glasgow we visited the Kelvingrove Gallery and saw the famous Dalí Crucifixion.

I really liked this view of the Port of Algiers by Albert Marquet, a painter of whom I had previously never heard.

In Dundee, we went to see the newly opened V&A, but found the contents a little thin. It is still in the process of being opened and filled with objects, but I learned a bit about the history of Dundee - jute, jam and linoleum! This museum concentrates on Scottish arts and crafts, but my photos were rather poor because it was very crowded, so I won’t post them here.

This photo shows part of the outside of the museum on the left, with the polar vessel Discovery to the right of it. We didn’t have time to visit that, unfortunately, but intend to see it on some subsequent visit.

I was back up to Cheshire in early March, where we took the children to Beeston Castle, somewhere I had never visited before. I hadn’t realised how high it was, the climb up took ages and the views were stupendous, though the wind nearly blew us over!

After that, Paul was home again and we visited the Watts Art Gallery near Guildford, dedicated to the work of Frederick Watts. I wasn’t impressed with the paintings by the artist himself, but his wife Mary Watts decorated the nearby chapel and it was wonderful.

The end of March saw me visiting Kew for the wonderful spring flowers and blossom.

And there was time before the end of the month for another visit to the Tate Gallery - Tate Modern and Pierre Bonnard this time.