1) Marriotts That Include Breakfast may always be guaranteed to offer miniature chocolate croissants, and I am so grateful.
2) Today was entirely unscheduled — thank goodness, as my flight plans changed — and suddenly I thought “Why not go to the Tate?” And wouldn’t you know it, they have a special exhibition about the Rossettis on, which made it a natural choice.
3) One might think that the London Underground would be like the MBTA, or even the New York subway. But it is really like the commuter rail, with travel zones and comparable pricing.
4) It will not surprise you to learn that I arrived at the Tate just a whisper before opening. Sitting on a stone bench contemplating some homoerotic statuary, I couldn’t help but notice an elderly lady drifting about it my vicinity. She had signs of colorful eccentricity about her: knitted cap with silk roses pinned to it, three inches of blue-green paisley skirt showing beyond the hem of her Carnaby Street-ish coat (white dots on narrow black), and the telltale warning sign for me: unsteady eye liner. And I thought to myself “Please, please do not speak to me.”
Homoerotic statue outside the Tate.
4a) She spoke to me.
4b) And you know, we had a lovely conversation. No, she was not here from Australia for the coronation, just to see family, but it was so cold and she loved the Rossettis. So that was an unexpectedly pleasant start to my Tate visit!
5) The family visited the Tate when we were here that Christmas (it must have been 1987), and I was surprised that all I could remember of it was a) its size, and b) Millais’s famous Ophelia, of which I bought the poster in the gift shop. Turns out I remembered the size wrong, too; some of the galleries are vast, but overall the museum is not that large.
I thought I had taken more pictures in the Rossetti exhibition.
6) Overall, what I saw fell into four categories: a) Marvelous, b) I Never Would Have Thought of That, c) Why Is This Art? (also It’s Not Art Just Because They Say So), and d) I’d Appreciate This More If My Feet Didn’t Hurt So Much. Most of the Rossetti exhibition fell into the first category; it took me an hour to see all of it, beautiful and thought-provoking. The last, sadly, was much of their dazzling collection of JMW Turner, which is beautifully presented. But I was seeing it at the very end.
Often modern art is best repurposed as a background for selfies.
6a) So often during this museum visit I would remember friends or others with whom I’ve talked about art, and what they love. One friend loves Mark Rothko, and there was a beautiful Rothko very sensibly hung in a room full of Turners. Another once told me he wanted to be buried at sea, and there was a moving Turner painting of just that. The Rossetti exhibition started out with poetry about mothers and children, which made me think of my precious great-niece and her mamma.
This, on the other hand, is marvelous.
7) So often I thought about my father, too, because like him, I am beginning to look for places to sit down. (Also, I have returned to size 36.) With no clear plans for the rest of the day, I knew I must indulge in my favorite vice that’s so risky in public: napping. And so I did, like a block of wood, for over 45 minutes.
Marvelous.
8) In the late afternoon I wandered over to Kensington High Street for a little promenade and window shopping. Of course a bookstore would enter into this, and I walked out of a Waterstone’s with 1939: the Last Season by Ann de Courcy. So far it is a lot less on debutantes and a lot more on social conditions, but I have hopes.
9) I noticed a smart café with a sign identifying it as The Ivy. “Not The Ivy, is it?” I asked myself, thinking of the one that keeps turning up in theatrical memoirs and that Noel Coward mentions in a few of his stories (like “Star Quality.”) Turns out probably not, but I had a sumptuous little dinner there, absolutely tossing aside my good intentions to pick up something prepared from Tesco. Travel must allow for spontaneity.
9a) First, an Old British cocktail (gin, elderflower, mint, lime, and champagne) and a first course of asparagus and hollandaise. Then a bacon cheeseburger with some amazing fri — uh, chips — that had a pale tomato horseradishy business with them. Halfway through that my second drink arrived, their King’s Martini in honor of the coronation: Beefeater Crown Jewel, Aker English Dry apertif, Pierre Ferrand, garnished with a grapefruit twist (which I made them switch to a lemon for me). WOW. It’s worth noting that they serve their martinis in high-stemmed coupe glasses.
9b) And then for dessert, a chocolate bombe set in a sea of foamy meringue, over which the waiter poured a small pitcher of hot caramel sauce, melting the chocolate shell of the bombe to reveal the vanilla ice cream within. Not just dessert, it’s dinner theatre!
9c) It just kills me that they had a no photography policy, but I was not tempted to violate it — except to photograph the signs in the lobby.
10) I thought about rambling through a nearby bit of Holland Park, but it was too cold for my jacket. But walking home I saw the most beautiful white camellias!
11) Tomorrow, Kensington Palace and the Queen’s Gallery at Buck House!
