Wednesday, May 13, 2015

London


We've been away visiting Daughter 2 in London. This is her living room...

 
... and this is the block where she and her husband have bought their flat. It's nice, but quite far out of central London; and yet very expensive compared to Edinburgh.
 

This is the apartment block that she's been refurbishing - in Kensington - much more central. The three-bedroom apartments are rented out, per month, for about six times my monthly salary when I left work. She showed us round one that's not taken yet.


They're admittedly rather grand...


... and set in a lovely square with beautiful gardens.


Then we went to the Victoria and Albert museum, where they had a notice up in lights: "All this belongs to you". In which case, I'd like these little wooden heads: a man's and a woman's, beautifully carved. They would fit nicely in my dining room.


Another day we went to Dulwich Picture Gallery, which has a very nice restaurant - see above - where we had lunch.


In the garden outside was this beautiful tree - according to its notice, a Judas tree.

Dulwich is really lovely and again very expensive: a fairly ordinary-looking house in a pleasant street would cost two million pounds or more. We know this because there are a lot of estate agents in the main street - and also an independent bookshop, posh clothes shops, shops with desirable decorative items and cafés with tempting cakes. Maybe Daughter 2 can move there once her actor husband hits the big time.

The purpose for our visit to Dulwich was to see the exhibition of Eric Ravilious watercolours. He was a war artist who was killed in a plane crash in 1942 at the age of 39. He was a wonderful artist; Daughter 2 and I agreed that we'd be very happy to have almost any of his paintings on our walls. He left a wife and three children and, to add to the sad story, his wife died of cancer in 1952.


Dulwich Park is beautiful too. I imagine that this oak tree will still be there when we're all gone from this world. I always find this a comforting thought: we have our little troubles but trees just grow steadily on, dropping their leaves and growing new ones; as they must.

7 comments:

  1. I find all house/flat prices in the UK extremely high.

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  2. It might belong to you, but I bet you would get into trouble if you took anything home!

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  3. Beautiful visiting your dear daughter in London in the spring. Is April in Paris any more lovely than May in London? Or Edinburgh?

    Both times I was in Edinburgh it was June and enchanted.

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  4. Oh my goodness we could so easily have bumped into each other at all of those places last week!

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    1. Oh, I wish we had!! Of course, maybe we did...

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  5. I too would be happy to have any Eric Ravillious picture on my wall, cheaper than a house in Dulwich but probably still out of my price range, which I have to admit is fairly limited. I saw the exhibition with my mum. I'm looking forward to seeing 'All this belongs to you' at the V&A. With a title like that, I hope you didn't have to pay to see it.

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  6. It looks like you had a wonderful weekend. I can't wait to go to the V&A again. And DD2's apartment is so pretty!

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