Planet Ruby Starrs

After what feels like weeks of packing the van... making mosquito nets... checking all the cutlery, plates...pans etc etc etc- we have hit the road for a Grand Tour of Europe. (Avoiding fires) But before we get the ferry from Portsmouth we are having a lovely couple of days catching up with old friends.   First, a really nice lunch in Derby and then a lovely evening meal sitting in the garden down in Woking. Today we got the train from Woking to Waterloo and went up to the big smoke to look at the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy.  I love the eclectic mix of all the different mediums, skills, sizes, colors although I have to say I thought it was quite monochrome this year... and there was nothing that grabbed me that said this is ''amazing''.  There was a lot of really nice interesting art though, and we had a very pleasant few hours wandering around trying to pick one that we liked best in each room. The photos...

Our final day on our London adventure.  We had expected to sleep late but the glorious bird song in the trees surrounding our gaff woke us up -that and the police sirens🤣 but to be honest mainly the bird song.   We were still very lazy and late to get going, we couldn't quite decide on a plan.   I think we'd kind of done London as much as we could this time around but in the end we decided to go look at the 1996 music exhibition in the Barbican music library.  We headed fpr the tube via the Keith Flint mural The Barbican exhibiwere very Oasis led (that and the Spice Girls).. and quite minimal input from Blur in spite of the several references to the rivalry between the two bands.   There was some interesting stuff on how dance music was evolving with the Ministry of Sound.  There was quite a comprehensive 1996 timeline - 30 years ago doesn't seem like that long 🤣 seems quite recent in terms...

Saturday had been a long day so we decided to have a lazy Sunday.  Our intention was to check out the local Sunday markets and have a walk in the park -  brunch out somewhere and see what happened from then on.   We had plans to be out in the evening which meant we had to leave home about half past four to get to where we needed to go so we didn't want to go far.   We set off for a walk around Dalston and Hackney.   it's very colorful, remember I'm a country mouse these days...   the markets were not as busy as the had been during the week but we found a really nice cafe by the park and we had a lovely lazy brunch and then we walked through the park deciding to head for the new V&A East Museum.   The museum is sited on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park.  My friend had had visited this area for the Paralympics and was really pleased to see that the whole Park has been totally utilized...

On Day 2 of our London trip we had a lazy start to the morning and then we walked down to the canal and along the canal side right through to Kings Cross.  It was an absolutely glorious sunny day and there were loads of boats out on the canal and a lot of runners - maybe more than usual as it was the day before the London Marathon.  we chatted to a couple of women that were trying to make people aware of the canal and were raising money...  we had a coffee and finally we walked up to the Lightroom.  We had tickets to see 'you're Not Alone' a Lightroom production about David Bowie. I have been a David Bowie fan ever since I found him when I was about 14 and I went to see him at Leeds rollerena when he was Ziggy Stardust with the Spiders from Mars and I was completely smitten. It was an excellent show. An immersive experience in a huge lightroom. Great visuals, great sound really well put together with some old classic ...

A little bit of an interim post.. I'm having a long weekend jolly in London with a friend and we're having a great time.  We are staying in an airbnb in sunny Dalston and it's fantastic place.  I'm not putting pictures up because it's somebody's home and that would be intrusive but it's very comfortable and very welcoming I'm full of interesting objects. Its part on an old chapel and its obvious someone creative lives here.  It has a place to sit on either outside so we can be in the sun both morning and evening... and is very convieient for tube stations so easy access to everywhere we want to go. We started on arrival with the Tracy Emin exhibition at the Tate Modern.  This has had very mixture revews and I have to say while I'm quite pleased to have been to see it I found it incredibly depressing and sad and pretty grim. ... and while I appreciate her openess and honesty I'm just not sure whether it's what I want to have shared...

Last week we were living a Scottish Georgian dream..  A group of friends renting an amazing stately home just south of Glasgow... Auchinleck House. It is a very large grand affair with a large number of (usually - see later) cosy sitting rooms a very large general living room - well equipped kitchen and posh dining room.  It sleeps 13, there were  actually 10 of us - and Dr Fred and I had an enormous room with a (faux) four poster bed.... It was only faux because the curtains were purely decorative but it was still lovely.  The whole house is stunning.  In keeping with its history, the furniture - while standard Landmark trust is supplemented with nice wooden closets, fancy tables and oil painted portraits pf unidentified often stern looking people.  Externally its a really imposing looking building with glorious carved stone work and at each corner there is a kind of gatehouse which all have fabulous...