Skip to main content

Nature and Culture

We have been gallivanting around the Forest of Dean eating wild boar sausage rolls and crashing through undergrowth looking for esoteric crags... Well Dr Fred has - I followed slightly less enthusiastically - enjoying stunning scenery and some interesting flora and fauna. 
texture

Its been quite hot which makes moving at any speed and distance hard work but I'm not going to complain just take it steady and enjoy the summer... it wont last too long.  we camped at the yew tree inn just out side Ross on Wye - we had been before - it was adequate but not as nice as we remembered it - I think last time we were desperate and pitched up the one night of the week they served food - out main reason for stopping at a pub camp site - fortunately we had supplies with us so we didn't starve and the beer was quite nice..
Forest

Having exhausted local crags in  Ross on Wye and then headed for r&r at hotel chez friends in Bath - excellent facilities - fantastic food and good company - even some sunshine thrown in - rare whenever I visit Bath and they have a lovely garden to sit out in. 

The weather didn't hold so we took advantage of a rainy afternoon and went to visit The Holburne Museum - an eclectic mix of art which included and very lovely piece by Graham Fagan called A Slaves Lament -  a collaboration with reggae artist Ghetto Priest, composer Sally Beamish and dub producer Adrian Sherewood to produce  a musical installation of A Robert Burns poem representing slavery - (this is a simple explanation) - its in a gallery where there are many portraits of slave traders... making an obvious point.
A Slaves Lament

There was also a charming collection of work by Lauren Child - a childrens illustrator known mainly for her Lola and Charlies books.  It included some of her sketch books, works in progress , finished works and some 'stage set' scenes made to illustrate fairy tales.
Lauren Child The Princess and the Pea

There was also a visiting exhibition of work by Edouard Vuillard and a very interesting display of craft collected by one person over several decades showing all different facets of art and crafts.
ceramic bag and contents

All this was intermingled with the permanent collection - lots of traditional Victorian art much of it associated with the locality and people who lived and worked in and around Bath.

Its a lovely museum, just the right size to avoid museum leg and has a good balance of exhibits to cover all taste.... nice cafe too.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris.  It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing!  All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space...  and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air -  but eventually we wound up in gay Paree...  We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff.  A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats.  It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira.  An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed.  First of all the weather is really splendid.  Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds..  Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm.    Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs.   In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill.  It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town -  completely over everybody's house...  So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet...  Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets?  Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be.    But most of the stuff is just northern lights  tat or Troll tat.    Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum!  We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art.  We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls.  This museum was absolutely crazy daft...  it was totally dedi