Grey Skies and Graffiti

5th September – Friday

Another train, another trip up to London. I went up to London again last Friday, even though the skies were grey and uninspiring. I took the Tube to Blackfriars Station and walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern. I’m still a bit ill from Reading Festival (I know, it’s kind of crazy) and though it’s gotten better, I get sudden and really explosive coughing fits. And when I say explosive, I mean eyes-streaming-obnoxiously-loud-coughs that last for ten minutes straight explosive. So you know, I end up being a ticking time bomb and I possibly should have thought about that before planning a day in art galleries – as in many quiet, yet echoey rooms full of smart judgmental people. So yeah, getting a coughing fit in the middle of an exhibition at the Tate Modern was not on my gap year to-do list, but it happened anyway.

The Tate had some great free exhibitions on, Structure and Clarity, Energy and Process and Poetry and Dream. They all have such a mixture of artists and artworks – you can see the list here. I really enjoyed the Tate Modern, I’ve been once before and I loved it then and I loved it this time.

After that it was pretty late in the afternoon and I hadn’t had lunch so I was starving, so I went on a search for a Pret A Manger, because I was craving one of their falafel and halloumi hot wrap. My friend’s mum gave me that suggestion when I was in Reading and I literally love it so much. For some reason I couldn’t find a Pret, and if you’re in London in any given area you can see about 50 Pret’s in one day, so it was actually quite weird. The only thing that I could remember was seeing a Pret a Manger in Trafalgar Square, so that was my aim. I felt quite proud that I found my way without my map. So I got my wrap, and watched a million tourists taking selfies in front of the fountains.

I went to the National Portrait Gallery next, and it was also somewhere that I’ve been to, but I only did the oldest portraits and a Lucien Freud exhibition so this time I started from the 1900’s and also did the modern contemporary portraits – with everyone from Kate Middleton to Judy Dench. Catherine Goodman had a small room display, and her portraits were beautiful. The BP Portrait Awards were at the gallery, so you could see all the entries and the winners portraits. It was a great exhibition.

I took a lot of photos that day, as usual, and I think this is another day that’s just better said with pictures, so in another muddle of pictures, here’s what else I did.