Monday 18 November 2013

Last few days.

We’ve had a great couple of nights out over the weekend.  Saturday we had a fun time in Soho when we met a group of teachers from Yorkshire who were down for the weekend to meet up with friends in London (no photos –sorry).  Sunday was a miserable day weather wise, dull, cold and drizzly,  so it was a case of staying in and keeping warm for most of the day.  The evening, however, wasn’t wasted. 

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As we’re nearing the end of this short break we went to good old Compton's and met up with a few friends that we’ve had some great times with in London this year.  Here’s Doug (in mid laugh as usual) with Sid and Steven.

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Today we needed some exercise and decided to venture towards Kensington.  We had a nice lunch in one of those wonderful old London pubs and, on leaving, we passed the lovely Brompton Oratory.  We had a quick look inside (glorious woodwork and marble, polished to within and inch of its life and certainly worth a look – no photos allowed) before going on to visit ………

 

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……….. the Victoria and Albert Museum.  James has been to most of the museums in London over the years but not this one. 

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Being far too big to see everything we plumped for European sculpture and Raphael paintings.  Sadly there was no photography allowed of the most wonderful (and huge) collection of Raphael artwork which is on loan from HM the Queen.

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The architecture of the courtyard is surprisingly different to the main frontage of the building.

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Back inside, the collection of Rodin sculptures were amazing – especially this stunning one of St John the Baptist.

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Walking past the fabulous Natural History museum, which we’ve been in many times, but we couldn’t  resist a peep inside ……

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…… to make sure they’d done the dusting.

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We chose the route through Hyde Park to walk back to Paddington.  The trees are in the last stages of showing off their autumn colours but it was still worth seeing.  It’s turned much colder over the last couple of days but we’ve been so lucky to have such good weather for this last week.  We’re heading back and putting ‘Chance’ in the marina tomorrow as James has an expensive dental appointment in Chichester to attend soon.

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