Playlist
Various - Holiday Acquisitions
Last morning in Lille...
Coffee at the apartment...
...with birds outside...
..who had patently failed to detect this beast inside, which, over the course of the week, had left a few too many very itchy bite marks on Mr CBQ's legs...
We allowed it to live to bite another day (and leg)...
Out for the last time...
..and goodbye to an excellent bolt hole...
Out onto the street for the trundle to the Eurostar...
...with a cheeky wee pain au chocolat each on the way...
Back at the station...
...and a short wait...
...before boarding...
...and snoozing once again until just before London...
On the street just after 10, local time...
...and to our apartment near King's Cross where we would spend tonight...
Despite not being able to check in fully until two, they let us leave our bags and we took the tube to Chelsea and the V&A...
...where a pianist was playing a selection of David Bowie songs in the cafe - a nice touch to end on "Where Are We Now" form his latest album...
We looked through the map and decided on the areas we wanted to visit and went round them all...
Some wonderful sights...
...and astonishing artefacts...
...including a replica of one of the earliest known maps of the world...
On we went...
Good cat picture!
Tintoretto...
Amazing old books, perfectly preserved...
This is a carved model used by artists to get proper perspective when they came to paint the scene...
One of only a very few which survive...
Goodness knows where they got these columns from - I suspect they may have been, let's say, partaken of without perhaps permission having been asked of the locals...
And here. my namesake...
A veritable treasure trove of "stuff"...
Up to the "entertainment" section...
This isn't actually a rhino, it's a stage prop used a century or so ago - it required two men inside it to work it using something similar to a tandem bicycle...
Famous Hamlet skulls...
Early Floyd poster...
A Townsend smashed guitar...
Mr Reed...
An original Jamie Reid for a Pistols poster...
A T-Shirt for a Knebworth Festival attended by Count Brodski and I back in 1978, featuring The Tubes, Frank Zappa and Peter Gabriel...
The Move...
...and rock journalist Charles Shaar Murray...
...who, with colleague Barry Miles, followed up a very interesting and informative talk by the curator of the current "David Bowie is" exhibition, with a chat about Bowie and music in general, in the 60's and 70's...
Very interesting indeed...
We didn't make it into the Bowie exhibition as we couldn't get tickets for today and are leaving tomorrow..
...but we enjoyed a browse in the specially curated Bowie section of the gift shop....
Out and back to check in properly, this the V&A from the street...
Unpacked...
...and then to nearby Marchmont Street for much needed coffee and cake...
Back again to the hotel and prepping for tonight's visit to the Saddler's Wells ballet...
A walk from King's Cross to Islington...
...and a look round The Angel, as featured in the book Anne read on holiday, "A Streetcat Named Bob"...
...before heading to the theatre...
...for two pieces by the Israeli choreographer and composer, Hofesch Schechter, "Uprising" and "The Art of Not Looking Back"...
An excellent unrestricted view for us for this quite breathtaking display of sound and vision - brilliant...
...and followed nicely by dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant...
Tasty...
...rounding off the day and the holiday very nicely indeed...
Tomorrow back to Edinburgh...
Highlight of the day : Bowie stuff, ballet and good food...