Bermondsey, Bankside and Victoria Embankment

Friday was a very full day spent on both sides of the river. The weather cooperated through the daylight hours and we got some great views of Westminster, the City and Southwark.

I started my day at White Cube Bermondsey to see an exhibition of women surrealists called Dreamers Awake. I hadn't read much about it beforehand and there was no text in the gallery to help me understand what each artist's intent was or how the pieces fit in the surrealism movement. What I saw were some disturbing images, a lot of genetalia and many dismembered body parts. Not my favourite exhibition of those I've seen this week.

Molly caught me up and we walked up to Borough Market for lunch, followed by a walk along Bankside under a warm September sun. This was the weather I was hoping for, not the dreary damp of earlier in the week.

We reached Westminster Pier for my friend Jen's guided walk, Beyond the Great Stink. Jen does her walks through a collective called Footprints of London, a group of qualified guides who give well-researched walks on a variety of topics in locations all across the capital. This walk was no exception. I had read the book The Great Stink, but the walk really did take my understanding beyond the miasma. I learned a lot about Joseph Bazalgette's engineering of the sewers and the Embankment. We saw 16th and 17th century watergates, which showed us just where the pre- Embankment Thames would have been, and peered through a grate where we saw a platform on the District line just a few meters below us, made possible once the river was contained.

As it was Friday Lates, we were able to go back to the south bank and spend time at Tate Modern, where we saw Soul of a Nation, an exhibition of black American artists' work from the 60s and 70s. It's a massive exhibition that covers many themes and perspectives on a turbulent time in American history, and it exposed me to scores of artists I didn't know of. If I lived here, I'd go back and see the exhibition a second time.

We also went to the observation deck on the new extension (great views) and had a look round the building and the tanks.

Stats:
4 pounds 50 for lunch
8 quid for walk
7 pounds 50 for Tate exhibition (50% off with Art Pass)
A fiver for dinner at Leon (not great but ok)

30041 steps
12.97 miles

Exploring

Thursday was my day to explore Stepney and Mile End. On each visit to London, I choose at least one area I don't know, do my reading and research before coming, and set out with map and camera to explore. I used a walk in Stephen Millar's series London's Hidden Walks for my guide. (I have all three volumes of the series and think the walks are great.) This walk starts at Whitechapel station and ends at Bow Church, but I knew I wouldn't do it all.

Along the way, I passed former breweries, hospitals, social housing, a workhouse, two Jewish cemeteries and various institutions of education and culture. Through the buildings and the geography, I saw the history of immigration to this part of the East End, as well as poverty and wealth, alcohol and temperance, work and home, life and death. One of my favourite stops was Stepney Green, with a lovely garden in the middle. Around the green are Georgian houses, two Victorian social housing blocks, some more recent social housing, the Stepney Jewish School and a sweet little memorial clock tower. Just a few meters from the busy, noisy Mile End Road. it's a green oasis of quiet.

I made it as far as the Green Bridge when I knew it was time to start making my way back to Spitalfields to meet Molly at 1:30, so I hopped the tube from Mile End to Whitechapel and worked my way northwest towards Hanbury and Pedley streets, passing Spitalfields City Farm as I walked along. My destination was the Nomadic Community Gardens in the derelict goods yard to the east of Shoreditch High Street station. With so much development going on in Shoreditch, mostly unaffordable residential tower blocks, my fear is always that I'll return to the East End one year to find a monstrosity on this site. Happily, for now, the local community has taken the land for gardening and other community use. I had a sit down at the Roving Cafe and ate tuna mayo on a bagel, then rushed to Bishop's Square to meet Molly under the white goat (only five minutes late).

I'd promised Molly we'd look at streetart around Brick Lane, but first we popped into the Bishopsgate Institute to use the loo and look at the library. After that, we zigzagged around for a couple hours, then had tea and a sit down at the Albion Cafe in Red Church Street. No time to walk round the Boundary Estate, but we did go over to Village Underground to see the latest streetart piece by Ben Eine, which is in tribute to the survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Our final destination was the Walkietalkie, where I had booked us tickets for Sky Garden. We took in the view, had a drink and watched rain clouds move in from North London.

Stats:
£1.60 for cookies
£4 for lunch
£2.75 for tea
£3.20 for dinner (Sainsbury and M&S)
6 quid for a bottle of wine

30275 steps
13.33 miles

The Euston Road

Either the distance between points has gotten greater or I'm just not as speedy as I once was. Yesterday had me rushing from place to place in order to work everything in, but I managed to do it. Today's plan is probably overly ambitious given my slower mph, and I want to get an early start for my long walk on the Mile End Road, so this post will be brief.

Here's what I saw and did on Wednesday:

• Got to the Design Museum right when it opened. Saw two exhibitions -- Breathing Colour and California -- and took a quick look through the permanent collection. Also got a good look at the building, the former Commonwealth Institute, which is an amazing work of design.
• On to the V&A to see the Plywood exhibition and to look at the new entrance in Exhibition Road.
• Up to Regent's Park for the Frieze sculpture. Had to take shelter in the station to wait out a torrential downpour, then ducked under trees in the park as the sky changed from bright blue to stormy grey every five minutes. (Notice I have more to say about the weather than about the sculpture.)
• Met Molly and started our walk down the Euston Road. She likes Antony Gormley, so I promised I'd show her his four pieces along with the other public art I knew of between Regent's Park and King's Cross.
• Stopped in at the Wellcome Collection, one of my London favourite places, to see objects contributed by the public to represent their personal relationship with nature.
• Stopped at Platform 9 3/4 so Molly could get a snap of the punters getting their own snaps.
• Didn't make it up to Granary Square for a look around, but pointed out some of the refurbs and new development. I hadn't seen the buildings in the gasometers. Glad to see the beloved gasometers back in place, but not impressed with the look of the buildings. 
• Hopped the tube for the Barbican and walked to the Museum of London to hear the Gresham Lecture about the Thames by the bloke who used to be head of English Heritage. He told the history of the river through art, from the sixteenth century. Very interesting up to the end, when he covered the whole of the twentieth century with, "After the war, the Pool of London closed." No 20th century images. If he couldn't find a modern piece of art, I would have closed with a photo of the cranes lowering as Churchill's funeral barge passed, but I wasn't consulted.
• Back to Queen's Park for a pub meal at the Alice House.

Stats:

9 pounds for Design Museum exhibitions (50% off with Art Pass)

4 pounds 25 for quick lunch at EAT.

20 quid for dinner

23707 steps

10.17 miles

Art, Art and More Art

Tuesday was my day to be arty in central London. I arrived right on time to meet Judy at the Photographer's Gallery to see a large (all three floors of gallery space in the building) exhibition of large-format photos by Gregory Crewdson, called Cathedral of the Pines. The photos were all taken in Becket, Massachusetts, a town of about 2000 people in the Berkshires. Like all his work, these photos were highly staged, with great attention to detail, lighting and how people were posed. His aim was to depict intimate views of the working class residents of the town, in homes or in the landscape, and primarily in emotional and/or physical isolation. I had been looking forward to this exhibition and wanted to like it, but my overall impression was "meh." Less would have been more in this case.

We next moved on to two gallery shows, one recommended by a friend and one I had found on the ArtRabbit app. The recommended one was called Playground Structure and was at the Blain Southern Gallery in Hanover Square. A group exhibition of abstracts, all the pieces were in reference to or conversation with a large photo of a kiddies' climbing structure that formed various grids, lines and angles. Judy and I both enjoyed this show a lot.

Following the ArtRabbit app,  we wove our way around hoardings and heavy construction equipment to the nearby Ronchini Gallery to see work by Samantha Bittman, who combines weaving and painting to make vivid (and a bit eye-hurty) abstracts. Her technique is to first weave her pieces, I think in a jacguard pattern but I really don't know much about weaving, and then painting over some of the individual threads. I'm looking forward to showing photos to my friend Kay, a master weaver, who I'm sure will be able to explain it to me.

Zigging and zagging through Soho and Covent Garden, Judy delivered me at Somerset House, where I learned that the tour of the crypt was cancelled because the guide was ill. I tried to do the tour a few years back, but then too it was cancelled, that time due to flooding. So, we had a leisurely lunch that fueled me for my solo wanderings in the afternoon.

My Art Pass got me in free to the Courtauld Gallery, where I saw a small exhibition by the Bloomsbury Group and then meandered through much of the permanent collection.

Now in need of another sit down, I made my way to the Coliseum to meet Barbara for tea and a catch-up, which was lovely as always.

I had just enough time afterwards to pop into the NPG to see this year's BT Portrait Award exhibition and a very small exhibition of photos by the Douglas brothers before heading back to Queen's Park for a 7 pm Pilates mat class.

Back in my Airbnb, I heated up the mini quiche I bought Sunday at the farmers' market, then slept like a log.

Stats:
All the art was totally FREE
17 pounds for Pilates

24180 steps
10.52 miles

Camden Town, Highgate and Belsize Park

Monday was spent revisiting some old familiar places, while ticking off two more things I'd been meaning to do for a while. I arrived in Camden Town at 10 am, but needed to make a stop on my way to the Jewish Museum. My travel power strip/USB charger thing was acting up -- power kept going on and off, and it was feeling hot -- so I stopped at an electronics shop in Parkway, where I spent more than I wanted in order to charge my devices without burning down the flat.

I'm really interested in the history of the Jews in London, so had been meaning to go to the Jewish Museum. The special exhibition on Amy Winehouse, plus free entry on my Art Pass, moved it to the top of this year's list. The Amy exhibition, put together by her brother, centered on her childhood and teen years as well as her family history. It was fun (and sad) to see all the photos of her as a vibrant, healthy kid -- a nice Jewish girl from North London. The permanent exhibition was great, particularly the objects that people brought with them when they immigrated to Britain.

It was warm and sunny as I mooched around Camden Town, taking in Gloucester Crescent (where Alan Bennett had lived) and walked though Camden Lock Market and Stables Market for the first time in 10 years. It's crowded, expensive and overwhelming.

A quick tube ride got me to Archway, where I looked around in confusion among the multitude of bus stops before finding where to catch the 143 bus to Bisham Gardens. There, a short walk took me down the hill to the entrance to Highgate Cemetery where I met up with David to do the West Cemetery tour. I'd been to Highgate before, but only to the East Cemetery. Our guide was fantastic and I learned a lot about Victorian funereal motifs and about some of the people buried there. Just as the tour ended, the rain came pouring down, but we did manage to pop over to the East Cemetery to see Karl Marx, Elgar and a few other notable dead folks.

I then rode the C11 from Swain's Lane to Belsize Park, where I took refuge in a caff to wait out the rain. When it stopped, I meandered through some familiar streets and slowly made my way to the Finchley Road, where I had sushi for me suppa at the Udon Cafe. It was tasty and cheap.

Last thing on my itinerary was theatre -- a new play called Prism at the Hampstead Theatre in Swiss Cottage. It's about Jack Cardiff, a British cinematographer, who has dementia. Though I struggled a couple times to stay awake (due to my exhaustion, not because the play was dull) I thought it was witty, touching and well-acted.

The 187 took me back to Queen's Park, where I fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow.

Stats:
33 pounds for 7 day zones 1-2 travel card
15 pounds for power adapter
Jewish Museum FREE with Art Pass
12 pounds Highgate Cemetery Tour
27 pounds for theatre ticket (Monday tix are the cheapest)
3 pounds 55 for falafel wrap at Cafe Nero
2 pounds 50 for tea at Gail's
5 pounds 80 for sushi for diner

26473 steps
10.93 miles