Not only is the coat tree up:

It’s flowering!

Sorry.

What can I say.

We’re also trying to pick a white for the trim…

What’s that you say? Just paint the damn thing white? But which white…?

Anyhow.

We had the weekend off and headed down to old London town, which it turned out was a fantastic plan. We got to go to the photography exhibit that we’d both wanted to see – although it was almost devoid of women photographers, which was really rather sad considering that women were really quite in to the photography m’larky from the start (and the Cardiff photography exhibit was much more balanced male/female) – but we both enjoyed it anyway. One of the most astonishing images is a one called “A portrait of Christina wearing a red cloak“. There’re actually a few of these shots of Christina, and they mainly look stunningly modern. The pose and dress could be, well, they could be taken now. But they were actually shot over 100 years ago. The exhibit ended this weekend, so it was pretty damn cool that we managed to sneak in just before the end.

Anyhow, whilst we were at the Science Museum we also saw the Daphne Oram / Oramics / BBC Radiophonic Workshop display, with the wonderful Oramics machine.

I’d forgotten that they had restored this, and had it out on display… it’s incredibly inspiring to see it. One of the true pioneers of electronic music…

We also headed over to the V&A (actually we did that first) where we pottered around enjoying the delights. It remains one of my favourite museums and I must admit to being childishly entertained by the candlestick model of an elephant clearly created by someone who’s never actually seen an elephant.

I was also amazed by the turban combined with throwing weapons. Very James Bond.

After our Museum meandering we squeezed in a visit to Persephone Books (which led to book purchases, of course), and then to Gay’s the Word (err, more books) before popping to Bang Bang Canteen (a random but very nice Vietnamese restaurant which is also incredibly reasonably priced, particularly for London) and then hitting up our final destination: Coffee, Cake and Kisses which is a spin off from Coffee, Cake and Kink (which was an ace and very accepting place to go and relax). I highly recommend CC&K’s new venture; Alana was incredibly friendly, and we had a generally lovely time accompanied by delicious cake.

Finally we headed home, getting back just before midnight… I think we managed to cram enough in.