Another Place

It's been a busy day today. I went to visit Rach before she went to the hospital to feed Scarlett - I had lots of presents for her and saw Scarlett's new wheels, which look great! Anyway, the good news is that she's happy for me to visit her tomorrow :-)

Then I had to go round to our 'old' house to meet our 'new' tenants. They seem a nice couple with a little boy of 19 months, and are very excited about moving in, which is great.

I had a quick visit with my in-laws - they've been wonderful with Rachel in our absence and I really appreciate it! Then I went to pick up my friend Alison and we went to the beach :-) Ok, I know it's not bikini weather, but I love the beach at any time of the year and today we went to Waterloo. Not Waterloo in Belgium obviously, but Waterloo in Merseyside!

The reason we went was to see 'Another Place' by Antony Gormley. There are 100 cast iron, life size sculptures on the beach, and each one weighs 650 kgs. They are made from casts of the artist's body, and are shown at different stages rising out of the sand.

According to Wikipedia Antony Gormley, Another Place harnesses the ebb and flow of the tide to explore man's relationship with nature. He explains: "The seaside is a good place to do this. Here time is tested by tide, architecture by the elements and the prevalence of sky seems to question the earth's substance. In this work human life is tested against planetary time. This sculpture exposes to light and time the nakedness of a particular and peculiar body. It is no hero, no ideal, just the industrially reproduced body of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe, facing a horizon busy with ships moving materials and manufactured things around the planet."

It's amazing to see them, and interestingly they were once on display on the beach at De Panne in Belgium, before being permanently moved here. The tide was already coming in, so many were already submerged by the sea, but I love this photo of the naked man with the seagulls.

Hopefully the see breeze has blown away the cobwebs and any remining germs. We're now back at Alison's enjoying a bottle of fizz as a belated birthday celebration for me, and to toast baby Scarlett. I hope you're having a lovely Sunday too!