Ofili at the Laing

The watercolour exhibition at the Laing has been on for ages but it wasn’t till now I had the chance to visit. I was able to fit it in between Ella’s singing and Nathaniel’s sports afternoon.

I couldn’t take photos at Ella’s thing “for safe-guarding reasons “, but we were entertained by 150 happy children singing beautifully. I had always thought she and Andrew were tall for their ages but seeing the whole year group together I see they are average. Maybe children are just taller nowadays.

Afterwards we walked with #3 daughter to admire her allotment. She’s put in a lot of hard work there. She went back to work and we went to town, Mr C to replace his lost fleece. Nathaniel said he had to get another red one as he’s seen him in that all his life. I concurred, as it shows up on blip!

I went to the Laing. The exhibition was a bit of a Curate’s egg. Lots of interesting work covering 4 centuries, but too much and hung too close together. Also some were so high up they could only be viewed from the other side of the room. I had a few favourites - this Ofili, a Mawuena Kattah, Edward Bawden’s portrait of a Kurdish watchman in WW2, Nerys Anne Johnson’s Tyne Bridge and Doges Palace, Edward Burra in Harlem and Wyndham Lewis’s stark mixed media of two women.

We then headed to Nathaniel’s sports afternoon. His dad needed to rest as he is on early nights so that he can go to hospital tomorrow for his spinal scan. This is to establish the damage already done by MS. He’s still waiting for the lumbar puncture before discussing things with the consultant in September.

Nathaniel is such an enthusiastic little boy, giving his all in the team activities and getting a bronze medal for the individual 50m race. He and his friend Daniel were teamed with another lad who struggled with all the events. Nathaniel praised him for his efforts in everything, happily cheering him on to the finish, and didn’t seem to mind that he and Daniel had to score all the points for the 3 of them. (If James tomorrow has similar sort of games I can imagine he’ll work out a way to cheat the system if he’s not winning - his mum says he took a short cut in the recent park run, so she didn’t let him records his time).

I was boiling in the hot temperatures. Let’s hope for a sea breeze tomorrow!