On the buses

Breakfast in the hotel lobby which was quiet and peaceful.  We set off from Clerkenwell to go to see the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery.  We decided to go by bus, got the top seat and had a whale of a trip as Clerkenwell gave way to the City, we hopped over Blackfriars down through Elephant & Castle and Camberwell.  The exhibition was fascinating.  The young wife of Ravilious she was a talented artist of woodcuts until children and the war ended her career. He of course died when his plane was lost off the sea in Iceland and her work changed and became very personal and whimsical.  One of the treasures was her scrapbook, that female axis of domestic creativity (see extra).   Her final paintings were exquisite and surreal.  She wrote a long, lucid autobiography that was published by Persephone which Tamsin Greig read excerpts of on the exhibition guide, before dying young of cancer. There was also the bonus of some beautiful Ravillious paintings, domestic and subtle. 

Took the bus back to Spitalfields.  It was freezing cold so we didn’t eat in the market as planned but popped inside to a wine bar we went to last year and had a bowl of good pasta. We did a bit of mooching about but went back to the hotel to recoup and have tea. 

In the evening was HB ‘s festive dinner which was huge fun.  I had made the gravadlax and some Christmas pudding bonbons to serve on the pink Mosser glass plate I’d got her.   We started at 6pm and got away about 11. So a good evening