First culture of the year

Had to do two teaching observations at the same place yesterday. Unfortunately there was a five-hour gap between them. Although five hours sounds like a lot of time, it wasn't enough to get back to my office and do anything useful before it would be time to leave again for the second observation. So what to do?

I walked across Tower Bridge for the first time since I was a child. I remember being really scared when the middle section wobbled and rattled, thinking the bridge might open up while I was on it. It felt much less wobbly than I remember. Maybe that's a function of age, or maybe the shock absorbers are better these days.
You can still see the water in the gap between the two opening parts of the bridge. I have seen the bridge open, but very rarely.


On the other side of the water, I hopped on a river bus to the Tate Modern, and went to the Rothko exhibition, which was great. I really like Rothko.

The turbine hall of the building always has a free exhibition, usually some type of installation on a grand scale, and the current exhibition has a number of interesting pieces, including a reproduction of Louise Bourgeois's "Maman".

You can see the scale by looking at the little people in the photo I took from the second floor gallery. I think I was really brave to get this close to this particular piece. You who know me will know why.

I had time to look around the rest of the free galleries, but was only struck by one piece:30 pieces of silver, which was really beautiful.

Decided to have lunch in the top floor restaurant, and ordered posh fish and chips. It looked lovely. Golden chips and crisp battered haddock. Sadly, the batter was so crisp that it shattered when I tried to cut it, rendering it uneatable. The fish inside the batter was nondescript, and the chips were just okay, not as good as they looked. I should have gone to the cafe on the ground floor, where I had a really good lunch last time I was at the Tate. That will teach me to try to go upmarket. In future I will "know my place".