London, the Downs and Autumn

This weekend we went up to London to take my dear one's grandson to the station to go home. Said grandson had been very useful chopping wood, not drawing water, but painting the other shed a deeper brown so that it blends more into the background of the garden. All very much appreciated, and we enjoyed having him to stay, but it was time for him to go back to the frozen north in Yorkshire, so he could spend the late afternoon kayaking at which, I understand, he is rather good.

Since we were there we took the time to look round.  The King's Cross refurbishment is stunning, a great filigree arc of steel and light which ties it all together and brings the outside inside in a breathtaking fashion.

After we'd seen grandson off, we wandered down to Tate Modern, now surrounded by all sorts of shiny new buildings cheek by jowl with the old.

We went to see the Munch Exhibition, which was extremely enjoyable,. but raised a lot of questions in my mind about the why's and wherefore's of what makes an artist's work notable, or worth seeing. I enjoy Munch's work, but the paintings on show seemed to me to be sketchy and unfinished, lacking the emotional resonance of some of his earlier works. There were also quite a few rather tiny, blurry photographs which, we whispered to ourselves sotto voce, might have been less notable had they been taken by someone else! Still, it was a good show and worth seeing. It's always a deep pleasure to be able to get up close to works of art, looks the brush strokes, the mark making, the blend and flow of the paint, feel the energy of the artist and then stand back and take in the whole.

When we left the Tate, we went around to the river side of the building to cross over the bridge to get the Tube. I absolutely love this planting of slender birch trees at the front, it always reminds me of Klimt's Birch Forests

 We crossed the Millennium Bridge

 Were amazed by the Shard

Then found ourselves a train to bring us away from the busy dirtiness of London and home through my beloved Downs

Once home I set to with putting the various bits of Autumn together - tacking on the left, very much in the style of Jude - whose videos are well worth watching if you want to see how her patient stitching build into wonderful things. Sadly her blog no longer has a list of links to individual videos, though they are still all there within the structure of her blog. On the right it all looks a little bit squonk but will, I hope, find more structure once the stitching happens. What stitching? Hmmm, not sure yet, I'm waiting for it to tell me, thought I do have an idea to begin with, and you can't go beyond until you begin.