A trip to the Big Smoke, and the Celts Exhibition...

One of the nice things about living where I do is that it's only an hour and a bit on the train to London, and if you get your tickets far enough in advance you can get a right reasonable fare down to the capital for the day. Which is what I did yesterday. The only reason I wanted to go was to see the Celts exhibition at the British Museum, but I thought I would tie in a visit to the V&A as well and have a good look at the stained glass collection.

I could spend hours and hours in the British Museum just drawing. I love it. I was so glad that I made the effort to get to see the exhibition as well, because it was brilliant. I made lots of drawings of patterns, to use as inspiration for future artwork. Some of the artifacts they had in there were really incredible, and included a shield found in the river Witham, Lincolnshire, a local landmark!

At the V&A we paid a visit to the cafe and had tea, partly because by this point we really needed a cup of tea but also because the V&A cafe is beautiful! It was about 6pm by this point (so it was dark), the place was lit with soft lighting and there was a pianist playing something that sounded sophisticated. Luxury!

Saw some nice stained glass examples, and was completely blown away by several of them - the detail! Can't get my head around it! The people that painted these must have had terrible eyesight by the time they finished!

After that things started to get a little odd, as we had unwittingly planned our visit to coincide with the V&A's Friday Late which happens on the last Friday of the month. We were quite intrigued to see what it was all about and I can now say that it was very surreal. Renaissance nudes and pumping disco beats - interesting combination!

It was too busy for us to see much of what was going on, but it was really cool to soak up the atmosphere. It's great that the museums are open late on Fridays as well, as it meant we could get our cheap ticket down there in the afternoon and come back at 11pm. Can highly recommend that as a day trip plan for anyone who needs a little boost of inspiration.