My friend Sam has been travelling, and I finally caught up with her today in her last few hours before catching her plane back to Australia. Much chat of a superior quality was revelled in and we trotted along to the Royal Academy to see their J.W. Waterhouse show. Some very fine paintings there, but also quite a lot of sketches, which I always find particularly interesting – a number of sketchbooks and also sketch-studies for various paintings. Well worth the entry fee.

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Went to the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre to see their mammoth, then to the Museum of the Gorge. Both pretty good. I think the Shropshire Hills one was probably a bit more interesting. It had a fair bit on the geology and earlier history of the area. And, of course, a mammoth!

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at Tate Modern as a little birthday treat to myself. Interesting. Now I want to do things with lines!

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At the “Last Debutantes” exhibition at Kensington Palace. Very interesting! Some great 1950s clothes. Also had a lovely walk through Holland Park on the way home.

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At the National Gallery. Interesting. I didn’t really know his work, but some nice stuff there. He seemed a bit uncertain as to what to do with the English light or lack thereof in the earlier ones, but the later Welsh seascapes are beautiful.

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Only had the morning really in Brussels before needing to get lunch and go and check-in for my train, so I went to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, which was absolutely fantastic and huuuge and worth a good deal more than the measly €5 they charge to get in. Had a last wander round the Grand Place with my lunch when I was done, then bought specaloos and some PIMs for John from the supermarché near the hostel before collecting my bag and heading to the station.

Knitted on the Eurostar on the way home and a French lady opposite told me my scarf was “très jolie” and that she’d always wanted to learn how to knit, so I told her it wasn’t very hard – only 2 types of stitches to be learnt. Nice to have a good exchange in French, however small.

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Went to S.M.A.K. (contemporary art gallery) and then the normal art gallery in Ghent. I wasn’t that taken with anything much in S.M.A.K. but it was marvellous to see a gallery devoted entirely to the work of living artists, and there was a very nice wonky stool made by some Italian chap which I rather liked. The other art gallery was fabulous, especially the modern section – mostly Belgian artists I’d never heard of, but some beautiful pieces there.

Had frites for lunch, then boarded a train back to Brussels and went and wandered around the Grand Place for a bit, visited the Manneken Pis to see what he was wearing (nothing at all, but apparently earlier in the month he’d been dressed as a dentist) and then went and indulged in a hearty and not too expensive spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. Yum! More knitting when I got back to the youth hostel.

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Because once definitely wasn’t enough. Twice even isn’t enough, but I doubt they’d let me take any of the Seagram murals home and they for-sure wouldn’t fit on my walls if I did!

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Finally got to see the Rothko exhibition, which I loved but Simone seemed a little underwhelmed by it. Then we went and had a look at the Cildo Mereiles, which she loved but I wasn’t that taken with it. Some nice bits, but not really my sort of thing. Had a stunning peppermint tea in the members’ room – I think I need to get a tea-strainer so I can make peppermint tea with proper loose-leaf peppermint leaves. SO much nicer than the bagged stuff.

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Specifically, the Jackfield tile museum and the Coalbrookedale Museum of Iron – both excellent and some lovely designs on display.

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