On Wednesday morning I was standing on the northbound platform at Crewe Station. The destination board said that the train was going to Edinburgh however the display on the door of my carriage said, ‘next stop Tamworth’, which was a little disconcerting. Fortunately, we did leave heading in the right direction and before 7.30am were at Warrington where the train spotters were already out on the platform. I was going up to Edinburgh a few days ahead of James to get some spring cleaning done but did find time to explore a gallery I have not been in before. The Talbot Rice Gallery is in Old College and free to enter. Old College is undergoing some renovation now but the dome was still visible.
One of the exhibitions was Between Poles and Tides comprising new acquisitions from the university collection and focusing on elemental forces, natural rhythms, destruction, social discord and displacement. It consists of works by David Batchelor, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Ilana Halperin, Jessica Harrison, Fabienne Hess, Daniel Hughes, Daisy Lafarge, Jonathan Owen, Katie Paterson, Isobel Turley, Luc Tuymans and JL Williams
I particularly enjoyed Ilana Halperin’s works which were new to me
Paterson’s Future Library
and works by a familiar artisit, Ian Hamilton Finlay. Here is Les Femmes de la Revolution after Anselm Kefer
and Bicentenary Tricolour
Also on display was The Torrie Collection, the University of Edinburgh’s founding art collection being exhibited in the Georgian interior of Gallery 2. It consists mainly of Dutch and Flemish 17th and 18th century painting and Renaissance sculpture.
Back at the flat, the cherry tree outside is in flower, a little earlier than usual. The wood pigeons enjoy the petals
The wood pigeons were enjoying the petals
and some passers-by spent ages taking photographs of the tree, selfies with the tree in the background and persuading one of my neighbours to take a shot of them both. I think they were Japanese and perhaps missing the cherry blossom back home.
On the way home through the borders we saw some of the first upland lambs. Lambing in the uplands lasts from mid March to May so there will be many more on my next trip.
Tag: spring
Looking for spring en route to Edinburgh
Friday’s mild, warm and sunny weather had lulled us into a false sense of security and we really did not want to believe the weather forecasts. I even managed my Street Pastoring shift without any rain and the thermometer still read 8 degrees at midnight. We were up at 5.30 this morning but the birds were already up ahead of us and singing in the trees. Despite only getting a few hours of sleep, I was glad we were driving up to Edinburgh today and not yesterday when the M6 was stationary heading northbound at 3pm. James did not change gear from getting on the motorway to leaving it 100 or so miles later for breakfast at Tebay. Up here it was very windy and a few ducks were braving the waves on the pond but these and a few seagulls stayed on the grass.
The tops of the hills were shrouded in mist but as we approached the city, it brightened up a little. In Edinburgh, signs of spring abounded. The crocuses were out on Bruntsfield Links although a little battered.
In town, the buskers were out, there seemed to be almost as many people handing flyers out as there are in August and the Socialist Worker Party were trying to get more signatures for their latest petition. I always check the mural on St John’s Church at the West End, this is the latest:
We had planned to do most of the necessary jobs in town on foot but halfway through, it poured down with rain so it was back to the car. The cherry tree outside the flat is coming into flower but the wind is already blowing a lot of the petals off. As we won’t be here for another month, I will probably miss the big show. It is certainly not a weekend for hill-walking or beach-combing.