Sunday 31 July 2016

Tate Modern :: Switch House

About a month ago, I was watching the local news as they announced the opening of the new ten storey extension to the Tate Modern. This surprised me no end, since I cycle past the gallery every day and had not noticed this apparently very large addition! Jasmin and I were in the area recently having brunch (here) and as it was a nice day I suggested we pop over to see the new part. It's located just behind the original Boiler house section, and isn't that noticeable from the river side (which is presumably why I hadn't noticed it at all!) 

We were there on a Saturday, so it was pretty busy. The new galleries were fairly interesting, and weird as to be expected from a Modern Art gallery. Unfortunately the lifts to the 10 floor, where the viewing platform is, were constantly full and the queues to board were crazy. So we decided to leave that for the day.

The following week I had a few days off of work, so I headed back down early on in the day mid-week to take a look. I always like to climb up tall buildings and enjoy the view and this was no exception. It's right on the river and the weather was pretty clear so I could see a fair way across the city. There was one side that basically just looked straight into the apartment buildings next door - with floor-ceiling windows - which I can't imagine the residents are particularly happy about, but I did enjoy gazing out East to my side of town!

I would say that the view isn't as good as that from the Sky Garden in 20 Fenchurch street, but I'm always happy to have a new place to head for free views of the city.



Jasmin and her origami box


The following were from the Louise Bourgeois permanent exhibition. I was familiar with her work, as its often spider shaped!













Busy busy lift





Canada Water right back there across from Canary Wharf






Apartment living



Sunday 3 July 2016

Wanderings Lately :: June

June had flown by! It has mostly been characterised by everyone moaning about the weather. This includes me, and has meant that I haven't been able to cycle to work as much as I had hoped. Rain on and off all day, almost every day! So far our first couple of days of July have seen a little better weather, but still temperamental. 

June was my first full month without dissertation responsibilities, and I actually don't think I have used to time as well as I could have, so for the next month, I plan to take more advantage of having completely free time, getting out and exploring my city again!


Celebrations









This month was my mum, brother and one of my uni friend's birthdays, and fathers' day (where does that apostrophe go, does the day belong to all fathers or just to mine?)

We had a little surprise for my mum, as my brother come over from Barcelona without her knowing. Due to the weather the day ended up being us sheltering from the rain in a pub, and then walking to our dinner reservations in Bermondsey Street in the evening. 

For fathers' day I went back to Essex to cook, other brother came as well as my nan and I annoyed everyone by snapchat filtering them as much as possible!

For Hannah birthday, again the weather didn't cooperate, but we made the most of it, just spending the time together. SHe also ended up with three cakes - one for every decade!

Sport




I had two sports related sucesses this month, first when my netball team finally managed to win a game! We were a completely new team at the beinning of the season, and it took us quite a while to get used to playing together, and since there are usualy one or two people who can't make it each week. In our final game of the season however, the whole team was there and we managed to beat the league winners! Afterwards we all spilled out from the court to the nearby pub and had a shot together to celebrate!

I have been wanting to take part in the colour run for quite a while and signed up for the 2016 one earlier in the year. The day of the race came round this June and I was not prepared for it at all. Thankfully I managed to get around to the finish without stopping, or getting a stitch! I have taken this as a kick start to get running regularly again. As I don't like running in the evenings, but find it incredibly hard to get up earlier on a work day to run - when I know I'm going to have to jump on my bike straight afterward - this is just one a week for now. Either Saturday or Sunday. Who know, maybe I'll get the itch to go mid-week once I'm back in the swing of things!

Democracy




The last two weeks have been very strange. I voted to stay in the EU, but as we all know I was on the losing side. This makes me very worried, and as events of the last week have shown, the government is in complete disarray. The future is very uncertain but I hope and pray that our leaders sort themselves out and take us forward in the best way possible. 

This month I attended the "State of London Debate' at the Indigo at the O2. This was an event with Sadiq Khan, and three of his deputy mayors, firstly giving us an overview of his vision at this early stage of his station at Mayor of London and then taking questions for the audience. I realised the other day, that Sadiq becoming Mayor is the first time I've found myself on the winning side of Democracy. I've always voted, I think it's important even when I had no real idea who was running or even what I was voting for (local, regional, national or European MPs). In that time, no one I have voted for has won, except Sadiq Khan for Mayor. I'm really proud that he won, and whilst I don't doubt that he will probably not be able to fulfill everything he wants to, I believe he will do his best for this city. He did really well at the debate, giving the audience real examples of how he plans to tackle various issues in London. I think he's a unifying politician, and in this time of turmoil, I'm glad to have him representing our city.



My fixed life




I ordered a desk chair a couple months ago, and it was finally delivered this month. My housemates thought my excitmenet very entertaining on delivery day. This is the first piece of furniture I have ever owned. Yes that desk is mine, but my mum bought that. Everything else in my house is rented. I moved around, in London and abroad that I never really bought anything - besides a full length mirror in Korea which obviously I left there when I moved home. This chair will come with my wherever I might move next and that's quite grown up!



 :: How are you feeling post-Brexit? ::