Birthday London

On my birthday, Thomsey & I went to London. We had all sorts of grand plans but only managed to get to the Victoria & Albert mueum.

It's my favourite & I never tire of looking through their incredible collection. All free as well..what more could you wish for?

They have the most amazing fashion collection. It's quite an interesting game to try & guess what era the clothes are from. Some of them I got completely wrong. A Vivienne Westwood dress that looked like it was from the 1800's, a Courrege dress that looked like it could have been made yesterday.

Here is a picture of a dress from the V & A website by a wonderful New York designer, Maggie Norris. Sue & I loved her stuff best of all, complete couture using antique textiles......mmmmmmm yes please.

The very best thing of the whole day though was the afternoon tea of GIANT meringues & raspberry jam & clotted cream. in the William Morris room.

We also discovered some Raphael cartoons belonging to The Queen...& 'St George kills the dragon', a panel Probably Marcal de SasSpain (Valencia)About 1420Tempera and gilt on pine panel.

The dragon was one of the best I've ever seen. It looked really modern too, like something done by Jim Henson's creature shop.

Here are some learned words about it that I didn't write....

"This altarpiece was painted by a German artist for a chapel in Valencia (Spain) belonging to a confraternity, or brotherhood, dedicated to St George. According to legend St George had served in the Roman army. Sixteen panels show various bloodthirsty scenes from his life and death, but the image of the Slaying of the Dragon is the biggest and most prominent. The version of the legend which is depicted here is set in Silene in Libya, where a dragon threatening the city had to be pacified by the frequent sacrifice of a man and a sheep. When the King's daughter (here pictured in the background with the sheep) drew the fatal lot, and was led to be eaten by the dragon, St George intervened and pierced the monster with his lance." taken from this website. We weren't meant to take photos but didn't realise unil we had....whoops.

We did manage to get to Harrods too.

My God the fish department completely blew us away.