A New Painting!!

We took our dirty pants round to the launderette yesterday after work and while they were washing we went for a short walk.  On the way, we found an Art Expedition in a church hall and it was still open so we went in.  It was a local art group called Du Pont (but they only meet during the day when Andrea's working) - but we found this watercolour print for sale for £20 and we liked it so much that we bought it!!

Andrea says she has a frame just the right size for it too!!

Arcade games and fish!!!

 Andrea took me into work today because she said we were doing something fun afterwards!!

 Oh, now we've been here before!!!

 There's the Royal Pavilion!!   I love this building!!

We met up with Sir Woodstock outside the giftshop - because he's done so much walking today, he was having a ride in his Mummy's bag. Very sensible!!

 First of all we went over to Brighton Pier!!!

 Its fun here!!  Of course, we had to play the arcade games for a while!!!

 I won a red dolphin keychain!!!  Sir Woodstock was playing on another machine so we'll show you his prize later!

 Then we went over the road to Harry Ramsden's for dinner - it's good in there, you know!

 Me and Sir Woodstock sat down for a chat while the grown ups decided what they were going to eat.  That rubber duck is Sir Woodstock's prize and it has bear brown patches on!!

 excuse me a minute......sluuuuurrrp.... ah, that's better!

Standard Cod and Chips!!  Andrea couldn't finish all the chips so she let met dunk the rest in the beer.  Yummers!!!

What a fun evening!!

We met Woodstock!!!

 When Andrea got home from work today, she said we were going to meet someone.  Oh!!!

 We walked up the road and waited outside Orsino's, and Italian restaurant that does really good pizza

 OH!!!  Look who it is!!  It's Sir Woodstock!!!

He has a brilliant bow tie, with a cowbell on it that goes clang, clang!! I want one of those!!

 Sir Woodstock said that I was allowed a beer today, so I did!!!  hahahhaaaa! HIC

 And then we had a pizza which was yum, and we ate all of it!!!

After dinner, me and Sir Woodstock decided that we'd meet up for fish and chips on Wednesday!

Then we gave him some bookcrossing books to take home so he can have a bedtime story tonight.  I think he was pleased about that!

 When we got home, Andrea said I could open the prezzie that Sir Woodstock gave me!  It's in a spiffy Tote bag with a terrier doggie on it!

 Oh!  There's more in here...!

 Coffee and chocolate!!!!!!!  YAAAYYY!!

And we also got a huge wad of card to make stuff with!! What a brilliant present!!!

Canadian Drain Covers!!

Alexander MacKenzie Bear found two more Canadian drain covers - that one has Aero chocolate bubbles on it!!!

 

And that one has frogs on it!!!!!!!!

Movie review - "Claude Monet a Giverny/La Maison d'Alice"

Movie review number 27

PLOT
This DVD is the other one I got at the Monet museum in Paris last May.  It's narrated in French but you can have English subtitles if you want (which I did!)  This documentary tells the story of Monet's move to Giverny with his second wife, Alice (they weren't married at the time) plus his two sons and her six children! It is narrated by means of Alice's letters which were written almost as a story, telling day to day events of work and gardening and holidays.  It tells of their finding of the house in Giverny and the development of the garden, lake and water lilies.  This movie makes a very interesting insight into the family life of Monet and his children from the 1880s up until 1914, just after Alice's death and introduces at the end of the DVD the waterlily tableau's that are now housed at the Orangerie in the Tuilleries in Paris.
It would make more sense to watch this one first, and follow it with the previously reviewed "Les Nympheas: le grand Reve de Monet" (the water lilies: Monet's greatest dream)

RECOMMENDED

This is a lovely DVD, but if you're not so good with spoken French you need to pay attention to read the subtitles... being in white typeface, it's not always easy to read depending on the background!!

SCORE

7.5 out of 10

SCOOBY SNACKS

Camembert and goat's cheese on toasted baguette!!

We got MORE mail!!!

 We got another postcard yesterday!!!

It's from Ajdin who went to Bar Harbor in Maine!!!  How exciting!

We got mail!

 We got a postcard today from Jerry and Ben!!

They've gone to San Francisco on holiday!!!

We went to London!!!

Today, Andrea said we were going out for the day.  Where are we going, then??

First of all, we got the bus into town and then walked up here....

...to the train station!!

We got a window seat and I left one of my tags on the table!!

And we're off!!!  I love this view....

when we got to London, we went past the Shard building....

That's really tall...!

That's Blackfriars Station where we got on the train last time but we stayed on the train an extra stop this time!

When we got off at the next stop, we went for a wee and left a tag on the door!

City Thameslink??  Never heard of that station.

Oh!!  We're near St Paul's Cathedral!!  We decided to walk there to do some bookcrossing!

And we went past a candy store!!

Wow!  I love that building!!

Oh now look at that!!  It's a park bench in the shape of a book!!!

There's a whole bunch of these near St Paul's and Andrea said we were going to leave some books on them!

Gosh..... what fun!

HAH!  There's one left behind!

Oh!  That's weird...!

We left another book there too!!  Heehee!!

And that book got left on another book bench!

After that, we got on a bus.... which one though??

We got a number 26 and tied a tag on the pole!

And we're off!!

OH!!!  PIGGY!!!

 We got off here and walked over to that little street......

 And there's the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square!!

 We saw a whole load of street performers - what on EARTH is he sitting on????!

 We've come to see an expedition about making colour!!!  This was really good, specially since Andrea's been making her own watercolour paint for ages!  It started with the colour Blue which used to be really expensive because it was only made from Lapis Lazuli which you can only get from Afghanistan and had to be camel-ridden into Istanbul and then boated to Venice but then in Berlin (which used to be in a country called Prussia) they invented a blue called Prussian Blue which then made it cheaper to paint with blue!  Then there was another room about Red which can be made from Cochineal beetles, another room about yellow which used to be made from realgar which has arsenic in it which kills you..... and another room for green and another one for purple.  It was super interesting!

After that, we spent some money in the gift shop and THEN.....

 It was time to go for lunch!  The Blue Cockerel is still on the 4th plinth and you can just see the Millenium wheel in the distance!!

 We went round the corner to Cafe Rouge because we know it's good in here!!

 We got a fizzy soda to start with....

And we had steak and chips for lunch!!  Yumsters!

 After lunch we did some more shopping in the Cass Art shop!!!

I like going in there!!

 Then we walked back to Trafalgar Square and left our last bookcrossing book on a statue!

 That's Nelson on top there!!

 Then we got on another bus......

 Of course we had to give them a tag!!

 That's Charing Cross station over there....

 And we got off here at Ludgate Circus.

 And then walked over the road to here to get the train home!

 Here we are crossing over the Thames!  The tide was out and we saw people mudlarking!!!  I wanna do that one day!  (There's that Shard building in the distance!)

 Wait!!  Hang on!!  Chocolate Factory!!!!!  Wait!

 ......nearly home!....

 And here we are at Brighton Station!!

 There was even a bus waiting for us too!!!

 There's the postcards we got!

 We got some London bus badges too!!!

 We got some more books too..... Indigo is a brilliant colour, you know!!

 And this one as well!

 And this is what we got from the art shop - watercolour markers!!

These are a new product and Andrea really wants to try them out!!!

What a fun day out!