Tate Modern and Oxford Street

It was not the fastest of starts to the day - not that the weather was especially encouraging, rather damp most of the time. By about 10:30 we all managed to set off and took the Underground down to Embankment where we walked along beside the river, taking in the many landmarks and admiring the splendid buildings along the way.

Millennium Footbridge

We passed Waterloo Bridge and then Blackfriars before turning to cross the river over the Millennium Bridge. Once over we were in front of Tate Modern. We split into two groups - Christine with Alice and Mike with Ellie.

Tate Modern

Christine and Alice explored but were a little disappointed that the Rothko display has moved to the Whitechapel gallery (Ellie and Christine were especially interested in this when we visited a few years back) but found some interesting sculptures on the top floor and then Alice took time to do some of her own drawings, including one of Paddington Basin complete with moored boat.

Tacita Dean's Installation Film

Meanwhile the other two began with one of the special displays: Tacita Dean's film montage which was showing in the main Turbine Hall. From there they went to see the Diane Arbus collection (Mike was especially affected by an exhibition of her work back in the 1970's when he was down in London on business). They also found the famous Weiwei sunflower seeds, now relegated to a side room in a neat round pile. Hard to imagine all the fuss that it caused in its original installation in the Turbine Hall.

Weiwei Sunflower Seeds

Everyone met at the cafe for lunch. Main meals were what was on offer so we quickly decided to have our largest meal now and go for a snack in the evening.

After lunch we split up again and Christine and Alice walked along the South Bank and across the Jubilee footbridge at Charing Cross. Along the way, Alice enjoyed watching a juggler perform. From there they headed back to the boat via the Underground.

Steps of St Paul's - sans protesters

Protest Camp

Mike and Ellie walked back over the Millennium Bridge to St Paul's where they had a good view of the collection of protest tents which is very much in the news, leading later to the resignation of one of the cathedral canons. As far as we could see, the protesters were not causing undue difficulty, the main steps were kept clear and we had much less difficulty in walking around the outside of the building to the station, that we later experienced in Oxford Street.

The Underground took us to Oxford Circus where, as soon as we were at street level, Ellie spotted Topshop and persuaded Grandad that he was surplus to requirements. She explored the clothes and shoes (especially boots) not only in Topshop but also three other nearby shops. She mobiled when she was ready to move on!

We continued along the line of shops, popping into a few with Ellie finding some makeup she wanted in the Body Shop. By then we were flagging a little so took a break next door for tea and hot chocolate.

Not long after we resumed our journey we arrived at Centre Point and Tottenham Court Road. At this point Mike realised that we had walked the wrong way after leaving Topshop as we had passed through TCR station on the way to Oxford Circus and we were supposed to be heading along Oxford Street to Marble Arch - the other direction!

Not wanting to walk all the way back, we went down to the Underground for a couple of stops, emerging again at Bond Street where we continued our progress the right way along Oxford Street. Eventually we reach Marble Arch and turned up Edgware Road until Praed Street and so back to the boat.

After some consultation, it was finally agreed that Alice would stay with us another day on the promise that we would not do any more museums but do some boating! (Uncle Andy is due to arrive at lunch time). After dinner, Alice went with Mike and Ellie to Paddington station (where Ellie caught the train back to Slough) as she quite fancied another night walk!