Invigilating

After a lovely lunch with Caryne, I headed off to the exhibition to do today's invigilation stint. It was more entertaining than I thought, though I was a bit disappointed by the place where my embroidery was: it was rather dark and it's so small that it almost disappeared. Lesson to self: be there on hanging day!

Anyway, I sat in a different gallery and worked on the pelicans. There was a strong student element in the exhibition and I spent a few idle minutes wondering if they were Generation Zs or millennials. I wonder if it works like car registrations and starts again at 'A'? There were actually a lot of visitors, whihc is very good for the organisers.

The blend of three different looped soundtracks became mesmerising after about an hour, and blended into  a sound soup that threw our aromas of Portugese speech (or possibly Spanish), a rather irritating piano phrase and something grumbly and scary from downstairs. I made a blooper in my embroidery which I'll have to fix today. I also need orange thread if I'm going to do the pelican's beaks correctly- during reproduction season their beaks become very colourful. I hope I've got some at home.

That being said, there is some really excellent art on display: the British imagination has not gone the way of everything else, but is thriving and productive. 

I checked in at the hotel I'm staying at, which has a rather unpleasant manager. I thought it was just me, but I spotted him making a family miserable as they checked in later on. What's the point?

Out for a wander, all the food places seemed extremely expensive. I popped down an alley and found a really nice, simple, friendly pizza place called Dough, where I had possibly the most tasty pizza I've ever had in my life. They hadn't over-salted it and I could taste everything. They didn't make faces when I said I wanted water- indeed they offered that and didn't try to up-sell drinks, which is a wonderful thing for a solo traveller.

I thought I'd treat you to the portrait at the bottom of the stairs at the hotel. Shame Churchill couldn't fix the broken shower, isn't it?