Warm Up Drawing

A quick sketch of Robin working, to warm up for tomorrow's "drawing theatre," using the charcoal sticks I bought this afternoon.

Preparing For Drawing London & BAC

Haven't left the flat for the past two days, except to go out this afternoon to an art supply store and buy a new sketchbook and some charcoal for tomorrow's drawing session with London Drawing at the BAC (Battersea Art Centre), on the south side of the Thames.

This morning Robin held a three-hour Shakespeare tutorial session in our flat for Wally & Maria. Just sitting nearby and listening, I'm getting smarter. 

Wally and Maria, until very recently, ran the Lakeland Theater in North Carolina. One of the events they created is the Star of the Year award for a Lakeland actor, voted on by Lakeland patrons. The award  will be presented tomorrow night, so I shot a video of Wally and Maria announcing the winner, then sent the edited video to the tech guy at Lakeland. The video will be shown at the event.

The video intro graphic.

I shot video of Wally & Maria with my iPhone 4s, then did a quick edit in iMovie on my laptop. 

Below: photos from the walk to the art supply store.

St. Margaret's church, conveniently located across the street from The Queens Head pub.

A sculpture in the middle of the Uxbridge town centre, titled "Anticipation." Personally, I would have gone with "Daddy's At The Pub, I'll Deal With Him Later." But I suppose "Anticipation" is close enough. 

The Metropolitan, where artists and writers hang out. At least two of them that we know of.

Ahhh, the convenience of having two Starbucks within spitting distance. This one is outside, the one in the background is inside the mall. 

Sign on the side of The Queens Head. "A warm welcome and great value drinks here at your local." Here at your local what? Nice sign though.

These guys outside The Three Tuns must miss the old days when they didn't have to go outside in the cold to smoke. 

Once upon a time Robin and I were in a pub in Inverness, Scotland, on New Year's Eve, and the smoke was so thick we could barely hear the bagpipe playing Auld Lange Syne.

Robin Presents

We went to the Brunel campus early today for Robin to give a Mary Sidney presentation to a class in the Shakespearean Authorship MA program. She made some minor changes to the presentation since I last saw it, and it was great, as usual.  

If you haven't seen one of her Mary Sidney presentations, she's been asked to present at the Esther Bone Library in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, on Thursday evening, May 3rd.

In addition to an entertaining and informative slide presentation, there were handouts and audience participation. Robin gave us a sheet with five different sonnets on it and asked us to identify the two that are actually in the Shakespeare canon. The one that most people thought was by Shakespeare was actually written by Mary Sidney. Maybe that doesn't prove anything, but I'm willing to bet big money that Mary Sidney would destroy the man from Stratford in a rap battle.   

After the presentation, a short meeting with Bill Leahy, Head of the School of the Arts at Brunel, then a stop at the Metropolitan (again) for dinner and cider.

Drinking cider, stage one.

Drinking cider, stage two.

Drinking cider, stage three. 

Just kidding. The horizontal glass is for dramatic effect only (love the pub lighting). If I didn't know better I'd swear there's no alcohol in cider. That's how un-inebriated a pint makes you feel. 

Or maybe they sell fake stuff to foreigners so they can save the real cider for themselves. 

Maybe next time I should say "A pint o cider, mate" instead of "I guess I'm fixin' to need some cider over here, if y'all don't mind."

Crazy Horse Sketch

Crazy Horse Paris doesn't allow photos, so from memory I've reconstructed the event. 

As a Brit artist once said to me as he was drawing, "I think I've captured something here!"

Or maybe you had to be there.

Tube Security & Comfort

There are lots of security cameras in the Tube stations. 

Hmmm, suspicious looking character on the far left screen.

Never mind... just some American taking a photo of himself on the security screen. 

The Metropolitan line is gradually putting new train cars into service. They're roomier, cleaner, quieter, and smoother. All of the cars are connected and you can walk all the way thru to find a seat (instead of being trapped in the car you originally boarded). Very nice.

One Final Paris Photo

The Sunday morning view from our Paris apartment, with a light dusting of snow. 

Every night and every morning there was an amazing amount of street noise. Even though we were on the 7th floor, voices and footsteps below sounded like they were right outside the sliding glass balcony door. But Sunday morning it was surprising how quiet it was, and how few people and cars were out and about.

It's nice being back in our ground floor apartment in Uxbridge. At noon we walked thru the slush (it snowed more here than in Paris) to the grocery store to get supplies for the next several days. 

Bill Leahy, the Head of the School of Arts, emailed Robin and asked her to give her Mary Sidney presentation to his class this coming Wednesday instead of weeks from now, so she's been working on that presentation and rehearsing (she's changed it some since the last time she presented it).

Flatmate Maria has had a bad cold since we left for Paris, so we're hunkered down here hoping she gets well instead of us getting sick. The friendly cat that showed up last week came back and slept with Robin and I last night (it's cold, wet, and snowy outside). Tonight she's spending the night with Wally and Maria.

Wednesday we'll be on the Brunel campus from noon until 9 p.m., then on Saturday Robin plans to go to the British Library to do research while I go to the London Drawing event I signed up for. 

I'm starting to miss Paris already.

As the sign says, your car will be towed if you park here.

Leaving Paris

After a 30 minute walk in frigid 16 degree weather to the train station, we had several hours to do something with, so we went across the street for some toast and coffee, and to just get out of the cold.

When we returned to the train station, we realized something... there's no heat in Gare du freakin' Nord, other than an occasional space heater that passengers are gathered around like homeless people around a bonfire on the sidewalk. The only places with heat are a cafe that's too full to get into, and the EuroStar boarding lounge that's not open to us until just before our departure.

We went back across the street and had lunch at a small cafe, just to get out of the cold. Then we went in a small coffee shop in the train station that was just as cold as outside. Finally we huddled up and stood near one of the space heaters. After warming up, we went wandering and Robin fortunately noticed a sign that said EuroStar check in was open. We finally found where that was happening, checked in, went through security, and got into the EuroStar heated waiting area. Five minutes later we boarded the train.

The train was nearly empty, and we were in London two and a half hours later, about ten minutes behind schedule due to bad weather in London. As soon as we got off the train and into St. Pancras station Robin  checked her iPad app for Underground Tube closings. Sure enough, our destination, Uxbridge, was closed due to a power outage, but we were able to take the Tube to within one stop of Uxbridge, then get on a bus and ride to within a 10 minute walk of our flat. When we got there, Wally had cooked us a great meal of roasted chicken, dressing, and gravy.

Now I'm going to see if I can get the nfl.com steaming feed of the SuperBowl that starts at 11:30 p.m. here. I'm not at all optimistic about that, but I don't think I'll be awake to whine about it.

A light dusting of snow Sunday morning for our walk to Gare du Nord train station.

Reminds me of the train station in Lamy, New Mexico.

A pretty nice cafe across the street from the train station.

The cafe is where the purple awnings are.

View of Gare du Nord from our cafe table.

The freezing cold main terminal. Near the bottom, on the left and right, passengers huddle around heaters.

As we ate lunch at a small cafe across the street, Robin noticed that pigeons at the next door cafe were helping themselves to the kebab (a tall, rotating stack of meat that the waiter shaves off meat for meals).

Another Metro entrance sign that makes us smile.

We noticed lots of dog travelers. 

The EuroStar train seen from the EuroStar waiting area (heated).

The side of the Gare du Nord entrance. The inscription translates roughly as "road of iron north" or "north railroad." I personally like "iron road."

Trying to warm up in the main terminal while wondering how much it would cost to fly to London.

16 degrees. I think it's a little warmer outside.

There were 4 or 5 of these heaters in the terminal. I don't remember seeing heaters at Heathrow.