Crack

I have known it.

Saturday saw me make an early morning departure from our provincial homestead. At the station, torpor seemed to be the general air amongst those heading for the capital.

On platform number one, I gazed over a constellation of chewing gum.

En route, I worked, I planned and I dreamed.

Alighting at Euston, I headed further south and west.

My host - the professor - and I walked, talked, drank, and later took in a really very good film.

A world away in my nation’s capital:

Sunday saw us a little hung over, but still up for a visit to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. In particular, Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth – essentially, a much-discussed-elsewhere crack in the floor – was of interest.
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En route, we passed cake-sellers.

We took the tube.

Crossing the Millenium Bridge, we approached our destination from north of the river.

Looking back, one of Louise Bourgeois’ spiders neatly framed St Paul’s.

Inside the Tate, we walked the crack, we talked the crack.

It was good to see and hear people putting a lot of themselves into their visits and experiences of the exhibition, or the crack.

As with so many other pieces of art, the official blurb that went with the piece tended to detract from what could be made of the work… it seemed intent on telling us what we were experiencing. Still, spurred with new ideas around buildings and spaces and the non-/invasiveness of art, we were ready to further fuel ourselves, and so took a late lunch in the outdoor chill of the south bank.

Back at the prof’s house, we drank wine and watched a recording of the previous evening’s Strictly Come Dancing. We agreed that if he could marry John Barnes, then I should be allowed – in another life - to marry Nicole Cutler. What riotous lads we were.

Altogether, it had been a very brief trip, but a good one nonetheless.

Next morning, Monday, with a beetroot, orange and carrot combo, I readied myself for the return home.

But before I returned, there was one final, personal, mission that I had to lay to rest…