Culture and coffee.

Sara Shamma. Title: Self-portrait
oil on canvas © The Artist

Since the age of 20, with the exception of approximately 5 years, I have lived at least 200 miles from my family. As a consequence the 'holidays home' have been a regular and much looked forward to event and over the years have somehow evolved naturally and now tend to follow a similar pattern on each occasion.

The itinerary tends to include a couple of days just chilling, chatting and indulging in retail therapy, an evening or two with friends or my brother and his family,dinner out here and there and at least one day in the centre of London doing the tourist thing and/or trying to take in a little culture at galleries and museums etc.

This holiday followed the now tried and tested format but also included an unexpected visit from a far flung family friend who none of us had seen for at least 25 years. Hell....... the aforementioned friend was accompanied by her son, a man of now 37 who I last saw at about age 3 and who's older brother was my first crush and my first kiss........ how old did I feel?!!

That over with.... don't get me wrong the reminiscing was fun if a little lost on PG...... we made our way into town on Thursday on what must have been the hottest day so far this summer (not good squashed on the tube believe me) to visit the National Portrait Gallery. Art is a small passion of mine and although I don't profess to understand most of it I could spend my life in galleries gazing in wonder at the ability of others and tying my head in knots in an attempt to understand what the artist is trying to say.

On this visit the BP Portrait Award 2004 and the much commented on Sam Taylor-Wood installation 'David' were the notable exhibitions. I had expected to view Ms. Taylor-Wood's work, an hour and seven minutes of video showing David Beckham sleeping, with a degree of boredom and skepticism but in the event it was strangely serene and against my better judgment I found it quite riveting! I have to make a banal comment at this point and admit that DB, when stripped of all the hype is a stunning looking man, something else I had not expected.

The BP Portraits were all incredible,if not my taste. I won't do them the injustice of making any comment, my personal favorite was the self portrait (shown above) by Sara Shamma (how can one woman be so beautiful and talented?!) that attained 4th place, just goes to show how little I know!

The remainder of the day was taken up wandering around Trafalgar Square in the heat, watching the Changing of the Guard, which we came upon by default at the appropriate time and sitting outside 'Starbucks' Leicester Square ( this particular Starbucks has a history for me but I won't go there now) simultaneously eating ice cream and drinking coffee!