Storytime

First of all a massive thank you to everyone who has looked at this blog - it is now at over 500 page views, yay!

Yesterday I went to the National Gallery in London to see my old (as in past, not age you understand) 'Children's Literature' tutor telling stories.  She is a storyteller for adults but I had never been able to make one of her performances before.  The National Gallery puts these story-telling events on about every two months and ask an artist to choose a picture that inspires them.  In this case we found ourselves in room 46 in front of Degas' 'Inside the Girl Inside the Study'.  I must admit I thought the story/stories would be about the painting but my tutor had picked up on the fact that Degas painted out the girl's engagement ring and use this as a basis to tell us stories of Egyptian gods, Chinese merchants and a magical coat and shoes.  It was wonderful.  I really don't know how she performed alone for fifty minutes telling us stories and enhancing them with exotic musical instruments.  She does quite a lot of performances around London and I'm hoping to see her next week at the British Museum - if you can catch it try and do so!

I thought that stories would be a good theme for this blog.  After all the National Gallery tells a story itself, of Britain's imperial and cultural power - at least that's what it would have been built to say.  I love the National Gallery but probably not in July when it is really busy.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to look around as I was going back to the City to meet a couple of friends for more stories!  I did spend 5 minutes outside taking a few pictures (what a surprise!) to share.  Let's see if I can link them all to stories?

What a great ship in a bottle on the fourth plinth!  This conjured up stories of pirates and adventurers of days long ago sailing the high seas - 'Avast me hearties!'  (Or something along those lines) 

This is the Olympic clock (maybe there are others?) which tells the story of all the hopes and hard-work that are required before the Opening Ceremony next year.



'Living Art' outside the National Gallery - as this grows it will create a Monet painting in plants.  But really I think the story is about cleverly covering some restoration work.

After the National Gallery I headed back to the City to meet a couple of friends and share stories of my old workplace.   It was so lovely to see them both and gossip about what is happening, even if it is a tough world at the moment for everyone!  It's also amazing how little things have seemed to change in the time since I was there.  We talked about more pleasant things as well of course - books and TS Eliot and we had really delicious cakes so that was a result!

I have done some reading over the last week so I'll share my latest book reviews with you over the weekend.

Thank you for reading