Avant-garde art run

 I was tired yesterday, but it looked like all the weekend sunshine was due to shine on Saturday morning whether I was ready or not, so I devised a plan. Take the train to Dalmeny Station and then use the west wind and the desire for lunch to get me home as quickly as possible. That's what we did and it is documented here in case you want to know more about it. I would have liked all the effort I made to have translated into a quicker pace, but you can only do what you can do. I never slackened off. I was happiest later in the day, when I had a lie down on the sofa to "read my book" and conked out completely for 1.5 hrs. Life is good but a good deep sleep is even better. I woke up feeling mentally like I'd had a full factory reset but physically...well it's quite a short sofa and my legs felt like they'd bent backwards at the knees. After a while of shuffling around I could walk normally again.



Then today dawned grey and dull. I had thought that we could go our usual recovery run at Gullane (mostly for the coffee and cake) but the thought of driving all that way on such a grey windy day seemed pointless and tiresome. I hatched a plan...we could run up to the Modern Art Gallery ( 3.5 miles) - go straight for some strong coffee and cake in the cafe in the basement, and then, once we'd cheered up, go and see as much art as we could take. When we'd had enough we could run down the back steps and over the bridge to get 4 miles home.

I didn't know if Peter would want to do this. It's the kind of thing you need a chum for. He was surprisingly up for it. Both of us were a bit tired and cranky though and it was clear that we were going to need the caffeine and sugar input when we got there to raise our game for the art....


What follows is a fair amount of ignorance from me. I chose to take an experiential approach to the whole thing so I don't know much about what I saw. You'd have to ask Peter.

Art - especially modern art puts Peter in a bad mood.

Better get some coffee into him.

Aahh, that's better. I liked this. Can't remember who did it though. (Peter says Peter Doig.)

He's muttering something about colouring pencils here.

The American Tourists. I first saw them 33 years ago I reckon! Back in the day when American tourists were at all surprising.

I liked this too. Nope sorry don't know. (Peter says David Hockney)

And we both agreed there was something nice about her.

Sorry I can't remember who made her though. (Peter says Merino Merini)

Zing!!!! (Bridget Riley)

Oh. My eyes. All Bridget Riley above. It was a lot of fun.

There are times I regret not developing my own artistic talents.

Picasso. Who else?

Phantom of the Opera :-)

This reminds me of the bit at the top of Castle Law

David Bowie channelling Grayson Perry

Bonnard

Is it just me?

The stuff downstairs wasn't so good. It was the British Art Show. Peter tells me it's meant to be the best of the best of modern art. I was irritable anyway and I just found it annoying. Recordings of people saying pointless things while a flickering film of a piece of cheese found in Solzhenitsyn's fridge plays on a large screen. Someone has cut their rug into a spiral and hung it up like a snake....the coffee was wearing off. The inevitable sugar-low crash was kicking in. We set off down the steps at the back, and ran back down the Water of Leith.

Still, once you've been to a gallery you kind of get your eye in for what's good art. This was on the wall in the toilet in Stockbridge.

I can't believe the weekend is nearly over. I had a look ahead to the weather forecast for next Saturday - the Edinburgh to North Berwick race. At the moment it has the wind coming round to due east for that day to blow directly in our faces. Surely not. Surely that's not going to happen.