The big freeze...

London is usually not too cold in winter and the last few year's we've been spoilt with mild albeit often grey months. Then came the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 and we've had snow, freezing weather and ice, ice, ice! Central London, where I live, is always warmer so it's not been too bad but further out there have been several inches of snow and very slippy pavements. Given that us Brits love to talk about the weather in normal times, this has taken over all conversation! So, as a picture tells a thousands words, here are a few photos of Notting Hill in the snow:

I've not stayed indoors too much and have 2 interesting art visits to report on. The Ed Ruscha exhibition at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank was a great exploration of the use of language and graphics. The show reviews his 50 years of painting and with a few short paragraphs of background to guide us through we really enjoyed the wit and visual inspiration. One of my favourite was the word faith written large in a typeface invented and used by the Vatican for catholic texts, simple but evocative.

Our second visit was to an installation in the Tate Modern to see Miraslaw Balka's big black box. It's a huge metal and girder structure which fills one end of the massive turbine hall. As you walk in it's a bit like walking into the lowered ramp of a space ship and as you enter further all the light disappears, you grab the hand of the person with you, sticking the other hand out in front of you and proceed very slowly into the deep, deep black. Eventually you reach a soft velvety wall and you've made it to the end. Turning round you see that there is in fact plenty of light behind you and you can easily see where you are! It's a brilliant way of experiencing a journey into darkness and the unknown. Sadly it's references are to 20th century Polish history of the Holocaust and Ghettos not spaceships.

Bars and restaurants still needed visiting and my new favourite bar is downstairs at Hix in Soho. Hix is a owned and run by the chef Mark Hix who has the very successful Hix Oyster and Chop House in the City and his original venue in Dorset. It was the bar we were after however and it was great fun, admittedly probably not as busy as on a non snow evening (there I go again about the weather!). It was cool, comfy and a good range of people and although you have to buy some food due to something about a licence, the home made parsnip crisps were a revelation!

One other evening out was to a local pub. I'm always being asked about good pubs and they are hard to find so I am very happy to recommend The Churchill Arms in Kensington. It's big but cosy, full but not crammed, has loads of decorations but looks fun not silly, has good cheap Thai food and was the first British pub to offer Thai food to its, no doubt, surprised punters!. It's also very famous for it's massive hanging baskets so watch out for a photo of that coming soon.

Bye for now.

Sue

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