My communication over the next few days might be rather uncertain. My wife and I will be making one of our “raids” on London. Both of us are interested in seeing the William Blake exhibition at the Tate Gallery, and I will be taking in the Gauguin portraits at the National Gallery. These visits are always busy, and communication can be pushed into the background by other activities (such as visiting nice restaurants!) No doubt I will have something to say afterwards about both of these events, to which I am looking forward greatly.
These “raids” on London have become an important part of our life. Living in the capital is prohibitively expensive, in comparison with the very modest cost of living here in Yorkshire. We have found that a benefit of our relatively low cost of living is that, on a regular basis, it is possible for us to afford several trips every year to London. I do complain regularly, I know, about the fact that London attracts far more than its fair share of cultural investment, but it is possible to subvert that. There is always a strange feeling that we are doing something that could almost be described as cultural “cattle rustling”.
Incidentally, while I am making the acquaintance of Paul Gauguin at the National, my wife will be heading in the direction of the Houses of Parliament. She will be satisfying her obsessive interest in politics, hoping to catch sight of press interviews with political figures outside Parliament, in the wake of yesterday’s election. I wonder which of us will have the more enjoyable day.