SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM .......

Last Tuesday ... a beautiful blue sky winter's day ... very best friend's, recently retired ... 

SO ...

we took ourselves off to Sir John Soane's Museum.

The home of neo-classical architect John Soane, the Sir John Soane Museum holds the collection of paintings, antiquities and drawings that he amassed, along with his models and projects.

Situated on the north side of Lincolns Inn Fields, Soane demolished and rebuilt three houses between 1792 and 1812.

Your visit begins in the kitchens ... rooms that would not look out of place today ... 

... you then move into the Catacombs, a subterranean space filled to the brim with sculptures, plaster casts, marble fragments of architectural decoration, Greek and Roman bronzes, mosaics, vases, Greek and Roman busts, heads from statues, fragments of sculpture, tiles and stained glass and so much more.

Located in the centre of the museums catacombs, The Sepulchral Chamber houses the sarcophagus of Seti 1, one of the most important Egyptian antiquities ever to be discovered. The surrounding walls of the chamber are adorned with sculptures from Soane's vast and varied collection.  Looking up from the Sepulchral Chamber, the visitor gazes at the Dome, the central light well where Soane created a full height tribune to display his choicest antiquities ...

I bought the above 3-d card as a reminder of our visit ... you needed an o-level in engineering to put it together !!! { slight exaggeration !! }

Next is the Picture Room ... Soane's ingeniously designed gallery has walls composed of large ' moveable planes ' that allow it to house three times as many items as a space of this size could normally accommodate - it's like seeing hidden treasure inside walls. When the Picture Room was first opened it housed more paintings than the entire collection of the National Gallery.

A wonderful place to visit and ....... 

IT'S FREE !!!!!!! ... we also walked around eight miles so it was not only educational but we had our daily dose of exersise too !!!  

On the way back to the station, we popped into The St Pancras Renaissance Hotel for a nose !!!
A beautiful building, outside and in , luxuriously Gothic ... I wouldn't mind spending a night or two there !!

XXXX

image 1: via jarmundo, image 2: via soane.org, image 3: via design boom, image 4: via the spaces, image 5: via my art prints, image 6: via htc experiments, images 7 & 12: via pinterest, image 8 : via daily mail, image 9: via me, image 10 : via life on sundays, image 11: via tdclassicist, image 13: via dressing room interiors, image 14: via indulge, image 15: via rose mount flooring

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COUCH POTATO !!! ..........

I'm becoming a couch potato ... scratch that ... I AM a couch potato !!!

BUT, if you can't be one in the depths of winter, when can you be one ?!!

Watched the last in the series of Sherlock last night ... absolutely LOVE it even though I don't understand all of it !!! It needs to be watched a few times for it all to sink in but, I amazed myself by understanding it last night ... but, I don't care if I don't get it all ... I just adore it , from the casting to the filming ... I am entranced !! Please, please, please let there be another series next year.

I followed that with The Dressmaker ... Kate Winslet, Judy Davis and Liam Hemsworth ... revenge, love, forgiveness, murder and everything in between, set in Australia ... really enjoyed it ...

When The Dressmaker finished around 2.30 a.m, I turned over to Eurosport to watch The Australian Open live from Melbourne ... had to wait until 4.30 a.m for Andy Murray to start his campaign but there were other matches to see ... went to bed around 6.00 a.m and got up around 10.00 a.m !!! 

There is some good tele on at the moment ... my joint favourite with Sherlock is Taboo ... directed by Ridley Scott, it's written and produced by and stars Tom Hardy who plays James Delaney, who returns to England from Africa with fourteen stolen diamonds. Set in the early 1800's, he returns to avenge the death of his father. It is encircled by conspiracy, murder and betrayal and his struggle with The East India Company. Period setting ? ... check ... lots of frock coats ? ... check ... atmospheric London ? ... check !!! ... all set in houses just like Dennis Sever's ... check !!!
 If you are missing Sherlock, Mark Gatiss who plays Sherlock's brother Mycroft, plays the Prince Regent in Taboo along with Edward Fox, Tom Hollander, Johnathan Pryce and many other faces you will recognise.

Another good one is The Halcyon ... The Halcyon tells the story of a bustling and glamorous five star hotel at the centre of London society and a world at war. The drama, set in 1940, shows London life through the prism of war and the impact it has on families, politics, relationships and work across every social strata, all set to a soundtrack of the music of the era.

OK, so it has all been done before but the format is tried and tested and works. It is rather similar to Stephen Poliakoff's ' Dancing on the Edge ' but, that's ok ... we really are rather good at drama !!!

For the next fortnight you can think of me watching tennis through the night, drinking lots of coffee to stay awake !!

XXXX

image 1: via wasbella102, image 2: via metro, image 3: via daily motion, image 4: via australian open, image 5: via little white lies, image 6: via radio times

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DENNIS SEVERS' HOUSE ANNUAL CHRISTMAS INSTALLATION ..........

The annual Christmas installation at Dennis Severs house throws Christmassy aromas, period festive decorations and olde world sound effects into the mix.

This candlelit house has a no speaking rule so your fellow snooper's modern voices don't interrupt your journey into the past { although, a few of our companions failed to comply with the silent treatment !!! }

Its creator was Dennis Severs, an artist who used his visitors’ imaginations as his canvas and who lived in the house in much the same way as its original occupants might have done in the early 18th Century. This he did for his own personal enjoyment as well as for the harvest of an atmosphere, which he then employed to provide the visitor with an extraordinary experience. To enter its door is to pass through a frame into a painting, one with a time and life of its own.

The game is that you interrupt a family of Huguenot silk weavers named Jervis who, though they can still sometimes be heard, seem always to be just out of sight. As you journey off into a silent search through the ten rooms, each lit by fire and candlelight, you receive a number of stimulations to your senses.

It is the smell of food that first aligns your imagination with the faces around you in portraits. Then… Mr. Jervis’ wig, is it not the very same one that hangs over the back of his chair? His meal is only half eaten; did he abandon it when he heard us arrive?

The house's motto is " you either see it or you don't " ...

On the top floor, all is stripped of the lower floors prettiness and the air has suddenly turned cold. Here the lodgers dwell  and life takes on a more sordid picture ..... 

Although there is little money, efforts have been made to cheer the room up for Christmas with a few paper chains ...

and, in the upper bedroom, a recording of Scrooge is playing !!

XXXX

images 1, 2, 3 & 4: via me, image 5: via lostpastremembered, images 6, 8, 12 & 13: via time out, image 7: via spitalfieldslife, image 9: via rbakker, image 10: via travelasmuch, image 11: via abouttimemagazine