Pie and Wain

I noticed visiting Constable at reference 1 earlier in the month. Now it is time for the outing around the visit.

As it happened, it started as a bright cold day, safe enough for my first Bullingdon for a while, for nearly a month. And it was two months for the one before that. And to be precise, it was my 391st hiring since I signed up to be a key carrying member. A hiring from a near empty ramp.

It started to drip as I came off Waterloo Bridge, but not enough to be a real nuisance, after which I hung a left onto a near empty Strand, to park up by the late lamented Terroirs in William IV Street. Minor panic when I thought that the Breadline café had been swallowed up by a branch of Pret, but I had mistaken the street and all was well in Duncannon Street when I got there a few minutes later.

My usual order of tea and bacon sandwich. Entirely satisfactory if not quite up to the (rather high) standard of Whitecross Street to the east. And furthermore there was a short, sharp shower while I was inside, and then it held off for the rest of the day. My luck had held.

Building works at one end of the National Gallery and a substantial queue at the other end; I almost abandoned ship. But I stuck with it and in the event the queue moved along fast enough and in reasonably short order found myself in a large room containing, inter alia, three substantial Constables: the Hay Wain, the Cornfield and the Reynolds Cenotaph, the last of which is included above, a rather gloomy, low resolution rendering offered by the Gallery. The painting itself is indeed rather gloomy, but not quite in the way that this snap would suggest.

The room in question, Room 34, is to be found at reference 4. Where the thumbnails, at least on my laptop, are all neat squares of the same size. I have not investigated whether the pictures have been cropped or squashed or both. But one can see why they do it, and the thumbnails serve their purpose as aide-memoires. On the other hand, when one zooms in, there seem to be no frames. Not so sure about that - although, in the present context, one does well enough without.

The rather better version offered by some part of the Wikipedia empire.

The Cornfield, lifted from its Wikipedia entry. For some reason the Cenotaph does not have one. While the Hay Wain is to be found at reference 1.

Despite the gallery being busy, mainly with tourists from overseas who passed along, with their mobiles at the ready, quite briskly, I was able to take my time with the Hay Wain. I only moved away for a bit when a small party of young people, I think Japanese, took up station in front of the picture, without paying any attention to me, to listen to a short discourse from their guide. A discourse which was transmitted to them from her microphone to their headsets, so I only heard her mumbling into the microphone. All very high-tech. I was a bit put out at the peremptory way they took possession, but, to be fair, they did not stay long and I was able to take a look at the 'Corn Field' while I waited.

There were a lot of fine pictures in this large and handsome room, but it was all rather crowded. A lot of pictures and a lot of people. And no benches to sit on. Maybe they should charge an entry fee and not give so much space over to shops, cafés and restaurants. From where I associate to at least two people, workers in the NHS since its inception, one at least a serious leftie, observing that people do not show respect for what they do not pay for, and that it would be well if the NHS charged a nominal fee at the point of entry. Rather like the Kew Gardens of old which once had, as I recall, obscure turnstiles collecting pennies.

I feed this last sentence to Google, who turns up a letter to the Independent which appears to confirm this recollection, except that it is completely buried under advertisements and I could not actually read it. But he also turned up reference 5 which I could read.

My business at the gallery done, out to pass by ENO, facing an uncertain exile up north, and thought about going to the ballet, something we have not done properly for 50 years or more. But the moment passed and I carried on towards the cheese shop. To find Shorts Gardens was being dug up - not so many weeks after fine new cobbles had been laid, as noticed at reference 2. My usual order of a kilo of Poacher, supplemented on this occasion by a piece of Gubbeen.

Thoughts turned to lunch at this point and, passing the Sun in Betterton Street, I noticed signs of pies. The street presumably named for the Bettertons of reference 3 and probably known to Pepys. Maybe I will look in the morning. And I probably made occasional use of the Sun when it was an old fashioned boozer. On this occasion, it was near empty, but the obliging barman was able to serve up a steak and kidney pie without vegetables, which was just what I wanted, particularly as the pie turned out to be quite a decent pie. Plus a spot of Chenin Blanc.

While I was waiting, I was able to admire their wall clocks, one of which was probably very like one that we know in Devon. Not quite sure which though, despite having seen the one in Devon on many occasions over the years.

And while I declined vegetables, I still got a fair amount of presentation with my pie.

Out to pull my second Bullingdon, pedal across Waterloo Bridge, around the roundabout and up the ramp, not quite to the top of the ramp as that was colonised by a gaggle of smokers. Bought a newspaper from a real person at Smith, a cheerful person I might say, and just caught the 14:24 to Dorking. So no visit to what might have been left of the Raynes Park platform library.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/01/constable.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/black-pudding-and-more.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Betterton.

Reference 4: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/floorplans/level-2/room-34.

Reference 5: https://www.toonsarah-travels.blog/in-for-a-penny-a-visit-to-kew-gardens/.