Baby Banksy at the Tate Modern

Nice relaxed day today with lunch at Wagamama's on the south bank followed by a walk to the Tate Modern. My cousin was with us and needed to get a train back to Edinburgh so we didn't have time to visit any of the exhibitions. Instead Katherine ran around the turbine hall with her Daddy while I had a look in the bookshop resulting in a couple of purchases for me but I also bought Katherine an Eric Carle book "brown bear brown bear what do you see". It is almost as fab as The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I love kids books and their illustrations particularily anything by Eric Carle.

The Tate is adorned with large scale "street art" from various street artists from around the world at the moment. It's ok I suppose. I did like the American Indian/Horse one but wasn't convinced by the others. They were ok. I was surprised though given the UK street art talent (Hush, Prefab etc) that no one was chosen although apparently Banksy declined their offer to take part.

However I think I spotted the new banksy working on the posters by the entrance!

back home from edinburgh

Edinburgh was as gorgeous as ever. We had a fabulous time and managed to pack in visits to all family members both east and west coast.

We went for a walk round the city on saturday night finished by a drink in the lovely cafe royal. I had forgotten what a beautiful interior it has with all the old tiles and the leather seats in the little half moon 'booths'. We stayed in a really swanky top floor flat on Thistle Street a couple of doors away from my old flat which was a very strange coincidence. The flat looks as if it is up for sale too.

We didn't shop much unfortunately but I did get some pictures on penhaligons window on george street. their current display uses a backdrop of photographic wallpaper with old vintage books. They have some lovely old glass bottles too and bowler hats.

My Dad's 60th was a blast too. Great meal in Iglu then lots of family chat and general catch up. My cousins were nearly all there so we had a good blether.

We had lovely weather too and took Katherine to Princes Street Gardens to play on the swings and then walked through the gardens and saw the flower clock under construction. I used to go and see the flower clock as a wee girl so it was nice to show it to my wee girl (even though it wasn't quite completed). Edinburgh Castle looked really imposing in the sunlight and the set up for the Edinburgh Millitary Tatoo was well underway too.

It was lovely to be back in Scotland and it's inspired us to try to get there more often.

going to edinburgh

Off to edinburgh this weekend for my dad's 60th birthday party (happy birthday dad!)and on my list of things to do are:

buy vintage from armstrongs (I love this shop! Todays pics are my best ever vintage purchase naturally from armstrongs!)
have a pint of IPA in the Black Bull
visit the museum of scotland
see the new scottish parliment
eat lots of cakes, scones, tablet etc

Back to blog about edinburgh's general fabness next week.