i had plans today to catch up with my best mate Bex and a few other girls to take in some culture and go and see david shrigley's exhibition 'brain activity' at the hayward centre by waterloo station. we planned to meet on southbank and aim to have some lunch and a couple of cheeky drinkies before we headed to the exhibition. on my walk up to the station, i was met by one helluva sun, and some more new buds on the street. insta-happiness!
we stopped into giraffe on southbank for some lunch and some drinks - where we deliberated for sometime on what to have.. too much to choose from! i settled on a fresh chicken, prawn and mango salad with a lime and tequila dressing (YUM!) and a strawberry and lime rekorderling with fresh mint to start with. *bliss*
after the meal we headed to the exhibition. no photos allowed in the actual gallery, so more info about david shrigley and all his quirks can be found here. the installation was smaller than i anticipated, and a lot more mental. his pieces are all.. quirky but simple thoughts, and put across in such a simple way that you're left thinking.. "is that it? i could draw better than that!" i mean i get the idea is not meant to be an amazing artist, just that his ideas and concepts are supposed to make to think and see outside the box. but truly i was more or less left .. wondering. it was good to go and see though, as i often think i lack some basic urge to be cultured. boyfriend and i went to the tate modern last year, and we were so bored that we had more of a laugh at the crap in there than actually taking an interest in what we were looking. we ended up walking around and taking pictures of normal stuff like the phone on the wall, or the elevator sign going "what do you think the artist meant by this?".. what a couple of basic fools...
after taking in the exhibition, we headed to the pop-up market behind festival hall to satisfy our sweet tooths. i fancied a cake or something, but saw a twee little bakery selling handmade pastries and slices of cakes and cheesecakes. tough choice between strawberry or caramel pecan, BUT... caramel is my true love.
after we'd finished our sweets we all headed our respective ways. i left with bex and we headed off to russell square to meet up with her aunt and uncle visiting for the weekend from brussels. how fun to get to the station and realise the lifts were out of order and 175 stairs were awaiting us.. fyi that equates to 15 storeys of stairs.. *puffed* i thought my heart was going to beat out of my throat! sooooo unfit. after a great catch up and a few wines in the sun, i was happy to head home knowing that this was one saturday that i would actually be happy to talk about on monday morning. a rarity!
erica x
