Graces

Another slightly disrupted night with lots of bouts of cramp, but after getting up and ready and having breakfast with Winsford I finished reading the papers for Friday and finalised planning with VG for the meeting. All three of us ended up talking student number planning to clarify some issues in the paperwork….sure it was nostalgic for Winsford!
We walked down to see the visiting Vermeer at the national gallery. Very recognisably Vermeer style and subject, of a young woman in a domestic setting (extra), unlike the one owned by the gallery which is from earlier in his career and a much larger bible scene. I don’t think he had yet acquired the fine detailed style of the later paintings, but good to see the contrast.
On the way through the gallery we visited our favourite Velasquez of the old woman cooking eggs and reminisced about our visit to Madrid after we’d read The Vanishing Man by Laura Cumming, and also passed the lovely Three Graces sculpture.
I left Winsford in Uniqlo, looking set to buy up the whole place, and came home to get stuck into more reading of papers. Basically spent the rest of the day doing that….
In the evening A and I were going to a black tie dinner in the Playfair Library for various people who’d left the Uni Court over the last couple of years. Lovely to see a number of people there and catch up. A had been worried about who she’d get sat next to, so was rather delighted when she landed next to the youngest ever Bake Off winner (about to step down as president of the student sports union). They chatted baking and social media careers and etc quite happily all evening and she even managed to cope with the duck of the main course! I had good chats with those I sat next to about weddings, charities, 900 yr anniversary of the city, lifeboats, royal encounters and research, and altogether it was a very pleasant evening.
We hobbled our way home in unsuitable shoes and collapsed into bed (after she’d excitedly phoned N to tell him all about her Bake Off fun).