National Portrait Gallery cafe

CH and I went to London today to take in a couple of exhibitions. We kicked off with coffee at the NPG basement cafe, which has a partial glass roof - allowing both natural light into the basement and a view up from the cafe to street level. They serve a decent cup of coffee and some pretty substantial baked goods; on the walls you can just see some of the Angus McBean prints which they sell in the adjoining shop.

After coffee we went to the NPG's William Morris Exhibition "Anarchy & Beauty", which was so interesting that we took too long over it and almost missed the chance to get some lunch. Which would have made us both very grumpy. So we made a quick dash across St Martin's Lane for a Pret Christmas Lunch sandwich (well, it is almost December), before hiking round the corner to the National Gallery.

I don't know what to say about "Rembrandt: The Late Works" really - except that every positive review I've read of it was accurate. There were paintings that made me want to cry, and others that left me open-mouthed and slightly breathless. Some of the rooms were so packed that you could barely move, and not everyone behaved as nicely as one might wish (!), but even though I hate crowds it was worth putting up with the irritation of being elbowed out of the way from time to time, just to be a couple of feet from some of the most moving works of art I've ever seen. Fabulous.

After the Rembrandts we still had a little time before our train back to the Shire, and CH asked if I wanted to pop back into the NPG to see the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition - which I do, but I was exhibitioned out by this time, so we ambled back to Paddington and came home. Lugging with us two more hefty exhibition guides - we're going to need more bookcases pretty soon....