For the love of a weekend.

It's a blessed thing the working week passes quickly, or has been lately at any rate. If only it had the converse effect on the weekends.

After the perks of two working weeks ago - posh dinners et al - the weeks since have been a bit of a beige blur, punctuated by lovely, albeit frustratingly brief, weekends.

The weekend before last was a long one for me. I took the Friday off and spent the day lunching with Tor and her fabulous pal May and getting a brilliant paint job on la toes on d'Arblay St. Before heading off for a massage. And then reconvening with the girls for a big glass of prosecco. It was a lovely, lovely day.

Zarina Bhimji, Shadows and Disturbances, 2007

On the Saturday I dragged LB to the Whitechapel to see the Zarina Bhimji show. I suspected, rightly, that it wouldn't be up his artistic strasse but I completely adored it. Her images as just the most visually elegaic understandings of absence - of things been and things missing - and her lightness of touch in dealing with the histories of violence written into now empty, often decaying, architectures across India and East Africa is quite profoundly beautiful.

Zarina Bhimji, Memories Were Trapped Inside the Asphalt, 1998-2003

Her photographs operate almost as still life paintings and perhaps not ironically it is the stillness that resonates so loudly as a kind of ghostly witness to what has gone before. You couldn't get a stronger anathema to the 24 new channels live streaming violent, noisy images from Egypt or Syria or some other latest place of upmost despair. So yes, I loved it. LB didn't so much but that was ok. As I said to him later, sometimes it's good to see things you don't like - it makes spotting the things you do like all the easier.

Zarina Bhimji, No Border Crossing, 2001-2006

From Whitechapel to Barbican, we headed off in search of a drink at the member's bar - another great wedding gift - christening our Barbican membership not with tickets to anything cultural, but with wine and a magnificent bowl of hummus. Happy times.

Zarina Bhimji, Illegal Sleep, 2007

And then on Sunday we took to the countryside in a search of a lovely lunch and some non-London wilderness. We eventually settled on Henley as a destination, Henley-on-Thames to be exact and yes, that Henley of boat racing lore, but before our idyllic wander along the river in stubborn winter sunshine, we took ourselves off in search of a pub lunch. Lovely Boy's most excellent researching skills sent us down wintry narrow country lanes, so reminiscent of Cornwall, before we came to The Crooked Billet.

The Observer Good Food Guide rates it as one of the best Sunday lunches and apparently Kate Winslet held her (first) wedding reception here. It's not hard to understand why, with it's quirky, crooked charm. We didn't have a booking - the fact that we had to park in the "Overflow Carpark" (and very nearly in the "Muddy Field Carpark") suggested it might be a stretch to get a table.

A table indoors would have meant a three hour wait it transpired - but a table in the garden, in the sunshine, under the gas heater under a beautiful blue sky - that was no problem. We certainly didn't suffer for the cold or for a lack of attention. And the meal was beyond delightful. Mozzarella and mushroom risotto balls, the pinkest, most exquisite meat and warm chocolate and banana cake. All washed down with a big glass of wine. It was so civilised.

For the first hour we had the garden to ourselves but then people began to drift in and sit down: National Trust types with their maps and sensible walking shoes, all decked out for a day of ambling, and then a few wanker types, pulling up in their Jaguars and accessorising their self-congratulatory smugness with boat shoes and blackberries and jauntily draped cashmere scarfs - all hedge fund and holiday talk. The two to our left were almost certainly still at university which made the conversation - and the eavesdropping - all the more hilarious.

Getting back into our little car we retreated to Henley and strolled along the river, willing winter to just be finished already so we can get started on Spring.

Henley-on-Thames

Last weekend had shades of deja vu with a return trip to Night Jar on Friday, this time with Tor, the Hungry One and Lovely Boy in tow; and an introduction to Kingsland Rd Vietnamese for our erstwhile food-obsessed friends (we're not dwelling on the oversight of their not having been before....)
while Saturday was a trip to the cinema in Leicester Square. Sunday I had a bit of a meltdown. Not enough alone time, no down time, no headspace, long weeks, longer commutes and a huge case of the guilts about how my slightly psychotic behaviour was impacting on my not-quite-long-but-still-suffering husband. Understanding my state of distress with breath-taking, almost frustrating, simplicity, Lovely Boy took himself off for the afternoon for some Alone Man Time while I went for a long emo-esque walk in the rain along the Thames before sitting in the house and enjoying, nay, loving, the quiet and the space to do..... absolutely nothing.

It's funny how headspace can manifest itself in the need for physical space and I've realised that until we're back in Sydney, where space is in abundance, I'm going to have to find my own space in some form or another regularly to keep me sane. I'm planning to get back in the pool in the first instance and be grateful for my patient understanding husband in the second. Though he does get the house to himself for a couple of hours every evening before I get home so he does ok......

Andy Goldsworthy-esque trash
line on the receding Thames tide...

After another blurred work week it's now Sunday evening again and my heels are being dragged petulantly towards Monday. Every atom in my body is whimpering "please don't make me go", which is strange because I'm not hating work, but I'm just tired out. This weekend has been so lovely. Lovely Boy and I had a date to the cinema at the Barbican on Wednesday, seeing Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy (I'm still confused) but we agreed then that this weekend would be decidedly low key.

We finally finished our thank you cards, we did loads of washing and yesterday we moseyed up to the River Cafe to meet Tor and her hungry husband for a cheeky limoncello and some ice cream AND some totally illicit, totally thrilling Gwyneth Paltrow spotting. She was lovely and it was so surreal to walk right past her as she chatted easily to the friends of her children in the sunshine. It was like seeing life from another planet up close. Another planet that technically you understand is out there but had never seen tangible, physical, living proof of before, never mind living proof dressed in killer suede ankle boots. It's a testament to the River Cafe's almond ice cream that it too warranted gasps of surprise and delight.

From here we moved on to our pub across the road for more wine and a serious post-Gywneth debrief and from here, back to Lovely Boy's and my abode for not-posh tacos. It was messy but delicious and by 10pm we were washed up, pajamed and in bed.

And today, it's been a late brunch (more pancakes) before lunch before a wander in the sunshine (Spring my friend, please don't be shy....) and an early evening on the sofa watching a film. So very inconsequential but so very, very lovely.

I'm already looking forward to next weekend.

A pop-up invite and a very posh dinner.

It started with a pop-up invitation the likes of which I'll probably never receive again.

Actually, it started a couple of weeks before that, when we interviewed the Scandinavian duo Elmgreen & Dragset for a film for the website. Thanks to a confluence of art world activities, all sponsored by the same luxury fashion brand (one of them: my job; another one of them: the Fourth Plinth Commission) I found myself in Trafalgar Square nearly a week ago exactly to witness the unveiling of Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset's newest work for the square, Powerless Structures, Fig.101.

This in and of itself isn't so special - there were camera crews, art critics, oddly dressed leftovers from London Fashion Week, a baby in a bear suit, council workers, security guards, Grayson Perry, school groups and bewildered tourists there as well. Not all of them cognisant to this once-every-18-months-art-world-moment.

On the ground and in the air everyone tried to get their photo

I was there with a work experience student shadowing a filmmaker making a film about the event while working with another filmmaker making a film about the filmmaker making that film. Follow?...

The sun was uncharacteristically generous that morning, Joanna Lumley was characteristically fabulous as she unveiled the work ("I've been asked to unveil buildings before, unveil things in Welsh, even unveil a mountain - but never before a sculpture!") And witnessing the building surge from quiet, empty square to media scrum then watching it all dissolve into what is just the everyday chaos of Trafalgar Square was just as exhilarating as seeing the bronzed boy on his rocking horse emerge from under the covers. Upon which the fountains in the square came to life. I think that last detail was entirely coincidental but I can't be sure.

Michael Elmgreen, Joanna Lumley, Ingar Dragset

Which brings me to the pop-up invitation. As is the way in the art world, a significant occasion means a champagne baptism. And so it was that a colleague and I found ourselves invited to a dinner in honour of Michael and Ingar. A dinner at the National Gallery no less. Or should I say in the National Gallery, like, right there next to the paintings. Despite a momentary adolescent-esque sook about the fact they hadn't seated us together and so, god forbid, we'd have to talk to other people, the night was incredible. I was about to say they could have served us jerk chicken buffet-style and it still would have been breathtaking thanks to the location but then I thought about it and realised, actually, no.

Long banquet tables, flickering candles, insouciant bunches of grapes for decoration, stemware that said matching wines.... all set amongst a collection of extraordinary paintings older than white Australia... well, it was all part of the total seduction. And an evening full of the kind of sparkling conversation that can only come after two glass of sparkling wine on a stomach of small starter canapes.

My colleague was seated next to Ingar's Norwegian relatives. I was sitting next to their Japanese gallerist and across the table from the sales director of their London gallery. Given the commercial nature of my dining comrades it's hardly surprising that the art fair was a prolonged topic of conversation. Having only been to Frieze once in my life I didn't have much to offer by way of insight or experience but what I did say was that going to Frieze for the first time last year and being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of art on display was what I imagined taking LSD and being slapped in the face felt like. Putting my MA in Contemporary Art to good use as ever....

I'm reasonably confident it passed as charming.....

Michael and Ingar say their thanks

It wasn't a late night. The gallery were pretty officious at kicking everyone out at 11pm but after three courses, a lot of delicious wine, some fabulous "art world" people spotting and a lot of pithy conversation I was happy to head home, back through Trafalgar Square reeling somewhat giddily from the beautiful enormity of The Moment. It was part an "I've really made it" moment, the likes of which I first aspired to when I left for London with dreams of "making it" in the art world (whatever that means - I still don't know) but it was also just part "Oh my fucking god that was so impossibly COOL that I just got to eat a banquet dinner in the National Gallery thanks to a boy on a rocking horse."

#MomentsLikeThese

Kusama, cocktails and a little bit of crazy

It would be a stretch to say I got to meet Yayoi Kusama two weeks ago.

It is true to say that if I *had* stretched I would have got within an inch of her thanks to an invite to the press view for her retrospective at Tate Modern. One of several art world perks that are increasingly coming my way these days. But I'll get to those.

We're doing a huge project with Tate at the moment around Kusama's show and so it was incredible to get the chance to explore the exhibition without the hoards and to really have the space and time to allow total absorption in her obsessively beautiful, dark, quietly poetic works. People think dots when they think Kusama and you do get dots here - lots of them - but the curation is so thoughtful that they go beyond any glib pop-esque moment to become a really powerful meditation on madness, infinity and beauty. Because they are beautiful....

Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Mirrored Room - Filled with the Brilliance of Life, 2011 

It was a pretty lovely moment, one of many recently actually, that have punctuated what has otherwise been a stressy couple of weeks that in my head got totally out of control. Exhaustion, homesickness, flatness, semi-brokeness, tiredness and a general case of the Over Its when it's come to public transport and three hour daily commutes, living in Hammersmith and wearing three days worth of outfits all at once. The Lovely Moments are the only things that have kept me from spinning totally out of control. That and a waning full moon?....

In amongst the stress was schlepping out to Croydon in the snow and sub-zero temperatures to get my new visa, or Biometric Residence Permit, as they call it these days in yet another step to dehumanise, humiliate and overly manage you. £850 and four hours later and I'm allowed to stay for another two years. A new lease on London life but one I don't think we'll be renewing when the time comes.

Funnily enough the day after my visa adventure was Lovely Boy's and my three year anniversary. Three years since Lovely Boy first cooked me dinner, three years since we drank three bottles of wine to overcompensate for nerves and an anticipation for not quite sure what and three years since we first kissed at the 94 bus stop at Shepherds Bush at 2am drunk and dizzy and elated and freezing.

After finally getting to have our date with Grayson Perry we decided to honour our little anniversary with a re-enactment of all the key details except the 94 bus stop. We (Lovely Boy....) cooked butter chicken curry, we drank too much wine and we smiled a lot. It was a good night and a perfect moment to reflect on everything the last three years have brought us both.

The last week, despite a shitty few days at work, brought other bright moments in amongst the crazy. I got a very small pay rise - more gesture than largesse - but I'm grateful for it nonetheless, going some way as it does towards improving the balance on my budget.

Which is good - because apart from groceries, I have cocktails to save for. And a holiday.

The joys of Night Jar...

On Friday night I met up with a gang of fabulous girls for some demure bar hopping in east London in pursuit of good drinks in new and interesting locations. Starting with a quick dose of art at the Barbican, first stop was Night Jar at Old St, where the cocktails are curated around themes of pre-war, prohibition, post-war and Night Jar originals. The decor was speakeasy and the music was jazz. I can't quite remember the name of my beverage but it had something to do with paradise and beach-combing so you could say it chose me...

From here we went for Vietnamese and from here we went to the back lounge at Callooh Callay on Rivington St. This detail (back lounge versus front lounge) is important only in that to get to the back lounge you have to walk, Narnia-like, through a wardrobe to get there. 

Novelty factor or no, I completely loved it. The decor back here was Dali meets disco and again I can't remember the particulars of my drink but only because I remain distracted by the drink that was on the table across from us:

Look closer....

Yes, they are gnomes.

It was a great way to shake off the week and on Saturday Lovely Boy and I set to being grown ups by opening a joint account and doing the groceries. And making a collective decision to pull ourselves out of the doldrums by booking a holiday. And not just any holiday - but a holiday to New York. HELLS YES! I'm already thinking about what I'm going to pack. We found this amazing loft in Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn to stay in thanks to some savvy internet research and now we're to the planning. I cannot freaking wait. Something to soften the blow of Monday blues.

B is for...

BOY, LOVELY


Lovely Boy and I had a date on Saturday afternoon. More an attempt to re-engage with life in London than re-kindle any lost in the early days of marriage romance, we ventured out on Saturday afternoon with a plan....

BRITISH MUSEUM (see also: Perry, Grayson)

First stop was the British Museum. I've been wanting to take Lovely Boy to see the Grayson Perry exhibition since I saw it last year and this week I managed to wangle some free tickets and so we were off. And we were off, dressed in all our finest fleecy layers, anticipating the forecasted snow. But so, it turned out, was everybloodyone else.

As his teddy bear Alan Measles, Perry writes a very sardonic, very funny blog that takes pointed aim at the fatuousness of much of the art/celebrity world and there's a beautiful vase in his exhibition, titled You Are Here (2011) that lampoons the myriad reasons why people might flock to his show. Whatever their reason of choice on Saturday, it was so busy that despite our free tickets we couldn't get in. And so we've had to raincheck it for next Saturday. Which takes care of next week's date....

Grayson Perry, You Are Here, 2011. (detail below)
Image courtesy: Victoria Miro

But because we were there, and because Lovely Boy had never been beyond the gift shop on a lunch break, and because the last time I was there I was an awkward, chubby, homesick teenager, we decided to have a wander. We spent maybe an hour perusing the sculptures in the Greek halls before heading up to the fourth floor to ogle the Egyptian mummies. And then having had enough of that we headed on to the next part of our little London date.

BOOZE (see also: Tate Modern members bar)

Catching the tube to London Bridge we warmed our mitts with a mug of mulled wine before heading on to Tate. One of our wedding presents was a 12 month membership and I lured Lovely Boy there on the promise of a drink at the sixth floor members bar. If we saw any art it was completely by accident. The two hours we spent there were passed sitting in rock star position against the windows where Lovely Boy sipped an ale and I had a fat glass of pink wine while we watched the snow roll in over St Paul's. If it wasn't already one of my favourite London views it would absolutely be now. It was low key and cool and breath-taking all at once. And by the time we left there was snow already settling.

BOROUGH

Heading back to Borough I took LB to Elliot's, an unpretentious, welcoming, busy restaurant on Stoney St a couple of doors down from Monmouth. I've never been for breakfast - Tor has - but she took me here late last year for a pre-wedding, carb-free, supper. We ate four different entrees from a menu dictated by the freshest produce available at the market that day and washed it down with a big glass of wine. It was a great date. And one I wanted to have again - with Lovely Boy. And boy did it not disappoint. Fried squid with mouthwatering black spelt, homemade garlic flatbread, charcuterie and cheesy cauliflower. All before the kind of hot chocolate cake with butterscotch sauce and homemade vanilla ice cream that leaves you both rapturous and lost for words. I'll be going again. I suspect Lovely Boy will be too.

B is for... SNOW?

OK obviously B is not for snow but in the interests of a linear narrative snow needs to come next so suck it up and read on...

Well, really, there isn't much else to say except that it snowed and it was exciting and by the time we got home we looked like a Mr and Mrs pair of snowpeople. Until we started to melt. And then drip. But still, there is something so inherently joyous about snow. I don't know if it's the novelty factor of seeing your street turn into a monochrome canvas of white, if it's the gratitude for distraction from the just-plain-old-grey cold or if it's the satisfying squeaky scrunch of footprints that break that beautiful pervading quiet that comes with snowfall. Perhaps it's just seeing your husband declare his love for you in the middle of the road.

BLUEBERRY PANCAKES

The first time Lovely Boy cooked me pancakes I was so hungover I was probably still drunk. I'd arrived home at 3.30am, unable to articulate and sliding along the walls with a rare lucid gratitude for their capacity to keep me upright. That was Hen's Party Version London. And I think that's where blueberry pancakes as my new breakfast happy places comes from. Even when I'm full to bilious I still have to eat until there's nothing left. But I do draw the line at licking the plate if that's any consolation....

BUDGET

Welcome to Misery Sunday. Try though they might, not even the blueberry pancakes could stave off the depression that came with sitting down to do a grown up version of a budget only to discover that when it comes to my financial situation, income - expenses = balance........ EQUALS NOTHING. The spreadsheet would have cried with me if I'd added in expensive face cream, occasional flowers and my bi-monthly purchase of Chanel's espresso-coloured waterproof eyeliner.

Things are about to change drastically around here if we are to have any hope of travelling anywhere this year that's not simply to and from work. It's kind of depressing. And the kind of grown up that is frankly B for boring and far from fun. So thank goodness for free tickets to Grayson Perry next weekend?..... I wonder if that reason is on the vase somewhere....

Whatever the case it's time to get fiscally creative.

Frigid February

So it’s back to London and life as we knew it. It’s been a busy couple of weeks settling back in and I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were still some readjustments to be made. Not so much to married life, funnily enough it feels remarkably similar to engaged living-in-sin life, but to the absence that is – now was – a building, long-term anticipation for the megalith of home-summer-sydney-wedding-family.

I’m thanking my lucky stars (which may or may not resemble my mother and sister) that I didn’t turn into a crazy bridezilla during the 12 months leading up to the day (small incident with the cream vs. beige vs. off-white vs. white moment aside) but even still, there is a strange emptiness now that it’s all over and a funny wish to go back and experience it all again – but maybe as a guest this time just to see what it was like?... Or is that a bit latent bridezilla? Let it go Jo…. Let it go…

So yes. A bit flat, a bit “Wait, that’s it?”, a bit homesick and bit fucking freezing. Phuket was hot – lovely, perfect – London, currently, has a toddler for a temperature. Three is a good day, two about average…. Tops of one forecast for the weekend. The last time I felt this bone-achingly cold I was in New York in 2001. But I was in NEW YORK so who the fuck cares. Trudging to and from Peckham each day isn’t quite so glamorous. But then glamour never was bulky green cashmere socks over tights under jeans with two singlets, a jumper, a cardigan and, lately, a cape, all snuggled in under a coat, hat and scarf.

It makes leaving the house completely unappealing.

Thankfully though, work has been great and the month away has done much for my enthusiasm and my facility for concentration. And there’s so much happening to be excited about. I got to meet Elmgreen & Dragset last week – the artist duo responsible for the next fourth plinth commission and the guys behind the hilariously dark Nordic pavilion at Venice in 2009.

Elmgreen & Dragset, The Collectors, Venice Biennale, 2009

Then on Monday I got to see the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy. I say this was exciting because It’s David Hockney At The Royal Academy… but frankly the show is a bit shit. For want of a more sophisticated analysis. But there’s something in me that enjoys disliking it somehow…

In a couple of weeks I get to sit in on a Q&A with Jeremy Deller at the Hayward and next weekend I’m going to schlep out into the cold to see Zarina Bhimji’s new show at Whitechapel Gallery and hopefully Lygia Pape’s show at the Serpentine. I saw her work in Venice in 2009 and adored it. So, lots of things to look forward to and more pinch me moments than my aching frozen skin can probably cope with.

Lygia Pape, Venice Biennale, 2009

It wasn’t this cold when we left in December. It was crowd heavy and grey but it wasn’t this cold. Apparently they have four levels of cold weather warning here in the UK. We’re at level three currently – where the infirm and elderly are at risk of death. Level four is when healthy humans start to die. A temperature drop and an experience I could do without for the moment thanks very much.

A pedestrianised Oxford St just before
Christmas.  Took crowds to a whole new level...

Being back in London this time around feels so different to last time. Last January I was unemployed, completely without prospects and pretty depressed. Returning this year has brought it’s own set of complications. It’s taken three years but I finally feel like I live in London. I have not quite a gang but a disparate group of fabulous friends, a job that excites me, a lovely husband and an energy to just squeeze as much out of this city – and this part of the world – that I can. As Tor would say, I’m choosing my choice. I don’t want to be away from Sydney – but for the first time really, since I got here, I don’t not want to be in London.

All grist for the over-thinking mill I suppose.

Collecting stamps in my art world passport aside (Mark Wallinger, Grayson Perry, Elmgreen & Dragset…) my first Saturday back in London, two weeks ago now, really set the agenda for the kind of experiences I want this year…

East London graffiti

Heading east, my true spiritual London home, I dropped into Iniva on my way to Vilma Gold Gallery in Bethnal Green, just off Hackney Rd. My old stomping ground and boy did I ache to be able to stay. The afternoon was spent overseeing a writing workshop that we organised through the website for budding young art critics with the Assistant Editor of Art Review magazine, Oliver Basciano. I’d be lying if I said I too wasn’t taking notes…. And then I wandered back down Columbia Rd, licking all the windows before meeting Jen at Allpress on Redchurch St for a coffee, some pistachio biscuits and a huge summer/wedding/life debrief. It was the kind of day that ticked all my London boxes – friends, art, inspiring surrounds. It was A Good Day.

The new ATM on the end of my old street

And then last weekend Lovely Boy and I lobbed our way back to Bray – again – for lunch at the Hinds Head pub (another Heston outfit) for Katie’s birthday. £27 for a three course set menu that included pea and ham soup and mushroom macaroni. I was pretty happy – and pretty full by the end of it. Bray is such a quintessentially cute English village but with low ceilings and thick wooden beams in every building, it’s a tall persons nightmare.

Last night I had drinks in Clerkenwell at this quirky bar called the Zettner Townhouse. The aesthetic was old man’s smoking parlour meets Miss Haversham in a whack anthropology museum. Its lack of Capital C cool was what made it even cooler. That and the cat in the prom dress…

This afternoon I’m taking Lovely Boy on a date – Grayson Perry at the British Museum, dinner in Borough and then drinks in the member’s bar at Tate Modern. Culture and food and exploring London - hopefully it will be fun. Not least of all because it then means I don’t have to leave the house tomorrow.