Excursions
Jul. 28th, 2025 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livThis week P'tite Soeur organized a family trip to London. All four siblings and Dad, which is quite a feat of logistics even if we didn't manage to also include partners.
We met up late morning at the V&A. At first I couldn't find my sister because she'd texted me that she was in the sculpture gallery on the first floor but the sculpture gallery is on the ground and second floors, but I wandered through cool things while being lost. And we perused part of the photography gallery which is currently about the history of American photojournalism, focusing more on the Civil Rights and social history part than the landscape photography part, though the one Ansel Adams piece they did have on display stood out a mile. Then we found Screwy and Dad, and were immediately pounced on by a Saudi woman Screwy had met years ago, because he is the sort of person who spontaneously meets international friends in the doorway of museums. We had a not very satisfactory sandwich lunch in the garden café, and then headed to our main destination, the Design and Disability exhibition. Which meant I got to say hi to the Chihuly that lives in the main entrance (I'd come in from the tunnel from the Tube station so hadn't yet come that way.)
The exhibition itself was, I would say, ok but not a must-see. It was very worthy, lots of explaining the social model of disability and informing us that disabled people deserve to participate equally in society and need inclusion, not impractical high-tech gadgets. Little of that was new to me, though, and what I'd come for was design, rather than things like histories of the kerb cut and Telethon protests or Camp Jened 'Crip Camp', or lectures about why ableism is bad. But all those things were interesting, and in true V&A fashion they had some outstanding textile pieces. They also had a lot of adaptations to make the exhibition itself accessible to actually disabled visitors, but it felt a bit hollow because while showcasing best practice in this particular exhibition, they didn't in fact enhance the rest of the museum to the same standards. Indeed Dad, who is pretty fit for an octogenarian, found the museum as a whole tiring and lacking in places to sit and rest, which is exactly one of the problems that the prominently displayed Finnegan Shanon piece highlighted.
We then walked along Hyde Park, past the Albert Memorial which we had great fun dissecting the colonialist themes of, in search of ice cream. I was very disappointed, they had no decent ice cream at all in the park, or even a tolerable cup of tea. But it was lovely to spend time with the family! That brought us quite nicely to our pre-show dinner venue, chosen by P'tite Soeur: the unpromisinginly named but actually awesome Tofu Vegan. Though we only booked an hour ahead, they were absolutely brilliant at accommodating Screwy's physical access needs and P'tite Soeur's dietary needs; she was geeking out with the waiter over how they made certain Chinese staples gluten free when core ingredients are wheat-based. The food was incredibly good, the service was brilliant, and we ended up paying £25 a head which is absurdly good for the middle of Kensington. Thuggish Poet joined up with us at the restaurant after a day at the cricket.
We then dispersed again because we had not quite managed to book seats together in the Albert Hall. But I waved at my siblings from all the way up in the cheap seats! Funnily enough that was my first ever prom and I loved it. We had picked Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique more or less at random (the date was convenient), and it was very good. Two short pieces before the interview, some fairly middle of the road but very well done Strauss, and a premiere of a super-weird contemporary piece rejoicing in the title of ZEBRA (or, 2-3-74: The Divine Invasion of Philip K. Dick), with an electric guitar solo. I might well have hated either of them, Strauss for being too obvious and the new thing for being too self-consciously Modern, but in fact they were just highly enjoyable. And the Symphony itself was completely delightful. Being the enormous cavern of the Albert Hall with a very large and very good orchestra and a top-of-the-range sound system definitely added to the experience, but it made me think I should go to more orchestral concerts. (Though it's not just me, it's super rude to applaud in the middle of a movement, right? Even at a dramatic ff climactic point?) Then I walked-ran to South Ken and managed to get on a train back to Cambridge exactly 40 minutes from the final baton.
Another thing I was able to do due to not being in Israel was to visit the community I'll be spending Yom Kippur with, the amazing Kehillat Kernow, a peripatetic community covering most of the Cornwall peninsula. (Yes, that's me in the news article at the top of their website, they are very prompt at reporting!) The long train journey was not as wonderful as I had hoped, because the trains were very very overcrowded in peak season, but at least I had a seat and got to enjoy the lovely views. And read a bunch of novels, which is definitely making my brain happier.
They invited me to dinner Friday evening, and had a very Liv conversation about dealing with racism in education and medicine, with the other guests having direct professional expertise, not just setting the world to rights. And put me up in a super nice hotel in a neo-gothic pile that used to be a convent, and were gracious enough to invite me to stay Saturday night as well so I even got a little bit of time in Truro, which is where they held this particular service. I walked along the river a bit, I found a teeny-tiny Pride festival in the town centre, but it was packing up by the time I had finished dinner at 7 pm, so I wasn't able to get dessert from one of the sparkly rainbow doughnut stands.
In between I lead a Shabbat service, with very enthusiastic participation from the community, and they even appreciated my somewhat political sermon about whether we can still be Zionists in this moment. Because it was the new moon of Av, I got to read from their super-exciting Historic scroll. Well, actually I chanted the verses about the creation of the sun and moon; it's still a big deal for me to do that in public. I'm pretty pleased with how all that went.
And now I'm back and I have another month of relatively uncrowded schedule. It's very nice.
We met up late morning at the V&A. At first I couldn't find my sister because she'd texted me that she was in the sculpture gallery on the first floor but the sculpture gallery is on the ground and second floors, but I wandered through cool things while being lost. And we perused part of the photography gallery which is currently about the history of American photojournalism, focusing more on the Civil Rights and social history part than the landscape photography part, though the one Ansel Adams piece they did have on display stood out a mile. Then we found Screwy and Dad, and were immediately pounced on by a Saudi woman Screwy had met years ago, because he is the sort of person who spontaneously meets international friends in the doorway of museums. We had a not very satisfactory sandwich lunch in the garden café, and then headed to our main destination, the Design and Disability exhibition. Which meant I got to say hi to the Chihuly that lives in the main entrance (I'd come in from the tunnel from the Tube station so hadn't yet come that way.)
The exhibition itself was, I would say, ok but not a must-see. It was very worthy, lots of explaining the social model of disability and informing us that disabled people deserve to participate equally in society and need inclusion, not impractical high-tech gadgets. Little of that was new to me, though, and what I'd come for was design, rather than things like histories of the kerb cut and Telethon protests or Camp Jened 'Crip Camp', or lectures about why ableism is bad. But all those things were interesting, and in true V&A fashion they had some outstanding textile pieces. They also had a lot of adaptations to make the exhibition itself accessible to actually disabled visitors, but it felt a bit hollow because while showcasing best practice in this particular exhibition, they didn't in fact enhance the rest of the museum to the same standards. Indeed Dad, who is pretty fit for an octogenarian, found the museum as a whole tiring and lacking in places to sit and rest, which is exactly one of the problems that the prominently displayed Finnegan Shanon piece highlighted.
We then walked along Hyde Park, past the Albert Memorial which we had great fun dissecting the colonialist themes of, in search of ice cream. I was very disappointed, they had no decent ice cream at all in the park, or even a tolerable cup of tea. But it was lovely to spend time with the family! That brought us quite nicely to our pre-show dinner venue, chosen by P'tite Soeur: the unpromisinginly named but actually awesome Tofu Vegan. Though we only booked an hour ahead, they were absolutely brilliant at accommodating Screwy's physical access needs and P'tite Soeur's dietary needs; she was geeking out with the waiter over how they made certain Chinese staples gluten free when core ingredients are wheat-based. The food was incredibly good, the service was brilliant, and we ended up paying £25 a head which is absurdly good for the middle of Kensington. Thuggish Poet joined up with us at the restaurant after a day at the cricket.
We then dispersed again because we had not quite managed to book seats together in the Albert Hall. But I waved at my siblings from all the way up in the cheap seats! Funnily enough that was my first ever prom and I loved it. We had picked Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique more or less at random (the date was convenient), and it was very good. Two short pieces before the interview, some fairly middle of the road but very well done Strauss, and a premiere of a super-weird contemporary piece rejoicing in the title of ZEBRA (or, 2-3-74: The Divine Invasion of Philip K. Dick), with an electric guitar solo. I might well have hated either of them, Strauss for being too obvious and the new thing for being too self-consciously Modern, but in fact they were just highly enjoyable. And the Symphony itself was completely delightful. Being the enormous cavern of the Albert Hall with a very large and very good orchestra and a top-of-the-range sound system definitely added to the experience, but it made me think I should go to more orchestral concerts. (Though it's not just me, it's super rude to applaud in the middle of a movement, right? Even at a dramatic ff climactic point?) Then I walked-ran to South Ken and managed to get on a train back to Cambridge exactly 40 minutes from the final baton.
Another thing I was able to do due to not being in Israel was to visit the community I'll be spending Yom Kippur with, the amazing Kehillat Kernow, a peripatetic community covering most of the Cornwall peninsula. (Yes, that's me in the news article at the top of their website, they are very prompt at reporting!) The long train journey was not as wonderful as I had hoped, because the trains were very very overcrowded in peak season, but at least I had a seat and got to enjoy the lovely views. And read a bunch of novels, which is definitely making my brain happier.
They invited me to dinner Friday evening, and had a very Liv conversation about dealing with racism in education and medicine, with the other guests having direct professional expertise, not just setting the world to rights. And put me up in a super nice hotel in a neo-gothic pile that used to be a convent, and were gracious enough to invite me to stay Saturday night as well so I even got a little bit of time in Truro, which is where they held this particular service. I walked along the river a bit, I found a teeny-tiny Pride festival in the town centre, but it was packing up by the time I had finished dinner at 7 pm, so I wasn't able to get dessert from one of the sparkly rainbow doughnut stands.
In between I lead a Shabbat service, with very enthusiastic participation from the community, and they even appreciated my somewhat political sermon about whether we can still be Zionists in this moment. Because it was the new moon of Av, I got to read from their super-exciting Historic scroll. Well, actually I chanted the verses about the creation of the sun and moon; it's still a big deal for me to do that in public. I'm pretty pleased with how all that went.
And now I'm back and I have another month of relatively uncrowded schedule. It's very nice.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-28 05:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-28 07:47 pm (UTC)I'm glad you got the family excursion and the Cornwall trip. I'm amused by your sibling's ability to find random acquaintance in the museum :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-28 08:05 pm (UTC)That sounds like a really successful outing. It's sad that the V&A still isn't majorly accessible. I had issues with the lack of seating in the 1970's when I was young and fairly able-bodied.
I'm glad much good is coming out of your not having been able to go to Israel.
P.