The Grandparents Are Here

Grammy arrived on Tuesday and hung out with me at the Tyke's school while I had a meeting about the Nativity play with the reception teachers. She made friends with the cleaning staff (lovely, lovely women) who took very good care of her and brought her tea and chocolate cake. I'm afraid I have been walking her very hard as we then took my usual walk home which is probably over a mile. Possibly over two... she's been a trooper though and spent Wednesday exploring the V&A and Science museums while I was at work.

Thursday we took a little easier and went up to Walthamstow to look at the William Morris Gallery which is housed in one of his childhood homes. It was fascinating- there were some of the wooden blocks they used for printing the wall papers and chintz, there were amazing tiles done by Burne-Jones, and even one of the "medieval" dresses that Morris designed when they were painting Arthurian legends and he met Jane Burden.

My favorite part (I had a lot of favorite parts; one of my favorite parts) was reading about the Red House which was the first building designed entirely by Philip Webb (one of Morris's friends) and was used as an early experiment ground for all sorts of ideas tying decoration and the finer arts together. Basically it sounds like the whole place was decorated by the Pre-Raphaelites and early Arts and Crafts Movement and everyone hung out there (it was where the germ of Morris & Co. was started) and had lots of dinner parties and creative sparks. So, perhaps if I could subtract the whole marital infidelity thing - could I have that life? And maybe not quite so much decoration- the photographs of the inside of the house are actually a bit dizzying.

Mical and Dan arrived yesterday afternoon and Grammy and I joined them at their flat for a bit of a chat. It was really good to see them and I'm so looking forward to this trip! Time with grandparents!

Today we are meeting for lunch and then heading to the British Museum. I'll let you know how that goes!