It’s great weather once again and today I’m booked for the special Van Gogh and his Letters exhibition, so with some coffee where it belonged and a bit of silver haze in the receptors, I’m off to the museum. Booked on line so no queue’s, got the audio machine hooked up and off I went to get beyond the Sunflowers, Irises and chopped off ear which was about all I really knew of Van Gogh. I know a lot more now, and his work, as is mostly the case when you get to know the person behind the brush or pen or whatever, is now so much more powerful for me, particularly his earlier sketches, although the later work with his vivid colours stops me in my tracks. I shall fit in a visit again over 420. The audio tour in the Van Gogh is excellent, very modern and much like an Ipod with tons of supplementary information that can be accessed on it; I seriously could have spent the entire day there, with suitable breaks for refreshments.
The Man Van.
It will take a second visit to see all the other artists like Lautrec and Gauguin properly, but they did have a large lump of Richard Serra sculpture in the lower level and you only run into one of his bigger pieces now and again, well obviously running into one would hurt as they are often very thick shipyard steel, honestly if you’ve never experienced one of his steel constructs, they are great, best when placed in the open though I think.
Anyway a fair while had passed since I had any sustenance; I guess I was flagging a bit, I must have had at least a coffee in the museum but I’m having a senior moment or two here, and I sure don’t remember it, well maybe the faint outline of a waffle is there in the haze, hey I had a load of waffles in my travels, just boring to write about too much. Going to meet up with Cisco again this afters at the MY so the time is right to head that way, did I say it was a nice day? To be greeted as I ambled up the street by two of Edinburgh’s finest, LOL gracing the bench in the afternoon sun. Well we thought we’d go and sit upstairs and there weren’t a lot of people in there, I think it was first visit for the guys so we passed what I recall was for me at least some restful (old timers tales lol) time. I was getting a bit knackered, the old legs, and they still work good lol, and me, some does,lol had spent a load of hours and a lot of kilometres on the move, ‘cos that’s what I like to do bike or not, and tomorrow would take us home. So we said our goodbyes the guys looking I’d say to do some easy mooching and early snoring, like me. That was it really I wandered, smoked, munched and sat by canals, took absolutely no notice of anything much, just tripping really on Amsterdam’s goodies, and although it has been a lot of years that my brain’s mutated sufficiently for me to be accepted by cannabis plants as a distant cousin, we seemed to be having a big family knees up, but I guess I did go round and visit them. Yep tripping I reckon. “They say it’s better than sex,” as Tiger would say, but my memories not so good these days. Sorry, no, my solitary evening was a gas.
This is quite classy street art I bet loads of you have seen it
Well not much more to say, another trip is meandering to its conclusion. I returned to my hotel, which had been OK, nothing to get excited about though, for the last night and spent some time on the internet and chatting to the desk guy, I introduced him to the ACD website which he didn’t know about and thought was cool. Went for a wander round the block with the last of the Thai grass from Yoyo, bed, TV (2min’s boring), book and sleeeeeeep, and dreamed that 6 (?) nymphomaniacs on a hen night had ambushed me and dragged me into their fur lined Winnebago because they thought I was the piano tuner. Drugs and fresh air can be hazardous mix them carefully. Or did I leave the TV on?
Up and about in the morning, I’m a little bit anal I half packed last night, so downstairs sharpish, put my bag in at reception and get out and about straight away, about 8.30 am. Bit of shopping for the family today so made my way down to the market, and it’s getting set up so go for some breakfast which was a ham and cheese toastie and juice and then went and did my shopping, which was pretty easy going. 5 pairs of bright yellow dutch clog slippers for various kids and g/kids and as much choccy as I can manage to carry for the Duchess. Oh and 6 packets of waffle mix. This last item is a standard “bring back” from Holland or Belgium for us and if I get a search, which I did getting on the plane this time, then the sight of a customs agents eyes confronted with half a dozen 200g packets of white powder is a joy to behold. Honestly, they look at me, I got no metal in me face no tattoos, no dreads/ shaved head, I look pretty standard, but I’ve been to the Mokum and I’ve got 2 keys of the white stuff.LOL. Anyway I’m struggling a bit with me bags, the clog slippers don’t squash down very much and I’m trying not to spoil them, and I’ve also got a big bunch of sunflowers for my daughter who was politely waiting for me to return to produce our third granddaughter which she has done very nicely thank you. Anyway neither the mirror nor the rubber glove is produced and it’s no problems off I go and expect a spin at Heathrow, but I’m cool and through the airport on the tube and a cup of tea and a spliff in my hand in very quick time. There, tale told and my head high at 420.
Blue skies and happy trails for sure.
