We went in to see the Science Gallery exhibition a while ago and it was closed unexpectedly. Alas. I had paid for 90 minutes parking and it was lashing rain. I cast around for some alternative suitable cultural institution nearby with a cafe and a bathroom. We stood gloomily in the rain and I suggested that we could go through Trinity to the National Gallery.
It wasn’t that near and, I couldn’t help thinking, as we trudged through the rain, they weren’t going to like it much either when we got there. Much of the gallery is closed for extensive building work but the Turner exhibition was out for January and many of the gallery’s most famous paintings are crammed into a couple of exhibition rooms. I brought the children in for what I promised was a very quick look before getting a cup of tea. But the boys, in particular, were so interested, looking at the paintings and reading the captions and asking about them, that we stayed for ages.
It’s been years since I’ve brought them to an art gallery and perhaps I have left it too long. Or perhaps all the years when they were dragged unwillingly at a young age have prepared them to be engaged viewers at ten. Or perhaps, it was still lashing outside and we had nowhere else to go. Still I was very heartened and I see a whole new world opening up.