Last Saturday (16th) I went to the Joan Miró exhibition at the Tate Modern with Tim & Peter and my mum. He is one of my favourite artists, but I didn't realise until I saw the publicity for this exhibition that he was male - I thought it was the woman's name Joan, not a Catalan spelling of the man's name Juan. That's made me slightly sad because it means there are even fewer famous female surrealists.

The exhibition was awesome anyway. Lots of great paintings, plus a series of 50 pencil drawings called the Barcelona Series, which were incredibly inspiring, because I can draw boggle-eyed toothy monsters like that! (Some of them remind me of the Prince and his cousins from Katamari Damacy!). I often feel that modern art "doesn't count" if it involves a level of skill which I'd be capable of, but apparently I disregard this opinion if I really like it?! Hmm. I also really liked the Head of a Catalan Peasant series, especially the one which is a portrait of Richard.

Afterwards we went to Pizza Express, which is a typical thing to do with Tim & Peter, and walked over the Millennium Bridge to St Paul's Cathedral, where I investigated new and exciting ramps in the ground. Oh, and missed the train that I'd booked assisted travel on, due to the lift in Waterloo Station being broken and no one knowing about it to tell me. Had to go ALL ROUND THE OUTSIDE to get in through the level entrance. Grrr!

On Friday (22nd) we went to Devizes to see Richard's mother's grave and also various alive members of his family, namely his father, stepmother, sister, her husband, and nephew. It was VERY VERY SUNNY and we spent several hours outside, walking round the Caen Hill Locks. Well, they walked, I wheeled. Except I got "hilariously" stuck over one of the narrow bridges while Richard temporarily forgot I existed due to taking photos. There were dozens of people around to help me though. Heh.

On Saturday (23rd) I collapsed in a heap and slept for 18 hours, and then we went to see Wolfsbane. More about that later.

On Sunday (24th) Tim & Peter came round and we played Portal 2, and went to Pizza Express, where a waitress we'd never seen before "recognised us". This may be something to do with our tendency to take plushie animals with us to dinner. We get recognised everywhere we go even semi-regularly for this reason.

On Monday (25th) Marcus (hatter) came round and we went to look at "the trees" in Richmond Park, including my favourite tree. I had an altercation with a bus driver who refused to let me on because he already had "two buggies" occupying the wheelchair space - I pointed out that wheelchairs take priority over buggies and the guardians of the small children moved them out of the way for me to get on. If they hadn't been reasonable, I would have written down the registration number of the bus and got straight on the phone to Transdev (the bus company who runs that route), since it was totally ridiculous of the driver to assume that a wheelchair passenger should have to wait 15 minutes for the next bus when it blatantly says that the space is for wheelchairs! I probably should have done that anyway, but it would have required spoons which I don't have.

Photos of some of these activities to follow in next post.

Tags: family, mum, museums, tim+peter, wheelchair rambling