Mopping Up
26 July

Well, the rain continues.

We've not had a day in the last week without rain. I'm constantly mopping up in the back garden. Gone are the days of eating out in the morning or in the evening.

On Saturday, Roland and I went into town to go to the Picasso exhibition at Tate Liverpool. I was happy to attend the show for a second time but I don't think that I've changed my mind from that first visit. It's an interesting show in the first half that peters out in the second. It amplifies my knowledge of a great twentieth century artist without changing my opinion of him.

And I still like the fact that the dove of peace was originally a drawing of a pigeon.

After we'd finished there, we took a stroll down towards the waterfront. There have been a number of changes down there. The canal feeds its way through the plaza in front of the Liver Building. The new Museum of Liverpool is nearing completion. It doesn't look like the city I grew up in at all.

We ate on the waterfront itself at a new-ish restaurant called Matou which describes itself as being Pan-Asian fusion. I had a dish with noodles and prawns and very much enjoyed it.

Sunday it rained again and so I spent some time in the house fixing cracks in the bathroom and bedroom ceilings. Some polyfiller, a bit of a sand down and then a quick drop of paint and you'd hardly know the difference.

I've also completed listening through a three volume set of radio programmes on the history of the United States of America entitled Empire of Liberty. They were on Radio 4 in 2008/9 during the presidential elections.

I've been following these series on Radio 4 for some time now starting back in the day with This Sceptered Isle and following on, in more recent time, with James Naughtie's The Making of Music and The Invention of Childhood. I just think that they are a remarkable way of learning about the world.

The current series of A History of the World in 100 Objects which began back in January has just finished. We are still only up to object 70 and we haven't yet hit the Renaissance. I like that. Mostly, I get less interested in the series as they approach out times. Empire of Liberty actually was an exception to this. The final six disks covered the period of the Cold War and beyond and I found it quite fascinating.

In a completely different vein, I've been continuing my reading on the train with Roald Dahl's Big Friendly Giant. It's the first of the major Dahl books that I've read where I didn't know anything about it beforehand and I really enjoyed it. I have to say that Danny is still my favourite but this was good too.