January 1st – Happy New Year! A return visit to the V & A

Today it was sunny and cool so we jumped on the bus and rode over to the Victoria & Albert museum this morning.  We haven’t been to the V&A for over 10 years so it was nice to visit it again.  It has changed so much since we were last here that it was like visiting for the first time.  I think for me the highlight was to see two rooms of small oil painting/sketches painted by John Constable.  He is noted for his paintings of English cathedrals (like Salisbury) that capture the countryside and the dramatic skies.  We also saw a collection of gold and jeweled snuff boxes that had belonged to Fredrick the Great, of Germany.  We also saw what it reputed to be the finest Persian carpet in the world, the Ardebil carpet from the 1500’s.  For dinner we went to a pub a few blocks from the hotel and Deb had a steak & ale pie while I had Chicken Tikka Masala.