More Liverpool Lurve

 A Pair of Passing Superlambananas at Runcorn Station

 

After visiting the Gormleys at Crosby beach, we headed back into Liverpool to the Maritime Museum at Albert Dock.  We were woefully short of time there, and have planned to head back soon.

The perspex figure of Aphrodite comes from the liner Reina del Mar.  The anchor below is from the Conway; you can get an idea of its size from the teeny pedestrians next to it.

In the dusk below you might just about be able to see two Liver birds.  (For those of you of "a certain age" - myself included - apologies for that earworm I've just introduced "What's got four arms, longs to grab ya, answer is two Liver birds...")

From our lofty perch in the restaurant, I ordered what the menu described as mini cakes.  The waitress apologised that they weren't exactly mini.  OH managed to finish them off, with the exception of the banana cake.  After a plate of brownies.

We heard a distant hooting, and the yellow duck boat plunged into the dock (on purpose, I hasten to add).

Finally we grabbed a cab to the Philharmonic.  At the traffic lights, the cabbie turned around, looked at us carefully and asked if we meant the pub rather than the orchestra...  "The Phil" is architecturally gorgeous, with the men's loos being so spectacular that women are invited to go and view.  I passed up on the offer, but OH assures me that they were fabulous.  The main room and bar are both gorgeous, and it was a perfect end to the day to snuggle up in some wing chairs with a drink.   The decoration is called the "murmur of the sea" and features mermaids to the left and mermen to the right.  Look at that gorgeous ceiling...

Holding Mr Gormley's Cold Cast Iron Hand

Waiting for the tide

Today I met some of Antony Gormley's cast iron, life size figures, which are spread out the foreshore at Crosby.  Known as Another Place, the installation is made up of 200 figures, all made from casts of the artist's own body, and shown at different stages of rising from the sand.  

Number 21 and I get acquainted.  

Antony Gormley states that Another Place "harnesses the ebb and flow of the tide to explore man's relationship with nature", saying: 

"This sculpture exposes to light and time the nakedness of a particular and peculiar body. It is no hero, no ideal, just the industrially reproduced body of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe, facing a horizon busy with ships moving materials and manufactured things around the planet."

I don't remember when the awareness of Another Place first seeped into my consciousness, but I do know that it's been on my bucket list for some time.  We had hoped to drive to Crosby last month when we were in Chester, but were thwarted by snow, and lots of it.   Armed with a cheap rail ticket offer from London Midland, today was the day to go and meet the Gormleys.

Eager to see them, I fairly bounded up Hall Road to the coastguard station.  And there they were, as starkly outlined as I'd imagined against a low tide, the industrial landscape, and a line of wind turbines.

I had heard that they spent some time dressed up, and Number 22 had a particularly fetching outfit for the day, although somewhat unsuited for the weather.

His poor feet looked very chilly, and I loved the way that the sea life had taken over.

 

Number 22's bracelets: the original and the new.

This may sound rather odd, but tonight I feel strangely content.

Tomorrow - the superlambananas, some perspex, and more of Liverpool...

Bad Day at the Office

Firstly, that's a bit tongue in cheek; there are no major crises here.

But March's journal page for the 2011 Calendar challenge (see the Kathryn Wheel button to the right) has turned out rather badly.

I had in mind a lovely green and yellow page, delicate, springlike and stamped with flowers to act as day markers. As I didn't have enough pale inks, what I got was something that had been left in the coffee machine too long and went mouldy (charming thought, I know, but strangely accurate - and don't ask how I know).  Here's the offending item.

So the good news is that I get to do it again.  Hopefully without the contents of an ancient sump.

But it won't be tomorrow.  Tomorrow I get to do something I have wanted to do for a long, long time.  If I tell you that by tomorrow lunchtime, I hope to be holding the hand of a man on a beach (and not OH's hand either) would you be able to guess...?

I'll show you the object of my desire tomorrow.