While last weekend didn't start on the best note - Friday's 17hour stint in the office, punctuated only by a trip to Sainsbury's to get dinner - things were looking up on Saturday as i boarded the West Anglia Great Northern KingsX express, literally trembling with anticipation of another trip to London.

Met up with Kylie and Anthony at Tate Britain,

where we checked out the fine works of JMW Turner in the Clore Gallery. A highlight for me was a small exhibition upstairs "Turner and the Sea", comprised mainly of sketches and watercolours.

Some were pretty minimal:

This was my fave:

A far cry from the elaborate grandeur of his more complete works:

Juxtaposed Turner with more contemporary offerings of Tracey Emin, John Piper,

and Paule Vezelay, the George Eliot of visual arts in the interwar era:

(Acknowledgement to Tate website for jpgs.)

Moseyed across the Thames, admiring the iconic Battersea Powerstation

then enjoyed a splendid dinner with K&A's housemates Neil & Kirsten, and a few quiet drinks whilst being entertained via the decks, and related antics.

Sunday, Kylie and I ventured forth to the National Gallery, which enabled me to do the tourist thing around Big Ben, Trafalgar Square etc.

My child-like exuberance was obviously contagious as even Kylie, a seasoned Londoner, got into the silly photos act:

The National Gallery is incredible. We really only made it through the pre-Renaissance stuff, with a couple of highlights being Lorenzo Monaco's 'Coronation of the Virgin',

and Carlo Crivelli's 'Annunciation with St Emidius'

Ran around to find Turners 'Dido building Carthage',

before being ushered out at closing time:

into the sunshine! (first sign of this for weekend):

Adjourned to pub for reflective pints then to all-you-can-cram-onto-one-plate-then-into-your-mouth-via-a-wok stirfry place - very yum. Made a quick trip to MJs house having precisely calculated that this would afford me enough time to get the last train back to Cambridge. That would have been great if the Tube was still running along the Northern Line to Kings X. Which it wasn't.

Consequently, sprang up early from living room floor, jumped onto Tube then train and was in office by 9:15, my earliest arrival there yet.