Had a day off of work today. Took the train to Sunderland to meet Richard. We started off going to Sunderland library home of the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art. There were a couple of exhibitions on. Giuseppe Davies: Vie is an interactive installation on until the 3rd of April. It is a screen that responds to touch with lights and sound. It’s very pretty. The larger exhibition on is Think Tank: A marketplace of ideas ending 13th of Feb so we are lucky we caught it. A bunch of ideas to reflect and improve society…Richard liked the We Not Me poster. I liked the Institute of Economic Affairs map, simple, pretty and interesting – reminiscent of the Information Aesthetics Blog.
Then we went to Angelo’s Ristorante for excellent Italian food which Richard got to order with a silly Italian accent – good fun. For appetizers we had Formaggio di Capra e Rosti di Patate Croccante and Camembert. The main event was Ravioli alla Pizzaiola and Tagliatelle con Vedura e Zafferano.
For desert we went to Stardust which has a cute and crafty gift shop downstairs and a pretty cafe upstairs. Picked up the ring at left from the gift shop. Under £4 and a bit of fun. Upstairs, it’s a shame there weren’t more people there – the couches are the kind you sink into and the coffee and lemon cake were yummy. It seems like a perfect spot for students to camp out in with laptops and to just hang out. 
I then attempted to recreate the artwork on the wall of Stardust, a photograph of a sculpture just outside. It is a 2008 sculpture called Seachange by Laura Johnston. It is meant to recall the hull of a ship and the shipbuilding heritage of the area as it transforms into something new. [Part of the Sunderland City Centre Public Art Trail]
Unfortunately it was raining so we didn’t want to spend too much time attempting to get the shot. You can see my few attempts on flickr.
I got distracted from the original mission of recreating the photo in the cafe because I loved the trees being reflected in the steel:
Seachange sculpture in Sunderland
To get out of the rain we headed into Primark and picked up some cheap and cheerful shiny, pretty things – a sparkly bracelet for £2 and some pillar candles for £1.75 each. The little charge you get from picking something up for £2 and £10 is really the same and lasts about the same amount of time (and £100 doesn’t really last ten times as long) – it’s a good thing to remember. We then stopped off at Richard’s to pick up the cute and stinky Florence and set off for Hartlepool.
I am a terrible navigator. Hopefully this will change when I learn how to drive. After a number of phone calls to Kev to set us back in the right direction we had a nice relaxed evening with some gewurztraminer from Chile via Morrisons and a quick sweet and sour chickeny bits with rice dish a la Kev.
Mostly it’s just the two of us but it was nice to have company too. It’s easy to forget when you get into you routine.
