We went and did some shopping on Thursday afternoon. We needed a plastic holder for our parking permit for when we bring the hire car here overnight, plus some other stuff. I bought a couple of cheap jumpers and a a pair of track pants from Primark as I have been finding I need more slightly warm ‘around the house’ clothes.
Yesterday we did quite a trek by tram, bus and train. Stephen wanted to visit Richmond-on-Thames, where there is a house painted by Turner. He lived nearby for about six months (that was his ignomonious time of being booted out of his girlfriend’s room and down into the cellar). He didn’t recognise the house he lived in, but it was on Ashleigh Road.
Stephen has a print of one of the two paintings of The Limes which we have hanging at the end of our passage. I’ve been able to download this thumbnail. We will need to check when we get home to see if it is the same as his print.
As you can see, it is more a sunrise on the river scene, but you can just glimpse the house in the far left of the picture.
We found a refuge after a long tram ride, followed by a long bus ride, about two hours of travelling, at Ye White Hart, a beautiful old pub with a balcony overlooking the Thames. We ordered hot drinks and discretely ate our home made cheese and lettuce rolls.
It was quite difficult to work out where the actual house was located. The staff member that Stephen asked had no idea. Stephen thought it might be a white house we could see in the distance. I took a zoomed photo on my trusty 18-135mm lens and we zoomed in on the house. Clearly, it wasn’t it.
Eventually Stephen was able to locate the actual house, which we had walked past without noticing. It is now surrounded by buildings and doesn’t have quite the feel of the area in the painting. We were able to look at it from the river side and the street side. 123 The Terrace. It has been called The Limes for a long time, perhaps even by the original owner.
The featured image shows a zoomed in view of the bridge we could see from the balcony.
Our plan was to go to Tate Britain, partly to see the Turner exhibition there. The actual paintings of the house are not held by Tate, so we wouldn’t be able to see them ‘live’.
It took a good 2 hours to traverse London traffic in red buses. Fortunately Friday has late opening hours, which meant we had time to have a hot drink at the cafe before going around the galleries. We gave up at about 6.00 p.m. We caught a bus to Victoria Station and zoomed home.
