Olafur Eliasson : In Real Life

Tate Modern

It could be our thing, I consider saying to Erbie.

Erbie could say: ‘My mother and I go to an exhibition once a month and then have an apple juice afterwards’. 

When he grows up, he could say : ‘I am going to meet my mother at the Royal Academy or the Tate or the National’. 

I could tell him: ‘Did you know the National is where Stubb’s picture of Whistlejacket is – the horse painting, where you said your first word?’

I have these thoughts but the reality never quite pans out - in real life.

Love lock, Millennium Bridge 

In real life, the only way I got Erbie to the exhibition at the Tate today was by offering to pay him an hourly rate - the first and last time I will do this. The only slot I could book was the 10am one, as the show is coming to an end this week and it’s fully booked. I only wanted to take Erbie as I’d heard it was quite fun for kids. There is a fog tunnel and several light installations, plus I’d booked a ticket for myself already. Erbie, as a child was free. Only it meant we needed to leave at 9am. 9am to an 11 year old boy, on Christmas holiday is too early, hence the bribe.

St Pauls, London

We sped walked across the millennium bridge, me dragging Erbie, because, of course we were already late for our 10am slot. I couldn’t find where to enter the actual exhibition. We started on the correct level but on the wrong side of the bridge. Words were said. ‘Help me’ being some of them, and I got to explain the meaning of the phrase ‘blood from a stone’.

Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern

We went through the foggy tunnel, it changes colour whilst you are inside, from bright white, to yellow to pink, you really can't see anything and it is dream like, the colours surrounding you evoke different emotions. 

There was also a really cool blacked-out room that only revealed it's contents when an ultra-violet light flashed on then off, freezing splashes of water in a fountain, so that it looked like a solid sculptured object that changed shape with each reveal.

One room had a mirrored ceiling and a semi circular tube in black that became round in the reflection. Erbie suggested we lay on the floor. ‘I won’t be able to get back up again’, I only half joked.

Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern

Interactive Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern

We look at books in the gift shop and buy TheGR a pencil. 

I can feel myself getting annoyed, Erbie is trying to eek out time, yet I had to drag him out in the first place. We get the tube back. I see a poster for a dating app. with interests hashtags. The models look like children to me. At least it is hopefully a move in the right direction from Tinder. 

New dating app

On the way home I say to Erbie: ‘I was going to say, going to exhibitions together once a month could be our thing, when you’re older and have left home we could meet up...’ 

but I cannot finish. His HSP won’t allow him to go there. 

‘Stop, stop, I don’t like it. I don’t want to talk about the future. ’ he blurts out

I tentatively ask why he doesn't like to talk about the future. ‘Because it makes me think.’ he says and burrows himself deep within his coat pulling his hood so that his face is hidden. 

When we get home I let it be known that the next time I visit the Tate it will be alone.

I take myself off to another room to write this and feel my equilibrium return. After about 40 minutes Erbie asks me to give him a hug. I go and give him a hug and he apologises, I apologise too, for many things, although neither of us are really sure exactly what for, in real life. 

Christmas Time, Too Much Wine

I am Christmas toxic. Utterly stuffed with meat, dairy, sugar and gluten.

Turkey
There have been turkey curries, turkey wraps, turkey pitta pockets, turkey sandwiches. All delicious, and as I haven't eaten turkey for 5 years, a novelty.

Chocolate
There have been two chocolate oranges, each before noon. The only fruit I’ve eaten was with nut, coated in chocolate and labelled Dairy Milk. Maltezers, Raffello, Lindt, Ferrero Rocher of course. Usually I'm a one square of 80% cocoa girl. Not this Christmas. Those ones are languishing in the back of the larder.

Bread and Cheese
So much bread and cheese, gooey gorgonzola with toasted sour dough and a beautiful antique glass full of port, a whole baked camembert dribbled in honey with sage, an unctuous taste temptation devoured in one sitting with crispy baguette and a nice Sablet from the Rhone.

Coca-cola cooked ham, pickled onions, chutneys and pork pies. Crisps, many crisps. Pavlovas and chocolate Yule logs - all delightful.

Bar Christmas dinner (roast turkey, spouts and roast potatoes cooked in goose fat, red cabbage and apple, bread sauce), the only vegetables I've eaten were fried in butter and presented as bubble and squeak. I resorted to juicing the carrots lining the vegetable drawer yesterday with a thumb of ginger but I couldn't feel any semblance of detoxification. To be fair, I did follow it with a tumbler full of Baileys.

I’ve even been drinking coca-cola which would never normally pass my lips. My waistline has seriously expanded, my chin has erupted and my bones ache when I get out of bed in the morning. All this and yet I persist and I’m enjoying it. Is this masochism by food?

Of course I have plans to change everything back to goodness in 2020. Go plant-based, practice yoga, start swimming, exercise some self-care, all the usual malarkey.

I am worried. I can feel a small lump on the right side of my throat. Having had my thyroid removed in 2017 I'm still going for check ups. Why would there be a lump there? Where would it manifest from? Could it be a rogue lymph node. How does the disease even get in your lymph nodes. Ironically, I know drinking alcohol and eating sugar, stressing out and not taking any me-time are exactly the opposite of what I should be doing.

I had a mini epiphany yesterday while taking the time to ask myself why I felt a certain way when people said untoward things to me. It was that ‘I deserve to be here too’. I hope it's not too late.

And seriously woman, get a hold of yourself, there are people starving out there, as well as seahorses holding onto cotton buds in our polluted oceans.

Photographer Justin Hofman's image of a seahorse swimming with a discarded cotton swab illustrates the issues of pollution in our oceans. ... Seahorses ride the ocean currents by grasping floating objects with their tails.

Christmas Baubles 2019

Well it wouldn’t be a W1mum Christmas without posting my annual bauble finds.

I have my eye on this beauty from the RHS (that’s the Royal Horticultural Society) darling.
A greenhouse for the tree. Love it.

RHS Greehouse Decoration £13.00

Erbie, however has made his choice for this year. A blue glass hammerhead shark wearing a Santa hat. I cannot argue, it is his choice, who knows what goes on in a child’s head! From Paperchase where tree decs range from turtles to fortune cookies, so just had to share a couple of others which we might get.

Hammerhead Shark Tree Decoration - Paperchase - £8 

Game controller tree decoration - Paperchase

Paperchase

Are you feeling Christmassy yet?

I might crack open the Baileys later...

Skiathos Island

Many moons ago, long before Erbie was even a chink of an idea in our hedonistic minds, TheGR and I used to fly off, out-of-season, last-minute, to places we had not been before. We had a penchant or the Greek islands and one of which was Skiathos. One of the Sporades chain of islands nestled in the turquoise Aegean. 

Twenty years ago, Skiathos was an undiscovered gem, tired around the edges with half-built hotels, tumble down houses and dirt tracks leading from it’s one main artery road to empty beaches. 

Pine forest backed beaches edge Skiathos

We discovered hidden places such as the Kastro monastery, only reachable on foot. Most of the island was easy to navigate with a bus link from top to bottom - quieter Koukanaries to Skiathos Town next to the airport.

We walked through pine forests to find beautiful vistas of the twinkling sea. I encountered my first Praying Mantis and Swallowtail butterfly and discovered clumps of bee orchid growing in the spring, I easily fell in love with Skiathos.

This beach or that beach?

A small Greek roadside shrine next to a camping sign

Koukanaries itself has beautiful beaches backed by pine and olive groves, clear, clear Aegean blue waters and soft sand, with plenty of interesting bits of driftwood and tiny shells.

Above the beach was a derelict hotel, rooms facing out over a beautiful view to Alonnisos. We’d walk past the empty rooms and giant pots of overgrown geraniums to stand to admire the views.

The Aegean glimpsed through the olive trees in Koukanaries 

One day, we said, we will come back and make it into our film studio. At that time there were plenty of unused half built hotels, owned by the Greek government these had sprung up in the 70s tourist influx and then found themselves derelict in the 90s.

View from Skiathos Town

The narrow cobbled paths in the town led to pastry shops, the laundry, an open air cinema, and traditional Greek clubs such as Kentavros. Skiathos boasts a famous Greek writer called Alexandros Papadiamantis, I read his short stories and visited the museum and art shop.

The Blue House in town

The open air cinema is still there.

As is Kentavros!

We made friends on the island, ‘come back in July or August,’ they said - ‘this is not the real Skiathos’, but funds mainly, made us only visit off-season. But visit we did, year after year, exploring the nearby islands of Tsougria, Skopelos and Alonnisos.

Greek basil matching the shutters in Skiathos Town

When we got older and started earning a bit more money, we splashed out and went in July. Oh my! Another Skiathos opened up to us, a whole street, in-fact. Club street, down by the airport a gyrating, pulsing, booming throng of pretty young things dancing and drinking the night away. One evening a minor earthquake struck, everyone ran outside briefly and then returned to the dance floor as soon as it had passed.

One of the hillside bars in Skiathos Town

Bars on the hill overlooking the Bourtzi, and the harbour were open late into the night. Locals didn’t seem to need sleep, going from clubs at night to bar jobs in the morning, sobering up on Greek coffee and iced water. No one ate breakfast. A constant stream of tourists came and went, July and August were relentless. We loved it.

Skiathos Town

During the day we would walk to the end of the Bourtzi and dive into the sea, or laze on the beaches at the end of a stunning walk through the pines, swimming every day, getting freckles and tan lines with the energy of youth on our side to shower and go out all night again.

Pine forest walk to Mandraki beach

In October, the tiny tavernas on the beach front were filled with old men playing backgammon and drinking tiny cups of thick dark coffee, the windows ran with condensation, shut up to the cold, clear blue skies outside.

Siesta time in town, everyone is home for lunch.

It rains, a lot, in the winter, once you know this, you can spot the drainage channels running down the centre of all the pathways in town. The rain waters gush down the hill to join the sea.

Gullies in the paths for heavy off-season rains.

Most of the bar staff on the island came from elsewhere in Greece to work the Summer season, the Greek guy who took the money on the bus was from Camden in London. ‘Number 53, Skiathos Town’ he’d sing out in a his authentic accent, and we would jump off for a night on the tiles.

The path through the trees to our disused hotel is now paved.

The beach below the hotel was our secret place, or so we believed, not a sunbed in sight, although we did once see a naked old man wandering past whilst we sunbathed.

Our friend Fortis would come drinking with us after his shift, we’d drink shots of of tequila gold with slices of cinnamon sprinkled orange (‘the Greek way’), and smoke Marlboro Red as if they were going out of fashion. Each new year we went back Fortis would joke about how many years TheGR and I had been together, putting up his fingers he'd chant: ‘5 miserable years’, ‘6 miserable years’...

The Greek flag proudly flying on a townhouse

And now, with Erbie ‘22 miserable years’ later, we decided to go back.

Erbie and TheGR exploring the back streets in town.

Boy, some money has been poured into that little gem. Our disused and derelict ‘film studio’ is now a five-star hotel, the scrappy bits of land in front of each room turned into individual suites with plunge pools.

The derelict spaces once inhabited by rough sleepers are now bijou hotel rooms.

Plunge pools in front of the hotel suites.

No need to meander through the pines to the beach now, there is a beach buggy to take you, oh and it's gated, probably soon to be only for the paying guests. 

Personalised airport transfer anyone?

A swathe of land had been cleared and private villas with pools plopped into the landscape, new pines and olive trees have been planted, probably at huge cost, some of the pines already dying, their evergreen needles turning copper. 

Private villas with pools overlooking the Aegean.

Our ‘secret’ beach is now covered to it’s last inch in the thickest, plushest cushioned sunbeds I’ve seen.

Could a humble sunbed be plusher?

Ashtray and beach cocktail menu darling.

Twenty years ago the only salad available was Greek, now there is plenty of choice.

Salad menu...

In town we found an old Italian friend, now a grandad, running a restaurant with his Greek wife’s family. The food was amazing and the views are still to die for.

Our friend Lorenzo’s new restaurant overlooking The Bourtzi.

Skiathos is now a luxury destination and well-know after the filming of Mamma Mia (I’ve still not seen it - and didn’t realise) The prices have sky-rocketed, no longer a cheap getaway this hidden gem will always have a place in our hearts and is still if not more beautiful.

View through the trees in Skiathos Town

Here is Erbie sitting on the steps of the pathway we climbed twenty years ago, before he was born. Once just a track to a derelict building this is now a paved walkway to a luxury hotel.

Another life.

I’ve had my head in the sand for a few years and sadly not the soft Greek sand of Skiathos.

Columbia Road Flower Market