MEAL OUT: The Langton Arms (Church Langton)

 

A January meal out.... and why not. Scampi and chips twice, followed by double chocolate cookie with salted caramel ice cream. Very nice indeed!

DAY OUT: Peterborough Cathedral and Urban Art Exhibition

 

Not sure if we've 'visited' the centre of Peterborough since the turn of the millennium, Rose seemed to remember it a lot better than I did and to be honest it was nicer than we remembered it. I'll say one thing for it, it's a damn site easier to get into and park than a lot of places we've visited over the years!

Confusingly there are three different churches visible around the shopping centre, so consequently when we emerged trying to find the Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery we got a bit lost. Thankfully we found an extremely helpful man in a photo shop who set us right and we eventually got there. 

We had booked tickets to an exhibition called 'Urban Art', which was exactly what you'd expect it to be (Banksy, Damien Hurst, Bambi, Pure Evil, etc) and there were well over 100 artworks on display which we enjoyed looking at. My favourite was a Banksy, I love the humour in this.

Rose picked out this painting by 'Thingie' called 'Gotta Paint them All'...

As with any art exhibition there were high points and low points, but overall it was well worth the £8 entry fee and there was another free exhibition downstairs by Paul Kneen called 'Something's Wrong' which was okay too. This 'Interference - Sumatran Tiger' was pretty striking!

Before we left we purchased the book of the exhibition, which annoyingly I discovered later, doesn't have all the pictures from the exhibition in it! What a swizz.

Never mind, we headed upstairs to look at the museum part of the building and that wasn't too bad either. We learned quite a lot about the history of Peterborough and also experienced a Victorian operating theatre..... which was fairly disturbing. We decided not to bother with the Jurrasic fossils though.... 

Entry to the Cathedral was free, so you can't say it wasn't good value... but it did seem a tad underwhelming as it seemed quite empty and devoid of sculptures and tombs etc. It got better the further you walked inside, and we came across the resting places of Katherine of Aragon and also Mary Queen of Scots (although she was later moved to Westmisnter). 

Most importantly of all though, it got us out of the house on a foggy January weekend!