Morning run not an option. Too much gin last night, and too good a Bloody Mary at the hotel bar. Slept much better: no Aussies to worry about.
Bilbao: interesting city, even when it rains all day. Today we took in the other major gallery, the Musee des Belle Arts. More conventional fare this time, but no less enjoyable for that. It’s always salutary to be reminded how every generation of art has provoked outrage in its time, before settling down to public acceptance.
Had a long, rainy walk along the river into the city, then meandered round the streets on the trams for a while. Sunday in Bilbao is what Sunday in the UK used to be like. The shops are shut, the streets desolate. In the end we mooched back to the hotel where most of the day has been spent reading and watching TV football. I had hoped to catch a game in the flesh, but Athletico were away at Celta Vigo, so had to watch it on la caja instead: "We" won 2-0.
I haven’t talked much about reading in this web log. I try to keep a book or two on the go at any one time. It’s one of the great advantages of commuting. Many people seem horrified when I tell them I’m spending between two and three hours a day travelling on trains. But it’s a great opportunity to read, and I feel lucky. Driving would be different of course. That really would be a terrible waste of time.
At the moment I’m reading Clare Tomalin’s biography of Samuel Pepys. It’s a great read, especially for London historians and students of robust quotations. Try: "A man who gets a wench with child and marries her afterwards – it is as if a man should shit in his hat and then clap it upon his head."
A corker.
