I have been whingeing a lot about the weather recently.
But today has been beautiful. 
So we went to the seaside.
To be honest, we’d already decided to go to Bournemouth whatever the weather. 
We spotted these wonderful things on the railings by the path down to the pier.
As it was a lovely sunny day – we went inside. Here. 
We’ve been wanting to visit the Russell-Cotes Gallery for a while – even before Jeremy Paxman included it in his programmes about Victorian art. Today we finally made it.
The interior is even more amazing than the exterior – middle class High Victorian at its gob smacking highest.
If you saw Paxo’s programmes you may have got the impression that all the paintings were Victorian soft porn – which isn’t completely true, although the nipple count is quite high, including Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriel Rosetti.
And for something completely different there is a delightful temporary exhibition of mosaics by Cleo Mussi, entitled ‘A Hand Book – A-Z’ [with accompanying book.]
We weren’t surprised to discover that Mussi trained in textiles, as I had gone round thinking about how like embroideries her pieces were …
The gallery has the necessary nice cafe, and a small but very pleasant garden.
Which brings me to my picture of the day. The fountain in the garden, from the grotto.
According to the information leaflet you can order a picnic lunch from the cafe to eat in the garden. Wish we’d known that in advance.
