Cat in the Gallery with Flowers

Best friends have a tendency of appearing through the mist when you need them most. Cat arrived in the Edinburgh sunshine with her new blonde head of hair, pain au chocolat from her bakery and whole buckets full of nostalgia and gossip to catch up on.

We walked the waters of Leith, visited the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, ate haggis, caught up with friends, drank Scottish ale and fleetingly visited sunny Glasgow.

This Ernesto Neto installation was a sensory experience not only visually but also because the elephant-feet-like weights at the bottom of the lycra columns were made from a number of different spices. The smells coming from the room permeated the whole gallery.

Cat has wanted to visit Glasgow School of Art since doing her art foundation more than three years ago (she ended up going to UWE in Bristol). I had heard that they now put on tours of the Charles Rene Mackintosh art school building and the studios. Unfortunately we weren’t able to take the full tour because all of the last year students are getting ready for their degree show. We saw a lot of worried looking, paint splattered students milling around carrying huge pieces of mount board and desperately sucking on cigarettes. The tension was palpable! I remember a similar feeling at the end of university.  We took a tour of the outside of the Mackintosh building and the furniture gallery.

It was so nice to have Cat around again. We went to Thailand during our gap year and even just travelling to Glasgow brought back all the memories! I don’t know what I would do without my amazing friends and feel so lucky to have people like Cat in my life. And, who said it rains in Glasgow? I don’t believe a word of it!