#80

Been sleeping lots this week. It feels like I have really needed to recover from the past month or so. Yesterday we went to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition. What do I think of Leonardo? I think that the best Renaissance artists were consummate self-promoters. They didn't really have a choice - but my favourite artist has got to be Michaelangelo - of the triumvirate. Because he was really THE Renaissance man. Da Vinci was sort of an entertainer of nobles, whereas Michaelangelo and Raphael, even for the short time he was alive, really got the bit between his teeth. Where Michaelangelo goes down in legend for the sheer scale of his ability and Raphael for the court politics and his massive stanzas, da Vinci goes down in history because of his notebooks. It has to be. He has two really interesting paintings - the Virgin of the Rocks and the Mona Lisa. Because of their dreamy mesmeric quality. But for sheer titanic ability - well - not he. And people sort of make excuses for him all the time. But well... Anyhow, that's my two cents' worth.

Another successful field trip yesterday. We saw what we had been there to see - and more. The kids attended their first real lecture ever at the age of 13. An ex-parent told me, so you were the only school in Belfast that made it to this lecture then? Well done you. I never thought of it like that - but yes, well done us. And what was also gratifying was that whatever that lecturer said did not contradict me, which was a personal triumph, quietly celebrated. Also, what was great was I had covered most of the important parts of da Vinci's life. All the highlights - and there wasn't anything which the students didn't know about.