So, My Friend has a flat in Margate, but I’ve never been so I took my first trip there this weekend (avec famille) to see the Turner Contemporary in the flesh. Look at the blue skies we got! My pics don’t quite reveal the mighty gale whipping past though, it was sand in the eyes the second we hit the beach. And teeth actually – in future I plan to avoid smiling in such conditions.

The building itself is smaller than I’d imagined, but really quite lovely with lots of views to the sea – the way it reveals this externally through long concrete corridors, reminded me of Jean Nouvel’s L’Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

The yellow installation above, Borrowing and Multiplying the Landscape by Daniel Buren, is in the entrance area, but spans both floors and managed to perfectly frame a passing boat while I was looking. I also loved Russell Crotty’s fibreglass sphere’s Near The Lost Coast.

This installation by Ellen Harvey, is based on a sketch of Turner’s designs for his first gallery space, which he opened in his house on Harley street in 1804. She’s filled the inside with mirrors and light boxes showing views of Margate as it is today, but it was the sign outside that I loved…

We mooched around a couple of shops in the old town afterwards – loosely based on My Friend’s shop report – ate a nice lunch, and got a lesson on what a Kentish gypsy tart is from a man on a market stall. Something about condensed milk, sugar and pastry, sounded healthy. All in, it’s a nice manageable day trip especially if one of your party has the attention span of a two-year-old (to be fair, that is his actual age).