Fiver Week: Sunday

Sunday was the last day of the £5 week challenge, and after a day traipsing around the shops on Saturday it was time for a little culture instead. How much culture can you get on a Sunday for £2.01 though?

Well, it depends what you’re after. Most museums and galleries in London are free, for their main collections at least, but a lot of the smaller galleries are closed on Sundays. That ruled out the Picasso exhibition at Gagosian gallery, and a few others, leading to a quick choice between ‘Newspeak: British Art Now’ at the Saatchi Gallery or the Galleries of Modern London at the Museum of London.

So after flipping a coin (and finishing off yesterday’s remaining shepherd’s pie for a quick lunch) off we went to the Saatchi Gallery for a wander around their grounds and building, and to see their modern art exhibition for free. It was an interesting afternoon out, with a diverse collection – not everything there is especially wonderful but there were enough good bits to keep most people happy.

Then I made the classic mistake of wandering into the gift shop. Oh boy, what a well stocked and lovely little shop they have there. Gifts, kitchenalia, cards, jewellery, wonderful books… After a few minutes I gave myself a little talking to and frogmarched myself out, empty handed.

The gallery is just off the King’s Road in Chelsea, so I also decided to keep well out of the nearby boutiques and shopping centres. Instead we went for ice cream in a little cafe, to discuss/ giggle about the exhibition we’d just seen without risking offending the staff and owners. This set me back £1.90 for the dinkiest thing they had on the menu, leaving me with the princely sum of 11p. Rich, I tell you, I was rich! Not.

I hadn’t managed to get hold of any free cinema tickets or TV/radio audience places for the evening, and I didn’t fancy any of the free music or comedy gigs that were on, but these are all excellent things to look out for in general if you want to get out of the house and be entertained. However, there was some open air theatre at The Scoop near London Bridge which was first come, first served for free entry for an 8pm performance of Don Juan.

Unfortunately the weather got really cold and windy, so I confess that I bottled out of that one. The shame of it! Instead we headed back to headquarters and I cleaned and polished all my shoes and boots, giving it a bit of elbow grease to get everything smartened up. Then I took a (new) cotton dress I’d bought from a thrift shop and gave it a nice vintage look by making up a dye bath of very very strong tea and soaking it overnight. It’s washed and dried now, and has turned the perfect shade of tan. Not bad going really.

Then we cooked up a nice Sunday roast and spent the rest of evening relaxing. Over all, it’s been a pretty good week and I haven’t really felt too deprived as it’s been quite busy and fairly sociable. The ‘thrifty chores’ all helped to make life more pleasant in the long run, and gave the evenings a little more structure so I think I’ll carry on with them too.

Are you doing a Fiver Week of your own? How are things going? Please share any bright ideas you might have…