Today, to the V&A, and the Beatrix Potter show: a wonderfully concise and rich show. Of course there were illustrations from all the well known books - Tom Kitten being rolled up in a roly-poly, and the rest of it - and some other animal drawings and greetings card designs. And the pelt of her own Benjamin Bunny. But there were also some terrific sketch books and flower and landscape drawings from when she was 10-12, which provided a very vivid sense of what a talented young woman could do through copying and a certain amount of instruction while still very much within a middle-class London home; early fungi and fossil drawings with a great deal of detail, and a lot of emphasis - so far as there was room - on her Lake District conservationist work.
It was imaginatively curated - a lot of prompts at child's eye level, encouraging all kinds of engagement with the ideas with which Potter herself was playing. I loved the little mice that scampered in semi-silhouette along the bottom of the display boards (and there were some insects, etc, too).
When, aged about 12, Potter found some white clay when she was on holiday, she tried modeling a bas-relief cat, in Wedgewood style.
Her Lake District walking stick had a magnifying lens in its head - very useful for inspecting ferns or lichen.
And of course, it being the V&A, we went to say hello to my old companions, the Dacre Beasts, from Naworth (this fish used to be on the right hand side of our front door, and his teeth are nearly as good as Gramsci's);
and we had lunch in the tiled and frescoed cafe space - with an elegantly draped Woman Reader. Old habits die hard.
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