I’ve challenged myself to be more spontaneous. To take opportunities that arise. To go to exhibitions, shows, festivals as they occur. To make an effort to do things outside of our normal routine.

Yesterday, we went to a preview of the “Late Turner” exhibition at Tate Britain. It’s an interesting exhibition of works from Turner’s later life, displayed chronologically backwards. It was a varied tour of Europe, the UK, some sea scapes plus images of biblical and mythology stories. The art showed a variety of styles and formats, oils, water-colours and highly detailed line etchings on paper. I particularly enjoyed seeing original sketch books displayed alongside the final paintings.

As a Tate member, we then joined a wine tasting event – Australia’s top 100 wines. This was located in a gallery of British artists.

We have participated in a few wine tastings, wine tours, so we have an idea of varieties that we like. But it was fascinating to taste a number of same variety wines from different vineyards, different regions of Australia, with different ages and prices.

It was not a totally serious wine tasting. People observed the colour, swirled the glass to release the aroma, to note the alcohol content. Everyone enjoyed tasting the wines. But there was not a lot of spitting it out.

A few people did pour the samples into a spittoon. One lady was quite horrified that she didn’t like a particular wine, so poured away approximately £5 worth of the liquid. It was refreshing to be able to sample wines costing from £85 pounds a bottle (a rather nice Wakefield cabernet sauvignon) down to £8 per bottle. It was reassuring to realise that we did prefer many of the cheaper options.

It was a delightful evening. A positive spontaneous experience.