On A Barcelona Bullet; Spain 1:Germany 0

I'm hyperventilating. Gibbs is about to start on Channel 5; I may have to miss the first few mins as Spain are playing a blinder against Germany. I'm back in the UK for a few days with a couple of long mtgs up in the big smoke. I try and fit in a gallery or a big museum in what's left of the afternoons, but luckily the chair had to get off this afternoon to another presentation so we finished up unexpectedly early. A short hop up the Underground and there I am, Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery.

And because I had a whole afternoon off I checked my bag at the cloakroom, paid for my floor plan and set off to follow it room by room through the centuries. This is the first time I've followed the floor plan, beginning with Paintings 1250 to 1500 in the Sainsbury wing; then Paintings 1500 to 1600; on into Paintings 1600 to 1700; then Paintings 1700 to 1900; before racing down to the basement to catch the quincunx of rooms showing the best of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. And having always loved the Pre-Raphaelites I was entranced by the fabrics of yes, the 13th to 16th century paintings. But here's the most arresting painting;

Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo: Mary Magdalene, about 1535-40

Hyperventilating? Spain won, Gibbs in on, and Helen Yemm's blogging again. Life doesn't get much better than this.