Friday 31st January.
Well radio news, tell us something we didn’t know! This
January has been the wettest since the UK started keeping weather statistics!
Whoopy Doo! I bet that the dimmest of the dim could have told you that. Even in
my relatively short time on the planet I have never experience this amount of
rain, ever! [Not that I am saying I am dim, you understand?]
OK, I spent most of my childhood in Norwich which doesn’t really
know what rain is compared to the rest of the UK but even so I am aware of how
our weather patterns have been changing. I feel ashamed to say that I even have
to agree with our future monarch who has recently been decrying all these
climate change deniers. Good on you, Charlie, stick the Royal boot in! I do not know who is worse to be honest, those who deny climate change is real or those who
believe creationism is true. I guess the religious nuts aren’t going to cause
as much actual harm to the planet as the deniers might.
I took the dog for her early morning swim around the country
lanes of the village before Laura and I went for our swim in the local pool.
The numbers there were quite a bit lower this morning. Sarah had predicted they
would fall off by the end of the month and she was right. [She also believes in
climate change, so she is one of the good guys!]
We whizzed into Uni a bit earlier than usual so I could
catch up with some form filling I needed to complete about my mentoring
activities. I forgot to do it on Monday so I am catching up. Felice and I then
sat in on a lecture by our supervisor which was very interesting and quite
illuminating as regards her lecturing style. It was not all whizz bang, flash
and sparkle; it was more dour and conservative. Yes, she delivered her facts
and details interestingly enough but it could have been so much better. I am
not going to view her through my rose tinted spectacles any more. In fact if I
ever do rise to the dizzy heights of lecturer I know I will wow everyone’s
socks off in the lecture hall.
Lunch was sans Mrs Briggs today; back to normal then.
Although we knew we’d probably bump into her later at the City Hall. [We did.]
We were joined by Mandy and her new BF who seems a bit of a drip to be honest.
Still, if he makes her happy who am I to complain? Felice flirted with him like
billyo for a while which was kind of embarrassing for everyone, except her. She
left half way through lunch though, having taken a mysterious phone call that
“Needed attending to!”
I tried to make a joke about how Feli was different to the
usual run of the mill post graduate because she was French and therefore had an
agenda which was so unlike ours. I am not sure they bought it, I didn’t and I
was spouting the theory!
After Uni we zoomed home to get our meal and change for the
evening. The latter was a bit tricky as we wanted to look our best and still
avoid getting what we were wearing ruined by the weather. As there is not much
immediate parking near the City Hall, we had to be prepared for a longish walk
to the venue in what could have been dreadful weather. In the end common sense
won and we went for jeans and sensible shoes. This proved so right. All the
parking on Division Street and Carver lane were full and we had to settle for
the Multi-Storey job in Charter Square – a quarter of a mile, uphill walk in
driving rain. Luckily a stockman’s coat and jeans are a useful combo and we
didn’t get wet at all. An umbrella in the wind that was howling down the
streets would have been useless.
There was a queue for the cloakroom as people wanted to hang
their sodden coats up rather than take them into the auditorium and then there
was an even bigger queue for the bar. We bought our wine and ordered interval
drinks and were accosted by Mrs Briggs and partner who had been there quite a
while as they wanted to park on the Holly Lane car park and so were there at
6pm! We partook of idle gossip and chat until the bell rang and we wandered our
spate ways to our seats.
The concert: The Halle are one of my favourite
orchestras, I was a bit disappointed
that they weren’t using their principal conductor Sir Mark Elder but a chap
called Andrew Gourlay. LOL.
Gourlay is equally as renown as Elder to be honest and he
did an admirable job. The Britten, which opened the concert was charming. I can
find Britten to be a little too strident at times and almost atonal but his
Suite on English Folks songs was as pastoral and bucolic as you would have
expected it to be. It is a fairly modern piece too, composed in 1972, or there
abouts. I think it turned out to be an unexpected delight.
The Sibelius was an expected delight. His violin concerto is
justly famous being pastoral and idyllic
and romantic at the same time. I found it amusing that a Norwegian violinist
was playing a piece by a Finn about Finland. Still, despite the mismatch of
countries Kraggerud played very well indeed.
Sibelius is one of my favourite composers, TBH. Mainly because of his
obvious nationalist fervour and deep love of his homeland both of which are
evident in his music. Finlandia is the more well-known piece, obviously, but
the violin concerto, if it had a subtitle like “Homeland” or something similar
would probably be equally well known.
That’s my opinion, anyway.
The Stravinsky was as bold and dynamic as you have come to
expect from his works. Petrushka is one of his more accessible pieces which I
knew as a child long before I had heard of The Firebird. It sort of fitted well
with the Britten earlier in the programme with its adaptation of traditional
folk tunes.
Needless to say, until I had played these last two pieces to Laura
during the month they would have been completely new to her. The Britten, from
what I gathered in the bar at the interval was completely new to a lot of the concert
goers: me included.
The end of the evening’s weather had turned from driving
rain to an insidious drizzle which still managed to coat everything is a watery
sheen. We arrived back home in time for the rain to give up the ghost
completely so that Callie and I didn’t have an evening swim through the lanes
but a more normal walk.
When I got back Laura had made us both a hot chocolate and
marshmallow drink which was so welcoming after the horribleness outside. As she
always manages to do when drinking hot chocolate, she had given herself a
frothy moustache which I just had to lick off…
It is amazing the places chocolate froth gets to you know!
Saturday 1st February.
Dad sent me an e-mail link overnight, to news cutting about
a dog in WA being arrested on suspicion of DUI for running a car into its
owner. It happened in Mundaring and apparently the car ran into the guy pinning
him against another vehicle when the dog somehow managed to release the
handbrake! Only in Australia, eh?
No rain this morning as I walked my dog, who has yet to try
and run me over in my own car! She used to have the run of all the passenger space
in my little Picanto but in my new one [a Kia Cee’d] she has the boot all to herself
behind a dog guard so it couldn’t happen now. Maybe in the old one she had been
secretly plotting my demise so she could inherit all my wealth and live in
doggy luxury for the rest of her days.
At the pool we managed 100 lengths with no trouble this
morning. It just shows how quickly you get back into the routine if you are
basically fit already. There were more people this morning than yesterday,
Sarah is putting the increase down to the dry morning! We collected our papers
from Sylvia on the way home, she is convinced the world is trying to remove the
human infestation from its surface and this weather is just a part of its
strategy. The sad thing is I think she was serious!
Double showers and breakfast and then a lazy day enjoying
the lack of rain. I did the Times jumbo crossword in just under three quarters
of an hour which is slow for me. For part of the morning Laura spent the time
trying out some eye makeup on me. It involved a gradual colour change across
the eyelid from dark by the nose to pale by my cheek and then spreading an
extended eyeliner outwards. It looks brilliant. I am going to try and keep it un-smudged for tonight’s theatre trip.
I had a go at doing the same to her eyelids but I am quite
cack handed at this sort of thing and it didn’t look anywhere near as
impressive as what she’d done to my eyes. I don’t usually wear much, if any,
make up so I don’t have the dexterity of a regular user. Although if I could
get the hang of this technique, I might do it some more. I removed my mess on Laura's lids with
makeup remover and she applied the ‘war paint’ to her own eyes. It was just as
spectacular as what she’d done on my eyes. I have obviously just failed in my role as a putative bimbo!
LOL
The play.
Wowzer. I know the Dream much better than I know Comedy of
Errors, as I expect most people do, so it is going to need a special treatment
to make it stand out. An all made cast went a long way towards that special treatment and a set
that was basically white with odd things dangling about on it did that as well.
I think Puck was the most amusing though in his bright hooped tights and a
tutu!
The first half is usually quite long winded in its scene setting
but that should give way to a break neck second half and that is exactly what
we got. The guy playing Helena was brilliant, even with cropped hair and five
o’clock shadow the essential Helena was there. I played her at school and was
particularly impressed by both the vulnerability she/he showed and then by her [his] absolute incandescent anger when both lovers profess to love her. I enjoyed
doing that on stage at school and you could tell the guy playing Helena was
having a ball.
It would take a pretty dreadful actor to foul up Bottom and
this chap didn’t disappoint. I think the overall success of the play depends on
how good the Bottom is. He was very good. The Mechanicals’ Pyramus and Thisbee
was hilarious; much more so than our school production. I guess we couldn’t “let
ourselves go” in the same way that a professional can. At this point in the play, I had to remember that I had my startling eye make-up on as I cried with laughter so much I nearly smudged the
whole lot away with a tissue. Luckily Mum watched me ratching about in my
handbag for a tissue and, when she saw what I was going to do with it, she
grabbed my arm to stop me!
Earlier, during the interval I was full of how good the production
was and kept comparing it to our old school one. Mum started to get a bit huffy
as she thought I was being critical of her direction so I had to explain to her
that I wasn't and that if she’d had a set of professional actors instead of a
bunch of silly schoolgirls she’d have produced something equally as impressive.
What she got out of us girls was pretty marvelous in itself, anyway.
Mrs Briggs was gobsmacked by what she had seen in the first
half and then was amazed that Mum had directed the play at our school when I
was a pupil there. She said that she always knew I was an actress at heart [was
that an insult?]. Mum then spent some of the interval telling her horror
stories of my adolescent acting and how I had tried to persuade her to let the
local boys’ school audition for parts in the Dream, so it could be a joint production with
“real” males. She also listed almost every acting role I had undertaken from
Angel Gabriel [aged 5] onward. Thanks for that Mum!
We didn't see her after the show but I think she will be
extolling its virtues around the office during the week. It runs until next
weekend and then is off on its continuing tour of the country. A couple of the
cast members came up into the bar afterwards and Mum collared one of them to
chat to, which was so embarrassing. You could see the guy’s eyes thinking,
“I've got a weirdo here…” until she mentioned having the seen the Peter Hall
version at Stratford when she was younger and she thought their set design owed
it a debt of gratitude. They ended up gossiping for ages and ages so in the end
we began to put our coats on and make valedictory noises which brought Mum back
to earth. We wandered off homewards still with a sense of having been to
something very special indeed.
It had stayed dry, too. So we could have glad ragged up. We
didn't though, we just wore variations of the jeans and top ensembles from
yesterday. That is about it for the moment, “Arts-wise”. Our next cultural
outing is to the City Hall for a Valentine’s day treat where we’ll be hearing
Romeo & Juliet [excerpts from the Prokofiev ballet], Liszt’s bang the
keyboard Piano Concerto and something by Bartok –which I can’t remember at the
moment.
I played Laura the Mendelssohn Overture to MND while we had
a nightcap and she thinks she’d like to see a ‘proper’ version of it now too.
Sunday February 2nd.
I called Dad this morning with news about Dubmill Point. I
wanted to get him back for sending the dog story I suppose. He already knew!
Molly [Laura’s Mum] had e-mailed him the newspaper link so he could read all
about it for himself. Gutted.
Dubmill Point is where, owing to an idiot in a slow moving
car in front of us, we had a huge wave break over us on a really wild and woolly
day in January after we’d been to Silloth. It was pretty scary to be honest but
as we were in Dad’s Land Rover at the time I wasn't too concerned. It seems we’d
need a Land Rover to drive along that road now! It is covered with debris, has
been closed to ALL traffic and police are stopping and giving on the spot fines
to motorists who are stupid enough to attempt to drive through.
They are going to have to call civil engineers out to see if
the road will be safe to use once this passage of atrocious weather is over
[that could be about June! LOL]. A couple of years ago a whole section of road
and concrete embankment was washed away leaving a gaping hole in the surface,
so those drivers are being really stupid trying to drive through! I am picking
Dad up from Glasgow airport next Saturday, so we’ll be able to see for
ourselves, during the weekend, just how bad it is. We can walk up the beach to
there from Allonby so it should be an adventure for Saturday arvo or Sunday
morning.
Today we had a second dry day! I will have to put out the
bunting! We decided to try for a stroll around Agden from High Bradfield. If we
had just gone round the reservoir we’d have been mudded up to the eyeballs but
going along past the old Motte and Bailey castle and under Rocher Edge we
avoided the majority of the squelchy nasties.
We had lunch at the Old Horns and were able to snag the
window seat which offers views right out across to Derwent Edge. It was a
glorious day really, considering the crap we have had recently and having
someone else cook lunch was an added bonus. I experimented with beer too! Well,
sort of. They had some Bradfield Brewery’s Belgian Blue on the pumps so I asked
for a shandy to be made with it. It was delicious. I mean not at all beer like,
but fruity and quite sweet. I was lucky to get some, because when we went for a
second round of drinks the barrel had been finished.
After lunch we drove up to the brewery. It is in walking
distance from the pub but Callie had spotted us from the car boot and started
barking with joy. The brewery doesn’t sell it in bottles but they do a thing
called a party cask [5 litres] or beer in a box [15 litres]. I asked about its
shelf life and the person said the party cask would last about a month. So I
bought one. I have to stand it for at least half a day for it to settle and
then when I am ready I have a valve to open to relieve the pressure. It sounds
complicated but I’m sure we’ll cope. Once their current stock has gone that
will be it until next December when they brew up some more especially for the
Christmas market. I put it on the table in the cellar where it will remain and
we’ll access it from there so it doesn’t need moving again.
An early night was had by all [10pm] as we were feeling a
wee bit knackered and still stuffed from the huge roast dinner in Bradfield. So
stuffed in fact we couldn’t manage a proper evening meal but settled for some
apple pie and ice cream instead! With the hot chocolate fudge cake I had for
dessert at the pub that makes it a two dessert day. Not good for the figure.
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