Cleopatra at the Lyceum. Getting to Rock. Mothering Sunday with Mother.

Friday March 28^th.

A family outing to the ballet this evening; we went to see The Northern Ballet’s revival of their piece “Cleopatra”, at the Lyceum. We had bought our tickets quite a while ago but as Gran had come down from Hawick to stay with Mum, they tried to get tickets for this show. We were front row Grand Circle; they managed to get seats about three quarters back in the Grand Circle on the same side as us. As we were arriving from opposite ends of Sheffield we arranged to meet up in the bar before the performance started. I was onto my second glass of wine when they rolled in. Laura had volunteered to drive tonight.

We ordered interval drinks and had a gossip about Dad and Louisa and the new baby and all sorts of stuff really. Gran was incensed that Dad and his floozy had stayed in the same bedroom as she had. She can be a bit weird like that. I told her I was annoyed at having to wash the sheets twice in a week! That made her laugh.

Apparently Martha Leebolt danced the part when it was first produced some years ago (I had obviously missed it) I thought she was excellent. Some of the visual representations of Egyptian hieroglyphs were very clever indeed.

There was a synopsis in the programme of the interpretation and its relevance to Shakespeare but to be honest that seemed a bit esoteric to me and it was tricky to spot during the performance even though it had been highlighted for you!

I loved the way the Romans were stiff and precise whilst the Egyptians were sinuous and lissom. Plus the repeated Snake idea worked really well, given the ultimate fate of Cleo. The dancer playing the snake god was very good indeed.

It was quite a surprise that the whole performance lasted under two hours and if the first half seemed rushed and at a gallop it set the scene perfectly for a more leisurely telling of Anthony and Cleopatra in the second half.

I loved it. So did Mum and Gran. She confessed she hadn’t been to a ballet for years, starved (as they are in the remote Borders) of culture. She could go up to Edinburgh to see shows but she doesn’t like the journeying any more. It made me wish that I lived closer so I could go and take her to stuff. I could drive over from Dad’s and take her shows in the capital. When I suggested this she jumped at the chance and said she’d look at the interweb for things coming up. I explained they’d have to be on a Saturday night as I couldn’t make it to hers from Sheffield on a Friday evening and go to a show the same day. She said why not come up straight to Hawick from Sheffield. I said I’d check how far it was and what sort of time it would take. [That may be a much better idea than mine.]

Post script. It’s about 200 miles and would take under four hours. This is only a little bit further than going to Dad’s. I will tell Gran this news on Sunday at the Mothers’ Day bash at Holmesfield.

Saturday March 29^th.

I’m still in a warm glow about the week’s live events. Runrig were excellent, the ballet was brilliant. It is a shame I have to cram so much into the same week. Why can’t the things I want to see organise themselves a bit better and spread out so I don’t get them bunching together? I can hear Mum’s voice in my head now; “The world isn’t run for your benefit, Victoria!”

Saturday was a glorious day so Laura and I donned the lycra and went attaching ourselves to rock along the Derbyshire Edges. We started just above Baslow and did several of the routes there before adjourning to the pub for lunch. [Yummy in our tummy] The meals at the Grouse are plain and simple but quite hearty. This proved a bit of snag later as I developed cramp in the middle of a pitch and had to just rest there until it passed. Laura got very concerned and asked if I wanted lowering back down. (The ignominy if I’d said “Yes”! I did feel like saying yes, I must admit.)

I made my way gingerly to the top and then had a good sit there. I belayed Laura up three more routes before I felt well enough to continue.

It seemed that everyone and their Dad were out taking the opportunity to feel rock while the sun was shining. We had a long chat with a group of women who had come across from Macclesfield to find something new to cling to. Apparently there are some interesting edges on that side of the Peak too. 

That could be a day’s adventure later in the year. Callie got loads of fuss and they were all amused at the way she lay patiently on her bit of vetbed while we scrambled about and had fun. One of them picked up the ball wanger and wanged some balls for her, I told her she would get tired before Callie did but she didn’t believe me. Eventually she had to concede that my pup had more stamina than her! [I usually take one or two of her toys out with us when I climb as it relieves the boredom for her. I bet she doesn’t even notice.]

The women wanted to know of a good pub for a meal that evening so I was able to astound them with my knowledge of the North Derbyshire pubs which serve good food. They liked the sound of the Robin Hood and Little John in Hathersage but whether they actually went there or not I have no idea.

I thought it was good to see a group of like-minded women getting out to enjoy themselves without having to drag along all that testosterone dead weight that usually goes climbing! I asked them if their partners minded them being off gallivanting. Several of them said they were glad to get away for a while together and one couple actually said they were each other’s partner. I told them that Laura and I were too. The two of them had been an item for over five years and were planning on getting married in Manchester in the summer. They asked the inevitable question to which we both sort of replied, “We haven’t really thought about it.”  [On my part that was a bit of a lie, I have thought about it and it scares me a little. Does Laura think the same?]

When we exchanged details about what we did, they were amazed to discover Laura is a mathematician. I don’t know what they expected female mathematicians to look like (we do get this response a lot, it must be said). All of them worked in teaching in some way, three primary school teachers, one secondary school teacher, two teaching assistants (who didn’t know what to do after Uni) and two assistant lecturers at higher ed colleges. They had formed a club after an ad in their local paper asking for women climbers to form a climbing group together. That seems like a brilliant idea.

We left them to their new pitches and wandered back along the edge to the car park. Laura was at the restaurant that evening and we didn’t want to rush our own evening meal. We got home at about 4pm and had a leisurely shower together. I asked her if she had thought about it and she replied no, she hadn’t. She was just happy with the way things were with us at the moment. I said I felt the same way too. I wonder if we were both lying to each other?

Sunday March 30^th.

Mothering Sunday.

Mum had a huge bash at her house for the day. I said I would help with the cooking etc and so Loll and I were there with the larks. She had invited Phil and Jane and the three littlies, Laura and me,  Gran (obviously) and three of her close friends from school, one with her husband and daughter (about my age), one of whom was still single after all those years and one who was widowed but had come with her new partner.

We cooked a leg of lamb and a pork joint. There were masses of vegetables and I had been specifically drafted in to make a huge lemon meringue pie, an apple cake and instant chocolate cake. It is a good job I had a huge apple cake in the freezer at home as Mum’s vast range oven would have been stretched to the max. Plus the instant chocolate cake is cooked in a microwave and takes less than six minutes. (Mum has two microwaves.)

There is a huge refectory style dining table in Mum’s dining room which we have had since before I was born. Collapsed it seats eight, extended it seats twelve. Mum had put out a picnic table for Peter and Angela as there wouldn’t be room at the large table. Getting everything ready reminded me of the huge meals we used to have when Mum & Dad weren’t divorced and we lived in Norwich. We used to have a very large social circle centred around their jobs (University and High School) so we would often have a dozen people round for meals and we’d be invited out to meals too. I can’t remember the last time Mum has had so many people for a meal since the divorce but she must’ve been thinking the same as me as we both agreed it was just like old times.

Everything was either cooking or prepped by 11am and as the first guests weren’t scheduled to arrive until 12.30 (for 1pm) we had a sit and a sherry in the lounge. Gran confessed to being impressed by the way we worked without getting in each other’s way or making a big deal about anything. I explained that Laura and I worked as a team when cooking anyway and it was natural to continue at Mum’s. She was a bit concerned that Mum would be slaving away once the guest arrived but I explained that Laura and I would be the chefs de jour and all Mum was doing was being front of house for the day. [We had even decided to press gang Philip into being our chief bottle washer. That meant he was going to be the table clearer and dishwasher loader. He didn’t know it yet!]

The arrival of the first guests, Mum’s friends Ruth, David and Fiona were the signal for us to stand by our pans to switch everything on. The roasts were just about ready too so they were taken out of the oven to rest and the water put on to boil.

There must have been a convey of vehicles driving along Holmesfield’s main street as everyone seemed to turn up at once. We set the veggies going and put 30 mini Yorkshire pudddings out ready to be cooked through at the last minute.

Mum had asked David to be the carver when the roasts were brought out and Phil was put in charge of the drinks. (He also agreed to load the dishwasher but he stamped his little feet at the prospect of doing real washing up. He can be a prat at times!) The chefs de jour were plied with liberal amounts of Portugeiser Weisstherbst while cooking and I am afraid to say we were a little on the merry side by the time it came to transfer the whole lot to the table and the warming cabinet. I decided to change to pomegranate cordial for the rest of the day and Loll said she’d cut down. (More of this later.)

Lunch was a great success. The fact we had Great Grandmother, Grandmother, Mother and siblings all together was lovely and we snapped away on our mobile phones throughout the meal and the rest of the afternoon. I did have the thought that it was a shame we wouldn’t be able to replicate this for Fathers’ Day, but that was just an alcohol induced moment of poignancy.

We had cooked an industrial amount of food and, as I suspected, there was quite a weight of it left at the end; especially from the main meal. Mum said I had to take home a doggy bag of stuff for Laura and I to make us at least two meals for next week.

The desserts, however, went the way of all flesh. There was one solitary piece of apple cake left at the end of clearing everything away so I ate that as I had only eaten the instant chocolate cake for my dessert. Philip had turned down his prattishness level to barely noticeable and he was more than willing to clear the table and load up Mum’s dishwasher. I claimed the excuse that I hadn’t idea what to do as we don’t own a dishwasher at all. (It’s true!)

Gran kept us entertained with stories about Mum as a child; Mum kept us entertained with tales of Phil and I as children and Phil & Jane waxed lyrical about the delights of parenthood to an audience which, bar three of us, already knew what they were!

The conversation veered around to what we all did for a living, I expect they already knew from what Mum will have told them but it was only polite to answer. It was a good excuse for whizz kids brother to brag about how much money he earned. (I told you he could be a prat at times.) I spoke about what my PhD entailed and what my hopes were for afterwards. They were surprised that Laura was a mathematician (can’t you have beautifully stunning women as mathematicians then?) and Ruth asked her what she was going to do when she had finished her degree. This was where the alcohol must have kicked in for without hesitation (deviation or repetition) she said, “Marry Victoria!”

Angela was the first to react by saying, “Girls can’t marry girls, silly!”

Her brother piped up with, “Oh yes they can it was made legal on Friday. Girls can marry girls now and boys can marry boys.”

“Well, I’m not going to. I am going to marry a millionaire and live in a big house and have lots of people look after me. And I won’t let my children marry each other so there!”

I could tell this might be heading in a direction that would cause trouble if we weren’t careful so I asked Angela if she knew who she was going to marry. She didn’t but she knew what kind of dress she was going to have and then spent quite a while describing the item of clothing in very close detail. She has obviously thought about it a lot, even if she is only eight! [So had I to be honest. I had the dress design and the colour and the bridesmaid dresses all planned out. It hasn’t happened quite the way I expected.]

I went and made everyone got drinks accompanied by Mum and Laura. She was almost puce with embarrassment. She apologised to me and my Mum for having embarrassed everyone and said she had obviously had too much to drink. Mum was brilliant. She said it was obvious to anyone who saw us how much we were in love and, if that was what Laura hoped would happen, she wouldn’t stand in my way if that was what I wanted to.  She asked if we had discussed the future and we had to rather sheepishly admit we hadn’t. Her reaction was a surprised, “Oh”.

We took the teas and coffees back into the conservatory (where we’d all assembled) and Angela asked, “Can I be your bridesmaid when you get married?” To which we both replied, almost simultaneously and almost with the identical phrase, “Of course you can!”

That moved us on to weddings in general and silly things which had happened. Mum has a photo of me and Susannah at Phil & Jane’s wedding where we are both pulling a really strange face. It is very silly because we are dressed in identical dresses and looking glamorous as bridesmaids but with these gurning faces. Mum’s widow friend asked what were we doing? (The photo lives on the sideboard with lots of other family pictures.) I explained that the photographer had asked us to stand by the church wall to take the picture. As he snapped a wasp flew past us and, as we knew we couldn’t move, both of us were trying to blow it away. It is a very silly picture and it sort of sums up our relationship. There may be twelve years between us but we are really close.  

Mum was Skyped by Suze this morning while Loll and I were prepping the veggies. She had a long chat with everyone is Aus and then Laura and I spent some time chatting too. I am so looking forward to going out again in the summer, so is Laura.

The party sort of broke up during the late afternoon as Jane had promised to go to her Mum’s for tea and we decided that discretion was the better part of Valerie (!) so we left Mum and her chums to continue the All Our Yesterdays.

I was going to ask Laura more about the wedding idea but she was asleep within minutes of me pulling out of Mum’s drive in the car. I have decided it would be better left for when she isn’t befuddled by booze.

We both were a little worse for wear after a hectic day so we hit the charp early and proved how much we loved each other for quite a while before going to sleep.