Monday May 5th.
Back to our normal routine again today after our weekend
jaunt to the Metropolis. Dog walking is always a bonus at this early hour in
the morning because it is so quiet, as the city is still fast asleep. It got me
into a reverie about London and how I couldn’t ever face living there. It is
too grubby and squalid feeling. The people are boorish and always in a rush (or
else they are tourists), not like the gold old north, eh.
Swimming at our usual time saw us rack up 100 lengths and
feel smug and self-satisfied afterwards. The showers still don’t get rid of the
chlorine smell though. I must be killing my hair with all the washing I give
it. I will have to talk to my hairdresser in Cockermouth, when we are next at
Dad’s and ask if there is something I can do to protect it.
Laura has written herself a revision timetable for the
exams, her first is on May 28th I think. She is sitting the Fluid
Mechanics exams too which she is looking forward to! I think she is a glutton
for punishment but I can’t talk as my degree had thousands of papers to sit (or
so it seemed at the time).
Felice was her usual bubbly and bouncy and slightly
incomprehensible self again. I told her about Jane’s operation after she had
Sophie and she seemed upset by it. I asked her why she had taken it to heart
and she told me that when Jane left Phil she wouldn’t be able to have children
with her new partner. Erm… Excuse Me?
I asked her where she had got the idea that Jane was going
to leave Phil and she said it was obvious; no woman in her right mind would
want to stay with such an obnoxious little prick! I had a good laugh about
that. I explained that you have to shut out Phil’s obnoxious ‘pricky’ behaviour
because underneath it all he was basically sound. Jane had got quite adept at
just blanking out the more extreme examples of Phil’s twattishness and carrying
on regardless. Feli said she could not live her life like that and if her man
ever carried on in the way Phil does then she would dump him at once! (You
really need to say it in a French accent to get the full effect!)
The rest of the day was spent with the bloody palimpsests.
They really are getting on my pip. Why did people do this in those days? Had
they ‘got it in’ for posterity? I know it is all to do with cost, but bloody
hell, it makes your eyes and brain hurt trying to read what is written on them.
Even the multi-spectral analysed copies are pretty hard going.
Lunch in the refec was not as noisy as usual and I could see
hordes of undergrads with their noses in books obviously using every minute of
their day time to revise so they could whoop it up at night. (Am I being
cynical?) Laura is pacing herself quite sensibly and not given to last minute
panic or revising every waking hour (as some of these seemed to be doing) which
is a much more sensible approach. She has even told Dominic she will not stop
working at the restaurant during the exam weeks as she thinks emptying her mind
will be more beneficial.
Tuesday May 6th.
Off and out as normal for work this morning, after dog
walking, swimming and breakfasts of course expecting a perfectly ordinary day.
That is in fact what we had, three hours at Uni and four and a half at XXX
& Y is typical for a Tuesday. What is not typical is for an Aged Parent and
New Spouse to be sat in your garden waiting for you to come home after work! To
say I was surprised is an understatement.
He was supposed to be coming
tomorrow! Parents, eh? You just can’t do a thing with them!
He began by saying I ought to give him a key to my house,
like I had to his then he could have let himself in and been more comfortable
than squatting among my lavender in the garden. I asked him to give me his key
ring. He duly obliged and I held up the offending back door and conservatory
key for him as exhibit one! (It is the same key for both doors.) I then told
him I was going to phone the doctor as early onset Alzheimer’s was obviously
setting in. He did have the good grace to look considerably abashed. What a
drongo. I told him I had swapped the old two keys for the one new key when I
had the locks changed in 2013. Sometimes he is so much away with the fairies
about his work or his writing or just life in general that I don’t think he
listens to what I tell him. I told him that. He wasn’t listening!
Louisa, was though, she nudged him in the ribs and said,
“See. It’s not just me saying it. Even Vic thinks you don’t listen.”
He changed the subject and asked about our evening meal. I
explained we had a sweet and sour chicken concoction cooking in the oven
(hopefully, if the timer worked) and if there was enough they could share that.
I usually make enough for two meals anyway and we freeze the second lot to have
as a quick standby. I cooked four portions of rice instead of two and made two
of them vegetable rice which is much more filling. While I was doing this Laura
defrosted some raspberries and made some meringue, raspberry and cream
delights. (Our defrost method for this is to place the raspberries into cold
water and keep replenishing the water. It doesn’t full defrost them but that
doesn’t matter with this recipe. In fact unless they are fresh it is nice to
have partly frozen berries like little fruity lollipops in your dessert.)
Dad had decided to come down early so they could whizz to
Leeds, tomorrow, and see the Grand-daughter again. Is he getting broody? Maybe
he really does like babies. He has had three of his own after all and he and
Louisa have been trying (without success) for one of their own too. At 43 I
think Louisa’s biological clock is against her though.
They were interested to hear about the Veronese exhibition
and bemoaned the fact that Cumbria (or even Lancaster) is too far away from
London to make swift day trips possible. I don’t think he was being
disingenuous but he never went on day trips to London when he worked in
Norwich, or Sheffield either, so why it should be a problem now is beyond me? I
kept these thought to myself.
He was more miffed to learn that Feli had got the tickets on
a special deal and we paid a fraction of the normal day return price for our
travel. I told him he could always go to Glasgow but he seemed unimpressed by
the idea.
Loll went off to work as usual and I was left with the task
of entertaining the rellies. Not as onerous as it sounds as they were both
keyed up for tomorrow’s concert at the City Hall. Dad has seen Yes more times
than I care to think about but Louisa hasn’t seen them before. Dad recalls
sneaking into London as a schoolboy to see them in 1970, when they had just
released their third album. That was one of the three they’d be playing
tomorrow. They are going to play three albums in their entirety, in the album
track order which has to be quite a novel idea, maybe unique. The Albums are
The Yes Album, Close to the Edge and Going for the One. Dad tried to bet that
the encore will be Roundabout. I have refused to take his bet as it is an
odds-on certainty that Roundabout will be the encore!
I went to the car and brought in my CD case with those three
albums in and we played the three of them through just to remind ourselves what
we’d be hearing. Laura came back half-way through their latest album Fly From
Here, which Dad had brought down for me to copy. The contrast is quite marked
between them. Close to the Edge still sounds like it was written by someone who
understands classical music but can’t write sensible lyrics. Awaken has some
unbelievably brilliant church organ playing but yet again has pretty dodgy
lyrics. I commented on this to Dad and he was forced to concede that I was
correct. He offered to lend me a Jon Anderson solo LP called “Olias of…”
somewhere or other (I can’t remember what he said, now) and I could hear just
what terrible a lyricist he was.
Dad came with me on the last walk with Callie and he talked
about Louisa and how seeing the baby Sophie had made her even more determined
to want a baby of their own. They are going to try a course of IVF treatment
next month! I am seriously not sure what I think about this. Part of me thinks
it is lovely that they want a child together and part of me thinks, NO. I mean if
they succeed, when the child is 20 Dad will be 82! And Louisa 63! There is also
a selfish part of me thinking, I could become its second mother and when Louisa
and Dad pop their clogs it would look on me as its Mum instead. It would
certainly solve my dilemma about whether to be a mother or not myself. I said I
really truly hoped they would be successful, it would be lovely. I think the
old-boy was genuinely surprised by that. He gave me a big hug and kissed me on
the forehead like he always does. He put my hand through his arm and we walked
back home arm in arm, I think we were two contented souls who brought the dog
in last night.
Wednesday 7th May
Yes Night.
They appeared on stage looking like a set of pensioners
after the strains of Stravinsky faded away. (They always play part of the
Firebird before they step out on the stage.) The new singer is the only one who
doesn’t look like he needs a bus pass. He is called Jon Davidson and according
to Dad he used to sing with Glass Hammer. I have one of their CDs (again copied
by Dad) there is at least one excellent song on it.
It is not surprising that I like Yes as I am a fan of
classical music and a lot of their work seems structured in a similar way. At
times, though, their lyrics are absolute drivel! I know I have said this once
already but it really does need emphasising. Another feature is their obvious
musicianship which you don’t see in many bands.
The began with Close to the Edge which was pretty well done,
followed by And You And I and Siberian Khatru. I think they may have messed up
the words in And You And I but Dad assured me they hadn’t. He played the
version I have at home afterwards and explained that Jon Anderson cocked them
up on the live version he had recorded for me. What I had heard was what
Anderson should have sung!
They moved on to the Going for the One album next.
The church organ was a bit ropey on Awaken, to be honest. You’d have thought they’d
have used the real one in the City Hall but they used a synthesizer instead and
it just didn’t cut it. Ball dropped there, fellas!
They had an interval after this album and we trooped out for
a break from the reflected glare from all the bald heads below us in the
stalls! Dad met an old flame in the crowd at the bar. She had been a fellow
student in Oxford and was now a photographer. She was there snapping the band
and even had a laminate giving her access everywhere. Dad was jealous as hell
of that laminate; he spent ages trying to negotiate its sale. She refused.
I was amazed they recognised each other after all those years.
I was introduced as his gorgeous daughter (I am sure I blushed) with her genius
friend, Laura. He also, obviously, introduced Louisa as his wife. She was
surprised that it wasn’t still Helena (she didn’t have much tact it seemed). She
was also stunned to hear he had gone on to become a Lecturer, apparently he was
planning on a becoming a writer of fiction. He defended himself by mentioning
the papers he’s had published and the co-authored work on Comparative
Literature.
I told her the writing gene had probably skipped a
generation as I was putting the finishing touches to my third novel to try and
get it ready for possible publication. This lead to a third degree from both
her and Dad, about what I had written. I should have kept my gob shut. (As
usual!)
The second half was all of The Yes Album. It had my
favourite song of theirs, I’ve Seen All Good People. Very clever lyrics and
some really neat vocal harmonies. Chris Squire’s bass playing during Starship
Trooper was amazing, too.
I think the major downer of the whole evening was the
mixing. There were times when you couldn’t hear the keyboards much at all. This
is a problem for a band like Yes where they make up a large part of the
melodies. Dad didn’t seem to notice though, and I guess he is the real aficionado
here, not me!
They reappeared for the encore which did turn out to be
Roundabout. Quite a good version I thought, with the opening guitar harmonics
not messed up as much as I have heard on some of Dad’s live recordings!
I toyed with buying a tour T-shirt as I think the Yes logo
is so cool but in the end I decided I would probably never wear it, so I didn’t.
Dad bought two, one of the logo and Dragon Flight Tour Dates and one of the
logo only.
We got back to chez moi at about 11.30 and Dad found the
offending version of And You And I, he is right Jon Anderson did mess up the
lyrics, big time! He has promised to give me a copy of Close to the Edge so I
can hear what it should actually sound like. We strolled the dog together again
and I asked him about Poppy Hughes; he told me she was the girlfriend immediately
prior to Mum. That was all I managed to get out of him about her. I did keep
pestering but he clammed up and refused to say anymore. I am going to google
her when I get the chance, see what comes up.
Laura was wide awake and waiting for me when I got back and she
wanted to get amorous. Who was I to deny my little genius?
Thursday 8th May.
My ears still felt woolly this morning. Dad and Louisa
mumbled that they didn’t want to join us at the pool this morning, not that I
was surprised. I wasn’t surprised that they weren’t up when we got back in
either. They finally surfaced at about 8.30 just as we were about to zoom off
to Uni. They said they would be leaving around mid-morning if that was OK with
us. Of course it was.
After the busy day yesterday today at work was a welcome
relief to be back to normal again. In fact I would go on to say it was just a
typical Radio Stars’ Song again. Laura went off to Dominic’s again after our
meal. I walked the dog down to meet her at the end of the night and we
struggled up the hill on foot together.
There will be more excitement tomorrow as we are off to the
City Hall again, this time for a feast of Russian Classical Music from the
Moscow Philharmonic: Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rimsky-Korsakov. Promises to
be very different from Yes but in a weird way rather similar.
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