Friday 30th
January
This has proved a very busy
but extremely enjoyable weekend. I am surprised we are still standing after all
the stuff we have done in these last three days, to be honest.
In the morning we did the
usual routine of dog walking, swimming, breakfast and then work. Friday is our
second full day of the week at Uni, it isn’t split between University and XXX
& Y Solicitors. We seem to get not much done on Friday afternoon though! Maybe
that is typical for every workplace’s Friday afternoon. I seem to remember a
phrase about dodgy workmanship being called a ‘Friday Afternoon Job’ or have I
just imagined that?
We saw the Regent’s Park
Theatre’s production of “To Kill a Mockingbird” at the Lyceum. It was very good,
especially Scout, Jem and Dill. In fact the children outshone the adults to
some extent. I think they brought an emotional truth to the story which they
could have lost and, of course, it reflects the way the novel is written too.
The fact it is a novel was sort of reinforced by the cast reading from the book
as they walked up to the stage, where Scout was swinging on the solitary tree
on a car tyre. The girl playing Scout was just brilliant, although it wasn’t
clear in the programme notes which of the girls it was playing her on the
Friday night! She was me, when I was Scout, when I first read the book, if you
see what I mean? The reading from the book helped narrative flow really well,
especially as they read their extract and then stepped straight into the action
as another character took over the reading. The most surprising element was the
guitar player and the songs. This was an inspired idea and one which I thought
worked really well. Laura did whisper “Why aren’t they a sort of bluesy
American type song?” Which I thought was quite a salient point. Maybe there was
a specific reason but I couldn’t see why. It didn’t affect the story telling in
a way that, say, Death of a Salesman in English Accents may have done!
I imagine the horrible Bob
Ewing character hit home quite well in our current climate of tabloid press
immigrant bashing. I hope the Daily Mail reviewer saw it and passed on the
details to their editor. Not that it will change the paper’s xenophobic,
racist, anti-immigrant stance one jot. I suppose the anti-racist message is
sort of wasted on the typical UK theatre audience, I would like to think anyone
enlightened enough to visit a theatre for their entertainment would never be so
narrow-minded and bigoted. [Do I need a ladder to get out of my ivory tower?]
I thought the theatre didn’t
seem as full as it has been for some of the previous productions on here.
Maybe, the audience in Sheffield remember having to do TKaM for their A Level
English Lit. set text and wanted to avoid it. I think I may have just described
the population as being far more intelligent than they actually are. LOL. I bet
fewer than 2% of the city’s population did A Level English Lit. My Mum later
told me that the powers that be moved Mockingbird down to a GCSE text a few
years back and I am out of date. (Imagine your 61 year old mother telling you
that you’re out of date!)
The power of Harper Lee’s
story still is resonant today, especially in the UK, where –as I mentioned
earlier- the right wing media and small minded morons in politics are trying to
frighten the population with the spectre of Immigration! I am sad to report
that there were hardly any Black or Asian faces noticeable in the auditorium.
That has to be a worry, really.
Saturday 31stJanuary.
We forsook our usual
swimming activity this morning and went instead to London, by train. We didn’t
go straight to St. Pncras though, in order to travel as early as we did (the
train left at just after 7am) we had to ride across to Doncaster first, on a
rickety old rattle bag of a train, where even first class was pretty tacky. At
Doncaster we caught a sleek and silent East Coast Trains machine which whisked
us down to London in pampered comfort.
We booked the train tickets
way back in November, on a deal which got us a First Class return for £30 each!
Included with the ticket was a full English breakfast on the way down and full
dinner on the way back (with wine), hence the pampered comfort comment. The
first class section was excellent and so less crowded than the standard class
sections we had to walk past to get to our bit of the train. They were also
really comfortable, a bit like the difference between economy and business on
our flights to Australia.
Why were we travelling?
Well, we’d booked to see the ‘Rubens and his Influence’ exhibition at the Royal
Academy and in the afternoon we had tickets for the ‘Ancient Lives: New
Discoveries’ exhibition at the British Museum. The Rubens tickets were for 10am
just as the RA opened.
We arrived at King’s Cross at 9.30 and hopped on
a 91 bus to Trafalgar Square, Oyster Cards are a great idea. I walked the
Lollster through Admiralty Arch and along the Mall, cutting through, past Eddie
on his horse {King Edward VII, to the hoi polloi}, to Piccadilly by the side of
the Criterion Theatre and Eros. We rolled up at the Royal Academy just as the
door person unlocked the entrance. Being
some of the first in we had first dibs at the cloakroom so we could dump all
our gear. We’d come dressed for the Arctic as it was really cold when we left
Sheffield and equally as cold in the Smoke. We took 2 and a quarter hours to
view all the pictures in the exhibition. There were probably about 70
altogether, but (as the exhibition title suggests) not all by Peter Paul
himself.
The revelation was how good
a portrait painter Joshua Reynolds was. I have only seen horrible, ‘hack work’
portraits of his, but some we saw were vibrant and full of life. The Rubens’
Violence section was particularly horrible, especially in the antiquated way he
portrayed animals as objects to be killed. The Tiger Hunt was a spectacularly
upsetting picture which showed how barbaric our ancestors were. The pictures
themselves were glorious but the barbarism portrayed offended these 21st
century sensibilities. What was interesting was that PP had not seen a tiger in
the flesh. He’d seen lions and tiger skins and so merged the two together.
The nudes were disappointing
really. I suppose there is a prurient pleasure to be had by some people looking
at paintings of naked women being pawed at and manhandled but I am not one of
them. Plus the shapes of the women, to my modern eyes, were rather podgy to say
the least. If I look like any of the models when I am naked then you have my
permission to shoot me! Naughty Laura wondered how much semen must be mixed in
with oil paint, fired onto his works by PP as he painted them. I thought that a
gross thought and one I didn’t wish to think about. Gross but funny!
My favourite picture in the
entire exhibition was “Self Portrait with Straw Hat” by Elisabeth Louise Vigee
Le Brun. (Google it). It was beautiful. Not only was Elisabeth Louise beautiful
but the picture had a lightness and delicacy which made it intimate and
compelling at the same time. I said this out loud to Laura and Loll whispered
that she was annoyed that I would fancy another woman; especially one who had
been dead for over a century! She was joking – I think. (No, really, I know she
was.)
After we had “Rubensed out”
we had an attempt to turn our figures in Rubens’ women by ordering a huge cake
each in Caffe Concerto just round the corner from the RA. In order to retain
our sylph like physiques (ROFL) we decided to walk to the Brit. Mu., where we
ate our sandwiches under the columns outside - just as it started raining.
The exhibition here is
definitely the best one I have ever been to. I have been to lots. It beats Pete
Marsh (Lindow Man). It knocked the King Tut one into a cocked hat. It was just
amazing. I know I am guilty of overusing superlatives but here it is totally
justified. What makes it so special, and the best one I have ever been to, is
the use of 21st century technology on the exhibits. It’s called
Ancient Lives: New Discoveries.
The Ancient Lives are 8
mummies they have taken from the whole spectrum of Egyptian mummification up to
the 8th Century AD. They have passed them through CAT scanners and
the results are displayed there to see (and interact with). If the Rubens was
good, this is BRILLIANT. I defy anyone to go and no be totally overwhelmed by
its sheer brilliance. The CAT scan images are breath-taking. There was one of
an eight year old girl whose hair was still preserved inside the wrappings and
you could make out each individual strand of her long hair. It is gob-smacking.
We were inside this exhibit alone for almost two hours as well.
Even better than this, the
CAT scans revealed objects wrapped up with the mummies, amulets, talismans etc,
Using 3D printing they were able to reproduce, exactly, what the items were
like. I thought that was astounding. There was one mummy where the brain removing
tool had snapped off, leaving a large fragment of it inside the mummy’s skull.
They had replicated that using the 3D printer too! This is a prime example of
who to set up an exhibit and use modern technology to aid our understanding of
the exhibit. I was so jealous of the people who have worked on this. They must
have been beside themselves with the results and then with the means to produce
such a stunning display. Is it any wonder I am a historian when history can be
made so accessible to everyone?
Afterwards, we took a quick
walk, east, along Great Russell Street and jumped on a 59 bus back to King’s
Cross. There, we were in time for the 4.33 train back up to Sunny Sheffield
(via Doncaster, again). Our meal was pork chops and vegetables, plus we had a
bottle of wine with it. The steward gave us the entire bottle of white as we
were the only ones having the pork. He may have been dazzled by two tousled
blondes full of excitement and animation about their day, perhaps.
Callie was overjoyed at our
return after a day spent with Julie (in the morning) and in her palace in the
afternoon and early evening. We both took her for her final walk of the day but
quite early (10pm) we were just so whacked. Oh, the Muntjac was still there, to
where I’d moved it.
Sunday 1st Feb
I caught Steve this morning
coming back from a shorter walk with Callie and after describing, in great
detail, our London trip I mentioned the Muntjac. He thought it wasn’t an
offence to remove road kill, if you aren’t the one who has killed it. To that
end we put Callie indoors and the two of us zoomed off in his Disco (this is an
old Y reg vehicle which is immaculate in the passenger space and a bombsite
behind the dog guard) to pick up the deer. At the bench by the grit bin the
poor creature was still there. It was probably frozen as well, it still being
so cold. Steve phoned his mate and they had a brief and animated conversation
about the butchering and legalities. Steve started to sound sceptical. I asked
what the matter was and it turned out the friend wanted 50% for him and 25% for
each of us. I snatched the phone from Steve and told him there was no way we
were agreeing to that and unless he would do a proper three way split we’d
leave it where it was for carrion to pick it clean.
I had a “Who the hell are
you? You’re not Anne!” I explained who I was, how I’d found the deer and how if
he wasn’t prepared to dived it evenly we had no deal. To my surprise he agreed.
He lived in Grenoside, so we dumped the dead little deer into the Disco and
whizzed up Jaw Bone Hill. The guy was a chap I have seen when I have been
picking up and he recognised me, too. That sort of made it easier to agree to
the split. We told him he could keep all the offal for his dogs which seemed to
seal the deal. He’ll have it already by Tuesday. Rah rah rah.
Back home Mum had called and
asked if we fancied lunch. As we were planning a walk, I called her back and invited
her to go with us.
When she arrived we drove to
Bradfield in my car and found a space on the road to the church, obviously the
Sunday Service hadn’t started. We walked the glorious circuit round Agden
Reservoir. It takes us under Rocher Edge, past the derelict farm buildings (a
lotto win project if ever there was one!) across the bilberry fields of Agden
Side Road and dropping steeply through the plantation to the dam itself. I was
able to stop Callie from going into the water – she loves a swim – as it was so
cold. We climbed past the site of the wasps’ nest Callie disturbed a few
summers ago and which resulted in my shorts clad legs being stung almost to
death. At the church the service was well underway and the lane in which we’d
parked was blocked solid. We booked a table for lunch at the Old Horns pub.
Once we sat down Mum wanted
to tell us about this new man she had dated. He is called Tony and he is a
cabinet maker. He sounds very nice. He is 65 and, according to Mum, has the
physique of a younger man. Mmmm…. It’s about time Mum found herself a new love
interest. He lives in Dore, which is down the hill from Mum’s village. He’s
being doing some work in her kitchen and they naturally got chatting. She kept
him supplied with cups of tea and they just hit it off. He asked her for a
meal, which is where they were a week ago on Saturday, just like I predicted. I
should become a psychic! We will meet him next Saturday at the English Chamber
Orchestra concert at the City Hall. Mum was able to get him a ticket. This
could prove interesting. She has dated some drongos, weirdos and pervs in her
time (I do not include my father in those descriptions BTW).
After lunch we drove back
home and Mum took off for Holmesfield straight away. We spent a while trying to
picture what this Tony chap will be like. I know it is a pointless exercise,
but it was fun.
I spent a good hour or more
Skyping Dad and Louisa. I am amazed at how much I have missed him during his
sojourn to the antipodes. I am looking forward to being there in a fortnight. I
explained about the ballet outing to Newcastle and he said that it was typical
of me to get myself involved like that. Louisa is huge. She isn’t actually due
until March (they lied about the dates) but she looked as if she would pod any
minute. Maybe that is just the screen adding pounds to her.
She gets a huge number of
brownie points for describing Annabelle as a mini version of me! Rah, rah, rah.
She also said if she hadn’t known Suze was my sister, if they had met by chance
she would never have guessed. We do look and act very differently, I suppose.
She is a much more grounded and down to earth, pragmatic type whilst (according
to Dad) I have always been away with the fairies! Is that a compliment or not?
Callie, despite her exertions
this morning was keen as anything for her last walk, so I took her on the Hill
Top Wood circuit. She spent an age at the bench where the muntjac had been. She
was really reluctant to leave it alone. That is totally unlike her. Usually she
is very obedient. When I got back, I couldn’t find Laura at first. She was fast
asleep in the boingy Ikea chair in the bedroom. She was in her dressing gown
but dead to the world. When I shook her shoulder to wake her she stirred with
the words, “I was just about to clean that…” very weird.
It’s a good job next week is
fairly quiet, just our students until we meet Mum’s beau. I am surprised at how
tiring the weekend has been.
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