I did my Paracise class this morning and it seems as if that will be staying on Zoom for quite some time. This suits me actually as the hall used for Paracise is not very convenient for me but it does underline the fact that the whole coronavirus situation is just unending. Added to that are other very sad things going on so it's hard to stay cheery at the moment. We went for a nice walk this morning that did lift our spirits as the sunflowers in the gardens we walked to looked so bright and jolly. The sunflower in our garden also survived the storms and the rain and is still alive and in flower though leaning away from us at a rather jaunty angle. I do love sunflowers even if they won't turn and face me.

On with the meme.

4. If you could eliminate one thing that you did every day, what would it be?

I wish I didn't have to take medication every morning. It's not for anything life threatening but I would rather not take it.

5. Your rescue team in the coming zombie apocalypse is the cast of the last tv show you watched. How screwed are you?

Well, they weren't really the cast but the last thing we watched was Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Proms on the iPlayer. Despite the social distancing there were a lot of them and I would imagine amongst all those musicians there would be some with some serious zombie killing skills. (Heretical opinion: the Proms are better without the audience. Simon Rattle took advantage of the social distancing disadvantage and used the entire space of the Royal Albert Hall in a way that would have been impossible in a normal Proms season.)

6. What is something you do to indulge yourself?

I go to a bookshop and spend money on books, which I should not do as I already have far too many and, more importantly, nowhere else to put them.

7. Have you ever called in sick to work when you weren't actually ill but didn't want to give the real reason?

I couldn't possibly confess to that :)

The rest of the September questions are behind the cut

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  sad

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I've just noticed that I haven't updated for ages. I haven't dropped off the planet, just been quite busy and a bit allergic to summer. Unfortunately I do mean that as hot, humid weather and my skin do not go well together. It's no accident that the slightly fresher weather has made me suddenly notice I haven't updated recently!

First the book meme

I Just Finished Reading

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel. Reading this book is an extraordinarily immersive experience, almost like being at the court of Henry VIII seeing the fall of Anne Boleyn through the eyes of his chief minister Thomas Cromwell. Henry wants Anne gone and it is Cromwell's job to see she goes or fall himself. How he goes about building a case against her composed of gossip and innuendo is fascinating and terrifying. The more sympathetic Cromwell of "Wolf Hall" is giving way to a darker man who does what he must to please the increasingly volatile Henry. One of the ways in which Hilary Mantel's historical novels excel is by showing the might have beens of history, what the people of the time feared could happen instead of what we know did happen. Henry's tournament accident is easily forgotten now but it throws a sharp light on the chaos that might have ensued if Henry had died suddenly and why he was so desperate for a male heir. Compulsively readable book which I read slowly to make the experience last longer.

What I'm Reading Now

The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. It seemed like a good idea to read this classic account of the beginnings of World War I now and I'm finding the book very interesting. I read A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman years ago so I knew The Guns of August would be very readable and the whole period and characters involved are really coming alive. Tragic and fascinating.

What I'm Reading Next

Not a clue, but I might give World War I a break!

In between wishing my skin would stop itching I have actually been quite busy.

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TV wise the only things we seem to be watching are history and art documentaries and Inspector Montalbano which washes over me in flood of Sicilian language and excitable Sicilian Italian. I'm also watching the beginning of the first series of Arrow having already watched the second half of Series 2. It's a long time since I've watched a show so out of order but it's great fun to watch the team come together. Some interesting characters and John Barrowman as a slimy baddie...what's not to love.

I've also rewatched the first episode of Highlander for 👁 Image
killabeez rewatch and am awash with nostalgia. It holds up surprisingly well though I remember the first few episodes of Season 1 as being awful.

And that's it from me for the moment. I'm going to be pretty busy for the rest of the month and away for a large chunk of September but I'll try and drop in when I can.

• Current Mood: 👁 rushed
  rushed

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• book review,
• books,
• music,
• musicals,
• prom,
• tv,
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In between reading and freaking out about my mother's electricity bills (I'll spare you the story) we went to two Prom concerts this week.

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As previously mentioned I'm off to Lincolnshire and the Place of No Internet tomorrow for a few days. This is not really a holiday as we are finally starting to tackle the much delayed question of ma-in-law's house, but it will be nice to be away for a bit. We're leaving at unheard of o'clock tomorrow as I have been lured into the early start by the promise of a bacon sandwich. It's a bit scary what I will do when promised a bacon sandwich. Have a great time while I'm away, particularly everyone at 👁 Image
writerconuk.

• Current Mood: 👁 calm
  calm

Tags:

• music,
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It's July, the temperatures are soaring, so it must be time for the classical music festival held in one of the hottest buildings in London! Yes, the BBC Prom season has arrived again. Special note for Americans and others: Prom here means Promenade concert not end of school party.

This is mainly for me, but if anyone else is interested here are my entirely non-musical views on the two Proms we've been to so far (neither of which was the Doctor Who Prom).

( Proms 1 & 4Collapse )

No more Proms until next month but have some photos of the Royal Albert Hall

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• Current Mood: 👁 hot
  hot

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• music,
• pic spam,
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For anyone wondering, yes, my poor dad is still in hospital. They were talking about sending him home last week complete with batteries of carers, training on using a nebuliser for my mother, a special mattress and other accoutrements. The carers are on standby, my mother has been trained to use the nebuliser, the special mattress and other accoutrements have arrived, but Dad hasn't. I am very glad they are actually planning on sending him home as it really didn't look as if that was going to be possible only a couple of weeks ago. I just hope that the medical support offered will be enough and he doesn't end up going straight back into hospital again.

It hasn't all been doom and gloom on the dad front and there have been some quite funny moments. Last week both my mum and my brother went in to see him on Friday and could not wake him up. We all though "oh no! This is it" but when my brother went in again to see him on Saturday he found dad awake and quite with it. When P (brother) told Dad that they hadn't been able to wake him up Dad just said "Good thing too! I probably wanted to sleep!" which was pretty much unanswerable. One of the reasons he wanted to sleep is that the guy in the bed next to him spends an awful lot of time coughing and groaning loudly. Dad said to me that he'd "heard better acting from a cardboard box!"

They've taken wonderful care of him in our local hospital. One of his nurses is so attentive that she knows exactly how he likes his pillows placed and as my mother said "if he thinks he's getting that sort of attention at home he's got another think coming!" We hope Dad hasn't got too used to be cooed over by lovely young women!

In the meantime life goes on and it's our 29th wedding anniversary tomorrow. My father's comment was "Poor J" which I wasn't quite certain how to take *g*, but many thanks to my lovely husband for 29 wonderful years.

Finally they've put up the encore to the Broadway music prom on Youtube. It starts in the middle so you can't actually see the rather bemused elderly couple who thought the concert was over and were trying to make a quick getaway only to be nearly carried on to the stage by a rush of tap dancers! Apologies to those who can't see it as I suspect it may be region specific but I'm going to put it here anyway.

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  cheerful

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I know tonight is the first episode of Doctor Who but on BBC2 at the same time (curses!) is an absolutely wonderful concert. We were lucky enough to be there on Monday night and if you like Broadway show tunes it's fantastic. One of the singers is Seth MacFarlane of "Family Guy" fame and if they ever do a biopic of Frank Sinatra he's definitely the guy to play him.

( A couple of extractsCollapse )

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  tired

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• musicals,
• prom

I'm not going to write anything at all about my dad because the minute I think one thing something different happens. My mother describes it as being on an emotional seesaw, I think it's a rollercoaster and it certainly isn't helping my telephone phobia.

In the meantime life goes on and in the cause of accentuating the positive all this has finally made my mother learn how to use her mobile phone, which is something I've been worried about for some time as she drives on her own a lot.

Sitting around moping all the time is pointless and we had a lovely evening out last night with some of my ex-colleagues, which was a nice break, and we've also been to a couple of Proms (in the musical sense). I usually write about them but this year my brain is barely up to stringing a sentence together!

I'm also busy distracting myself with all the glorious fic being posted for 👁 Image
paperlegends, the Merlin Big Bang. I'm way behind with reading and I can't see me catching up until well into next year but it's fantastic to have such a stash of fic stored away on my Kindle, and that's without even mentioning the artwork, which is fabulous. I ought to do recs for the fics I've read so far but again I've hit the problem of stringing a sentence together. Many heartfelt thanks to all involved though.

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  tired

Tags:

• fanfic,
• personal,
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I don't seem to have updated for a while which is basically because I haven't had very much to say beyond "Oh look, it's raining again!" which it just has been. Our grass is knee deep, the weeds are alive and moving towards the house in battalions and we're fighting a war on all fronts to keep the slugs away from our bean plants (and out of the kitchen, yuck).

Yesterday 👁 Image
ghost_guessed and I went to the British Museum which was absolutely packed full of people. As it wasn't actually raining on St Swithun's Day (hopefully a good sign) and there were even glimmers of sun I couldn't understand what they were all doing there. We got amazingly lost; found the Egyptian mummies, which we specifically didn't want to; admired some winsome Babylonian camels; worried about the eyesight of medieval ivory carvers; paid a call on the Lewis Chessmen and then went for lunch and much chat. It's always lovely to meet up with LJ friends :)

In between tidying efforts and failed attempts at gardening J and I managed to go and see "The Sunshine Boys" starring Danny DeVito and Richard Griffiths. We hadn't originally intended to go but got such a good deal on the tickets that we couldn't resist. It turned out to be a very enjoyable evening as Danny DeVito gave a masterclass in comic timing. The performances were probably better than the play but it was still a lot of fun to watch.

The BBC Proms have now begun and though we didn't go to the First Night we were lucky enough to go to the Dress Rehearsal for "My Fair Lady". The was a delicious treat as the production was more or less fully staged but with a much larger orchestra than it would have in a theatre. Anthony Andrews was Professor Higgins but unlike Rex Harrison could actually sing, Annalene Beechey was gorgeous Eliza and Alun Armstrong was fantastic as Alfred Doolittle (I knew he could sing as he was the best Sweeney Todd I've ever seen). Because of the size of the John Wilson orchestra the chorus only had a really small space in which to sing, dance and act but the choreography was fabulous particularly in the Ascot scene. This production was absolutely full of treats including Julian Ovenden singing "On the Street Where You Live" and Sian Phillips, looking impossibly glamorous, as Mrs Higgins. Even the fact they had to stop ten minutes before the end (MU rules) didn't detract from the enjoyment as it left the ending completely ambiguous. As we couldn't go to the main performance we felt really privileged to be able to actually see this and not just hear it as it was as much a visual experience as a musical one. It's just a shame it couldn't be on the telly :( Here's The Guardian's review of the actual performance. If anyone wants to hear it it's up on the iPlayer at the moment and presumably not region specific as it's radio.

In TV viewing news I've been enjoying "The Hollow Crown" enormously. Gorgeous filmed and acted and probably a benchmark for doing Shakespeare on the television for years to come.

"Line of Duty" is turning into a really intriguing thriller with Lennie James giving a fantastic performance as Tony Gates. To say more would be to spoil the intricate plot but I was quite amused when Mark Lawson on "Front Row" asked writer Jed Mercurio if he'd borrowed the plot from "The Professionals" episode "In the Public Interest". Jed Mercurio said he hadn't but he wouldn't mind borrowing from early Professionals episodes :) Are people finally realising that the plots of "The Professionals" were good?

We're not watching much else at the moment but we really liked "Episodes" starring the ever amazing Tamsin Grieg, Stephen Mangan and Matt Le Blanc (as himself). It's kind of slow burn, bittersweet comedy rather than laugh out loud funny but once you get into it it's well worth the time. "Twenty Twelve" is back on and hilarious, though possibly having trouble keeping up with being as bizarre as the actual truth!

I thought it had stopped raining but it hasn't! Off to do useful things (or possibly read more about the Merlin panel at SDCC). Time to fire up Google Chrome again as Firefox is currently not letting me play videos. Sigh...

• Current Location:in front of the computer when I should be doing something else
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  cheerful

Tags:

• personal,
• prom,
• theatre,
• tv viewing

The holiday weekend has left me in a complete state of confusion as to what day (and season) it is, though I have fortunately remembered that it's my brother's birthday today. Happy Birthday to him. We had a nice evening round there on Sunday where too much was drunk (by J not by me, though I had the headache for him next day) but my dad made it up and down my brother's horrible garden steps with not too much difficulty to everyone's great relief. My niece R becomes more and more like my mother every time I see her as she talks non-stop. She hasn't yet attained my mother's full volume but if she goes into teaching, as she intends to, I'm pretty sure that will come! I am absolutely green with envy about part of her university course as she is doing a module on Arthurian literature this year. I'm not so envious of the James Joyce module though.

On Monday, after recovering somewhat from the hangover and the migraine we went to an excellent Prom. This was Hooray for Hollywood with John Wilson and his Orchestra covering a span of film musicals from the 1930s to the 1960s. When I looked at the running order I wasn't sure I knew half of the music but it turned out I knew all but a couple of songs very well indeed. The MGM musicals had already been covered two years ago so this time the prom was devoted to music from other studios. We had a medley of hits from the musicals of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, "A Star is Born", amusingly "Triplets" from "The Band Wagon" with the singers in costume, heart-breakingly "One Hand, One Heart" from "West Side Story" and a rather lovely American tenor Charles Castronovo singing "Serenade" from "The Student Prince". The Maida Vale Singers gave fantastic support and a rousing rendition of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat". The concert really showcased how gorgeous the scores of these musicals were and possibly most revelatory of all was "Jolly Holiday" from "Mary Poppins". Without the cartoon action to distract the eye the complexity of the score was all the more noticeable. The concert ended with "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from "Hello Dolly" and then "Hooray for Hollywood" and "No Business Like Showbusiness" as rollicking encores. The singing was terrific but the orchestral playing was outstanding with the brass being particularly fabulous. It was a hugely enjoyable concert (and on BBC2 next Saturday for anyone that wants to see it).

We have been to a couple of other Proms which I haven't written about because

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And "the other" was going a couple of photos of Bateman's that I took on Saturday, but I think they may have to wait.

• Current Location:in front of the computer when I should be doing something else
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  nerdy

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• musicals,
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The world is a grim place at the moment but I actually had a rather fun week.

In reverse order! Yesterday we went to see another play at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court. This time it was The Village Bike by Penelope Skinner starring Romola Garai.

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On Thursday we went to another Prom to hear the Halle Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder play Sibelius, Bartok and Janacek with a sparkling piano performance by Andras Schiff.

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On Tuesday it was time for Harry Potter. I'm not involved in HP fandom in any way but I have read all the books and enjoyed most of the films though I didn't see the last two in the cinema. I went in with no great expectations, but was pleasantly surprised as I did enjoy it.

( And even moreCollapse )

Now off to see what's going on at the SDCC :)

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  cheerful

Tags:

• film review,
• harry potter,
• music,
• play review,
• prom,
• theatre

As we were lucky enough to get tickets for the First Night of the Proms it was off to the Royal Albert Hall again. The weather was unexpectedly nice yesterday and we actually managed to eat our picnic (a posh word for M&S sandwiches) in the dry. Prince Albert was looking mighty fine gazing down from his somewhat OTT memorial

👁 summer 2011 008


( More under the cutCollapse )

In other news we're having our fence replaced at the moment. The guy who's doing it is Pat our neighbour from two doors down. We're supposed to have access from the back but the alleyway has been blocked by people a few doors away on the other side extending their garden illegally. Last week while preparing it all and cutting down a rotten pear tree Pat brought all his equipment and took everything out (including the pear tree) through the house. This week he's using a different tactic by climbing over their shed into the alleyway and then coming through our back gate. It's certainly one way of keeping fit!

• Current Location:at home but about to go out
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  tired

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I don't seem to have posted for a while. That's partly because I really didn't have much that was interesting to say and partly because when I did I had a migraine. Sigh... I have, however, now discovered one good thing about having a migraine for three days. J is off work today with a stomach bug and when I thought about it I remembered that my stomach had been distinctly uncomfortable over the weekend, but I'd put it down to the side effects of migraine. Obviously migraine pwns stomach bugs! I don't think it would be tactful to say that to him though *g*.

I wasn't actually particularly ill as my migraine is chronic (and extremely boring) rather than acute so we did manage to go to the Rodgers and Hammerstein Prom on Sunday despite thinking that we weren't going to get tickets. It was a wonderful concert to go to even when not feeling 100% and I enjoyed it enormously. Julian Ovenden was singing again and he really does have a fabulous voice. Some of the other performers were Kim Criswell, Sierra Bogess and Anna-Jane Casey and everyone sang beautifully. The orchestral playing was excellent, full of verve and liveliness, and everyone looked as if they were really enjoying the music. The only thing I'd have changed was the order of the programme, which was chronological. That meant that it started with the big hits like "Oklahoma", "Carousel" (my favourite) and "South Pacific", but then went on with material I don't like nearly so much including some songs from a musical I've never even heard of, "Flower Drum Song". If pushed I would have to say I enjoyed the Sondheim Prom more as the atmosphere in the Albert Hall was electric and I actually prefer his music, which is probably a very unusual statement *g*, but this was hugely enjoyable. Note to self: see more of Julian Ovenden...

The only downside of this was it took over two hours to get home from the RAH. Usually it takes us one hour and can take less, but on Sunday they seemed to be digging up all the roads in central London and half the tube lines. If we'd actually realised how bad it was we'd have walked to Victoria Station, which would actually have been quicker! I'm not sure why they do this in the summer holidays when there are large numbers of bewildered tourists milling around.

Anyway that's it from me. Back to lurking, reading fic and squeeing about the Merlin BFI event. Possibly I ought to minister to my sick husband as well...though last time I tried that he told me to go away!

• Current Location:in front of the computer when I should be doing something else
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  chipper

Tags:

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I haven't done bullet points for a while

• Had a lovely time yesterday meeting the amazingly kind 👁 Image
  ghost_guessed. It's always such fun meeting LJ people and we discovered we had a degree subject in common but the only area we'd both studied was a period of about 30 years :)

• We went to a Prom last Wednesday but I didn't write anything up about it because neither J or I was that impressed by it. All the critics loved it but it was Mahler Symphony No 3 and I feel Mahler should thrill and this didn't. I should add the obligatory disclaimer that it may have been where we were sitting in the Albert Hall. I also had a migraine, which didn't help, as proper appreciation of Mahler when you feel as if someone is attacking your face with a staple gun is quite difficult!

• It was my parents' 59th wedding anniversary yesterday. I rang them up to congratulate them . They were basically treating it like any other day with my mum going out to play bridge and my dad staying at home watching the telly. Dad's getting quite frail now and I think he finds my mother's relentless one woman campaign against old age quite exhausting. I'm not too surprised by this as I find her exhausting too!

• We've had two lovely meals out with friends recently and now I really need to go on a crash diet. We're going on holiday to Wales quite soon and full Welsh breakfasts will be on offer every morning. If I want to fit in to my clothes when I get back I need to lose weight now so I can put it on again on holiday. Of course, it would be better if I avoided the full Welsh breakfasts but I don't think that's going to happen.

• We haven't been watching much television lately but we did enjoy Rev with Tom Hollander, who was playing a completely different character from his role as Cutler Beckett in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films.( Cut for a bit of personal stuffCollapse )

• The other thing we've been watching was "Sherlock". I thought the first episode was sparkling, the second episode not so good and the third episode better. I thought the updating was really clever and, as I said to 👁 Image
  ghost_guessed yesterday I really liked the way they used London, which almost became a character in its own right.
  ( Cut for a probably unpopular opinionCollapse )

• If anyone is suffering from Benedict Cumberbatch withdrawal he's been on Radio 4 this week as the young Horace Rumpole. As I always see Rumpole as Leo McKern I find it a bit of a stretch to believe that's who Benedict Cumberbatch would grow up to be, but he does sound believable as a younger version of Timothy West who plays the older Rumpole in the radio version. It's on the iPlayer here and here until next Monday (and non-region specific).

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  bouncy

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I know I said last time that we probably wouldn't get any more Prom tickets, but I was very fortunate to be wrong because we were able to go to last night's Prom to celebrate Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday, a slightly belated birthday present for him from the BBC. It was an amazing evening and we were really lucky to go.

( Shepherd's pie peppered with actual shepherdCollapse )

ETA: I've just edited in Julian Ovenden singing "Being Alive" under the next cut. Not sure how long it will be there but it's fabulous.


( Being AliveCollapse )


I put a play in the heading because we went to see "Enron" on Thursday.

( No deep thoughtsCollapse )

The only actor whose work I really knew was Clive Francis, who turned out to be my first Actor Formally in Poldark spot of the week because sitting in a box quite close to us at the RAH last night was Kevin McNally (aka Mr Gibbs of "Pirates of the Caribbean" fame) who was also in Poldark. In the same box was Mel Smith, who doesn't look too great these days, but no sign of my usual Prom celebrity David Attenborough. I may have to go without my Annual Attenborough Spotting this year.

"Sherlock" tonight and I've just discovered that Benedict Cumberbatch is Wanda Ventham's son. She wasn't in Poldark but tons of other 70s drama! Now I feel old.

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• Current Mood: 👁 happy
  happy

Tags:

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• play review,
• prom,
• sondheim

We were lucky enough to go to the First Night of the Proms on Friday to hear Mahler's Symphony No 8, otherwise known as the Symphony of a Thousand due to the large number of performers it needs. It isn't actually a thousand but it's close to 500 with both the massed choirs and the orchestra included.

( No deep musical thoughtsCollapse )

After the performance we met a friend who'd been standing in the Arena. She'd queued for 4 hours and was nowhere near the front of the queue. We'd actually seen the line when we were on the way to get something to eat and it was about the largest one I'd ever seen for a Prom though I suspect the queues for the rest of the weekend were bigger. She also confirmed that some of the loud crashes we'd heard during the performance were people keeling over in the Arena. Apparently one poor person went over in the first 10 minutes and that's on an evening that wasn't that hot. The TV lights certainly don't help but I don't think it's any accident that the Albert Hall and a slow cooker are the same shape!

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  cheerful

Tags:

• prom

Alliteration rules *g*.

As I was going into London anyway I decided I ought to try and go and see the J.W. Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy as it was in its last week. Unfortunately most of the rest of London had had the same idea and the exhibition was very crowded. I was very glad I went though as there is far more to Waterhouse than "The Lady of Shalott", which must be his most famous work. Some of his early history paintings were quite stunning. I particularly liked this one "The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius" with the Emperor feeding his pigeons as the western Roman Empire crumbles around him. Having just been reading about this it really made quite an impact. Another incredibly vivid early picture was Mariamne leaving the Judgement Seat of Herod, with Mariamne, all in white, facing Herod and his sister Salome who are about to condemn her to death.

Waterhouse seems to have been fascinated by enigmatic sorcerous women, particularly Circe who he painted three times. All his images of her are extraordinary in their different ways but the one I found most interesting was this one which doesn't show up terribly well in the reproduction, but shows Circe in her chamber complete with magical paraphernalia (and leopards)and in the background is a tapestry of Odysseus bound to the mast while the sirens fly round him, implying that Circe had a hand in everything that was happening to Odysseus. I really liked that idea.

My only real problem with the exhibition was that it was so crowded and a lot of people were using audio guides, which made it worse. They are terrific and very informative, but when it leads to a large group of people clustered round one picture in quite a small room it doesn't add to ease of viewing exhibitions for everybody else. When that one picture is The Lady of Shalott, which can be seen in London anyway, it's extra annoying.

After that it was on to our last Prom of the season. This time it was the Vienna Philharmonic with Zubin Mehta and the RAH was packed.

( No deep thoughtsCollapse )

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• Current Mood: 👁 calm
  calm

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• art exhibition,
• prom

Apart from all the other recent traumas my parents are now having their attic insulated. This meant it had to be cleared completely and the detritus of 40 years moved. Fortunately they paid somebody to do it for them as I'd already had a go and failed and my brother refused completely. We've now got to dispose of it all but, apart from the awful dust, it is quite an interesting process and some buried treasures are appearing. I've found another stack of children's books which I thought had gone for good and the programme for the first Shakespeare play I ever went to. It was "Much Ado About Nothing" and was done by the RSC in about 1969/70. It starred Alan Howard (never really a screen actor, though he was the voice of The Ring in LOTR) and Janet Suzman, was a really wonderful production and I can still remember how funny it was and how it nearly turned to tragedy when Janet Suzman as Beatrice passionately begged Benedick to kill Claudio. I've seen another production of the play since with Kenneth Branagh and his film but this was the production I really loved. Opening the programme again after all these years I was rather surprised to see who else was in the cast *g*.

( Large scan under the cutCollapse )

My mother's is recovering from her fall though her face has now turned yellow with bruising after having been purple ("I look like a purple hag"). Fortunately she has a very large pair of sunglasses that cover most of her face! It was a bit unkind of my dad to sing "Two Lovely Black Eyes" to her... My dad's been a bit down recently but obviously all it needed to perk him up was for my mother to fall into a door and for England to win the Ashes :)

We went to another Prom last night which was the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Roger Norrington playing Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn with soprano Joyce DiDonato. I thought her singing was fabulous and the playing was excellent, particularly the brass, but I haven't got much more to say about it than that as I can't say I'm the biggest fan of Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony. I think the last concert we went to was so excellent that this one was a bit of an anti-climax which was a pity.

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• Current Mood: 👁 tired
  tired

Tags:

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• theatre

I'm really very bad at updating at the moment. We went to the seaside on Saturday and just for a change of scene didn't make our usual trip to Brighton but went to Littlehampton instead.

We used to go to Littlehampton a lot when I was little but I hadn't been for years and J hadn't been at all. One of the attractions of Littlehampton for children is that it has rather more sand than most of the mainly shingle beaches of Sussex and on a rather grey and windy day there were still families sheltering behind their windbreaks or the breakwater just like we used to. What I hadn't realised when I was younger and fixated on the sand is that Littlehampton is a resort with a bit of a split personality. The East Beach is the one that most people go to, and while it has changed in the last 40 years (the Beach Cafe wasn't in the Good Food Guide then for starters), it was still recognisably the same place, slightly run down and oddly charming. There is also a small port which has been smartened up considerably and with a few more restaurants and a little bit more life might be in danger of becoming trendy. Best of all though is Littlehampton West Beach which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to possessing some of the very few sand dunes in West Sussex. Thanks to the strong wind it was mostly deserted and quite unspoiled. In this part of the South Coast where resorts blend into each other almost indistinguishably it was very refreshing to find a beach that was just a beach. We had a really nice day which included a very good lunch in a local pub where we ate far too much and didn't care.

Yesterday was another trip to the Proms. As it was a lovely evening this time we did manage to have our picnic in the park before the concert, which was fun. Sandwiches taste better without the addition of rain! The concert was the Budapest Festival orchestra playing Prokofiev, Bartok and Dvorak.

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• Current Location:in front of the computer when I should be doing something else
• Current Mood: 👁 hot
  hot

Tags:

• days out,
• england,
• prom

First of all a to 👁 Image
lilachigh. Hope you're having a lovely day.

Have just spent a very pleasant time with 👁 Image
kazzy_cee in Ikea where we shopped a bit, chatted, chatted, chatted some more, shopped a bit more, ate, chatted, chatted, chatted some more and there may have been more chat in there as well. We managed not to get lost this time though :)

Last night we went to a Prom to hear The Sixteen perform some Handel. As it started early we thought we would have a picnic tea by the Albert Memorial. The skies had been rather dark all day but the moment we met up it started drizzling, then raining harder, then finally coming down in sheets. Fortunately the area near the Albert Memorial has some nice large trees to shelter under and each one was sheltering people attempting to have a picnic in the so-called British summer. We eventually settled for one of us eating a sandwich while the other held the umbrella, then vice versa.

( Prom talkCollapse )

When I got back from the concert I read 👁 Image
curiouswombat's excellent post about the NHS. All I can add to it is that 4 years ago the NHS operated on my 80-year-old mother-in-law even though she only had a 5% chance of surviving the operation. They did everything they could for her for the last six months of her life and I am quite certain that there were no age-related considerations involved in her treatment. My 81-year-old mother's anti-cancer drugs cost the NHS thousands and she's just had a hip-replacement operation because she needed one. My 83-year-old father broke his leg very badly last year and it is entirely thanks to the excellent care he received from the NHS that he is able to walk again as well as he could before. All of this treatment was free from the NHS. When my niece S needed an expensive back brace for her scoliosis my brother's private health insurance wouldn't pay, but the NHS did. I don't think I need to say any more.

And finally I hope everybody going to Writercon UK has a wonderful time :)

• Current Location:at home but about to back away from the computer slowly
• Current Mood: 👁 cheerful
  cheerful

Tags:

• music,
• personal,
• prom

...our last Prom of the season. This time it was Zubin Mehta conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The piece we'd really gone to hear was The Rite of Spring but there was some Haydn and Berg in there too.

( Brief musical notes from a non-musicianCollapse )

Sidenote: you know you've watched too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer when the last part of the Rite of Spring - Sacrificial Dance of the Chosen One - reminds you of Buffy in Once More With Feeling. Sigh...

We're off to Lincolnshire again tomorrow and hopefully back on Sunday. Last time I took some fanfic with me to try and cheer myself up and it worked a treat so I'm off to find some more that I can print out and read over the weekend.

Have a good weekend everybody - particularly the England Cricket Team!

• Current Mood: 👁 busy
  busy

Tags:

• prom