I'm not going to do a round up post for the decade because sad things happened but last year was a good one personally (though not for the country). We did a number of very nice things, which I haven't written about, went on a couple of wonderful holidays, which I also haven't written about and generally had a very good time.
I also read 56 books which is very good for me as some of them were non-fiction and long. I think the most memorable book I read last year was
The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es. It is the story of Lien, a Dutch Jewish girl, hidden by several Dutch families including Bart van Es' own. Unlike Anne Frank Lien survived World War II but the events took a great toll on her. Not comfortable reading but a story that lingers. I also finished reading my dad's 12 volume set of
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell which I began reading one book a month in August 2018 (why I began it in August I have no idea). It took a while to get into and I enjoyed some sections more than others but the whole gradually built and built as you got to know the characters who flitted in and out better. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it was sad, sometimes it was just plain weird, sometimes I didn't understand what the hell was going on and other times it felt as if I was inside the story, but it was altogether an excellent reading experience. The only hard thing was that I didn't have my dad any longer to talk to about it, though knowing Dad he would probably have forgotten most of it as soon as he'd read it :) I was a bit bereft once I'd finished it but replaced it with
The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard. I've read two so far and can't wait to carry on.
We usually go to more theatre than we did last year but we have been seduced by the lure of ballet. J has always resisted going to the ballet before but in 2018 I dragged him to a triple bill at Covent Garden and he discovered he loved it. Since then we've been catching up on all the years we didn't go. I won't bore you with the various things we've been to see but last month we went to see Matthew Bourne's version of
The Red Shoes at Sadler's Wells and were knocked out by it.
Here's the trailer
We also went back to the Proms again after a break of nearly 5 years and were lucky enough to hear some very good concerts. The best experience of the lot was seeing the Aurora Orchestra play Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique from memory. Before I saw it I thought it might all be a bit gimmicky but seeing it live was extraordinary. Because they were playing from memory they could play standing up which gave their playing terrific energy and attack. It was introduced by Matthew Baynton (of
Horrible Histories and
Ghosts fame) which was initially humorous but the whole thing got darker and darker until the end the hairs were standing up on the back of my neck. It was fabulous.
Another thing I managed not to write about was seeing Simon Schama give a lecture on Rembrandt. He strode about the stage fountaining knowledge but I have managed to retain very little of it, but it was an awesome thing to see. Melvyn Bragg was introducing him and was supposed to be asking questions afterwards but even he seemed to be a bit gobsmacked as to what to say after such a torrent of information.
And that was a small portion of our year. If I get my act together and sort through my photographs I might still manage to make a couple of belated posts about our holidays. I will try and do better this year and on that note here is a meme borrowed from
👁 Image
kazzy_ceeJan
1 What is one thing you’d like to accomplish in 2020?
I really need to lose some weight. I've had a dodgy knee for a couple of months and I know that losing weight would help that. As J also needs to lose a bit of weight we started trying at the beginning of November and have both lost about 7lbs though Christmas has put a bit of a halt to things. It's not the only thing I want to accomplish in 2020 but is certainly something I'm determined to do.
The other questions under the cut
( Read more...Collapse )Not sure I'll manage every day and there are probably quite a lot of questions I can't answer but I will give it a go to encourage me to post more.
