More injury time

It’s not just me that has got bashed up. One of my colleagues appeared this week with a broken thumb – she can’t stand the Fortuna splint the hospital gave her, so is waving a magnificent hand with bruises the colour of boiled rhubarb around the office. Then another colleague came back from a dream holiday in Laos with her left arm in plaster after falling down a hillside & into a stream and fracturing her ulna.

And then I learn that one of my favourite dancers at the Royal Ballet (no, not that one! – lovely Slava Samodurov, a man who is able to look gracious and noble even in the worst of wigs) has apparently acquired a knee injury so bad that he is probably going to have to stop dancing. Bah! Poor bugger – he can’t be more than 35. It’s a hard career, and a horribly short one sometimes. At least the divine Miyako Yoshida, who I have been adoring from afar for years, has got to 44 before retiring. Gods, I’ll miss her. She has been an absolute delight in everything I’ve ever seen her do. Her Ondine was exquisite; unearthly and heart-breaking. I’m hoping (faint hope!) that I might be able to get a ticket for one of her UK farewell performances this April – funnily enough I’ve never seen her as Cinderella, which is the last role she’ll dance here. Crossed fingers - I might even treat myself to a slightly better seat than usual; if I can get one at all, that is. The Friends may have booked it out already.

I’ve never bothered to become a Friend of Covent Garden as one of the main perks, advance booking, is limited to two tickets per performance, and while for ballet I generally want just one, for myself, for opera I want three; one for me, one for mum and one for Alan. If I can’t get that, there’s no point in joining. The other big benefit (which I’d love!) is occasional access to rehearsals and the like – but this tends to be weekdays only and only during the day, so no use to a humble worker bee like me. Otherwise I'd be there, sketchbook in hand, every time...

Sorry about repeating that link, by the way – I just couldn’t resist the temptation. I do think that picture is hilarious. Whoever said sexy can’t be funny as well had never seen a ballet dancer dressed like that. Goddess knows what the photo session was like…

Here’s a much more respectable pic of Mr Avis in rehearsal recently. Now that looks like the bloke I found myself next to on the Tube station platform back in November. I think one of the reasons I feel simpatica towards him is because like me he has been lumbered by his genes with a face that looks deeply melancholy in repose. I wonder if women on market stalls ever say “Cheer up love, it might never happen!” to him when he’s trying to buy a kilo of apples? They do to me. As do bus drivers. And men in lorries… My late father used to say I had Roman gravitas, only undermined by my Eternal Student hair. Eternal Roman Student Gravitas; a bizarre yoking indeed. Oh well; I’m a Sagittarius, mutability is one of my official qualities.

Hmm… I just looked myself (well, Sagittarius) up; apparently “an air of the eternal student” is another of my official qualities. Okay, now that is bizarre.