Made it out...

...I made it out alive...

It's Friday and I made it to the end of this week, and now I have finished work for ten whole days - no, eleven, even.  Yea!  And at crack of dawn on Tuesday I go to Kefalonia for a week.

Before that I have three days to work my way through a stack of odd jobs.  It looks like being a busy weekend.  Tomorrow, hopefully I'm meeting up with some friends for tea, after one of those ridiculously cheering pre-holiday shopping expeditions for new walking sandals, sun lotion, insect repellant etc.

Sunday I want to have a proper, full-on Writing Day.  I want to make some progress on "The Healers" and I also want to get the rest of my recent poems typed up.  I probably won't post many more of those here for a while, though.  The majority of them lately are about the odd feeling of falling for someone you thought was a friend, and realising the "It's just biology" trick isn't working anymore...  But they're quite good in some cases, these poems, albeit lyrical and soppy; so I mean to keep them.  Maybe publishable in twenty years or so; when I retire, yes, that sounds about right.

Monday I will be packing and stashing left-over food in the freezer, or taking it to the Dipgeek for her and the Lovely J to eat, and then I'll be getting two hours' sleep before catching a night bus to Victoria Station, and the train to Gatwick, and my flight...

It has been another hectic week at work; I wound up putting in almost 1 1/2 hours unpaid extra at the end of today sorting things out, in order to leave a reasonable state of affairs while I'm away.  The constant barrage of irritating problems with the new system just slows everything down; and there are only the same number of hours in the day as there always have been.  I am working flat-out, and I still can't keep up.  I'm tired.  But I have - I think I have - left a fairly clean desk.

On Wednesday we had a big meeting, all our section, to learn more about the staff restructure.  In the event there still wasn't very much to learn about, as the details are yet to be hammered out.  The overall new structure, which was presented on Wednesday, makes a lot of sense; but it isn't final and may change further.  This is going to take a while, and the lack of certainty is pretty depressing.  But then such things always are depressing.  I now know that my role is affected, but not much more than that; it's all basically still speculation - "It's likely to be this or maybe more like that, but things may change".

So - well, okay.  That's how it is.  Nothing I can do but wait and see, give my input if/when asked for it, and do my best whatever happens. If what's been outlined to me as a possible scenario is what does finally happen, I'll be okay with that.  But none of it is fixed, so I won't pin too many hopes on it just yet awhile.

Saw my crush on Thursday, and found to my relief that I could be around him, talk to him intelligently and reasonably sensibly, and enjoy his input and his company, without feeling heart-sore or making a fool of myself.  And I don't think he has a clue what's going on in my head, which is also a relief (unless, of course, he's just a very good actor!).  He's one of those people who restore your faith in human nature; so it would be a pretty rotten thing if I were to be a cause of embarrassment to him.  I'm an old-fashioned enough Brit to think one should do right by those one respects; so not to cause a problem for this chap is important to me.  Now I can let myself hope that in time we'll be able to be friends.  Much the best outcome, if it can be so.

But anyway, now I am off work for a spell, and I can put everything behind me; walk away from the tiredness, from the wry sadness, from having had to crush feelings I had just begun to allow myself after seven years, and from the non-stop pace and general anxiety at work...  And so I will go to Katelios, to swim, walk, read, do some writing, eat grilled fish and salad and drink good Greek wine, and have a rest.

I wish I could bestow a week in Greece on all my friends and everyone I work with.  I see so many tired, stressed faces lately.  It's a busy time of year at the best of times, and with the restructure and the uncertainty that brings, a lot of people at work are worried.  Whilst among my non-work friends there are theses to be completed, weddings to be planned, houses to be sold, new jobs to be found, new digs to be settled into, bad break-ups to be got-over...  Yes, stressful times for so many people at the moment.

I wish I could just pluck them all up and drop them down in my favourite places in Greece.  Athens for the city-break buffs, Crete for the lovers of mountains and archeology, Thassos for the swimming nuts, the serious foodies and everyone who likes a bit of everything, Kefalonia for those who want a complete rest...  I wish I could give Greece, the home of my heart, to everyone who would benefit from it.

If I am ever rich, maybe I will.  Remind me, if I write a best-seller!

Rock Chick at work...

I have pinched this picture from TCI's facebook page; if I get a bollocking for it, I'll have to delete it!  But it's not often you get to see a photograph of me (I'm camera shy) so I thought this might amuse.  Chutney-making is a serious business, don't you know? 

We made about eight lbs of Apricot and Walnut Chutney, about six lbs of Mixed Fruit Chutney, and about 4 1/2 lbs of an improvised (& very pink) jam made of apples, pears, raspberries and a healthy slug of Crème de Cassis.  "We" being TCI, her pal Alex and me; G. was rehanging the kitchen door at the same time, so there were wood shavings flying around as well and a fair old racket going on.  It was a bit manic, but huge fun.  Having three of us doing all the chopping up made things a lot quicker, though the actual cooking still took a couple of hours for each chutney. 

We had just a scrap left in the pan from the mixed fruit one, so sampled it dobbed onto chunky slivers of sheep's milk cheese.  God, that was good!  I must remember that if I am ever trying to make food I can feed someone with in tidbits. 

In the end we all flopped down exhausted and drank several large martinis, and then went out for gnocchi (+ lashings more cheese) at a local Italian restaurant.  Then I crawled home on the Tube.  A productive Sunday.

Saturday was productive, too; I managed to sort out about half my Christmas gift buying in one mad swoop on Oxford Street.  And in and around all this busyness, sitting on Tubes or buses, or crashed over coffee in John Lewis's, I wrote a couple of short extra sections for "Gold Hawk" and made a pile of notes towards a potential sequel - which led me to start wondering if there's even room for two sequels. This is ridiculous, but a fun thought.  I mean, I started off with just this vague idea for a story, just five months ago, and now I'm getting sequelitis.  I love The Muse; she is the most wonderful thing in my life.  Blessed be!

A pretty busy few days

It was a hectic weekend, and Monday was pretty heavy too. Good hectic, in the main, but it has still left me feeling a little wambly-legged with tiredness. Never mind – I can get early nights for the rest of the week now, and I’ve had a bloody good time in the meantime. Of course, trying to have a rest during the week isn’t always feasible, but I'm doing my best, round the edges of the busy "start of the school hols" patch at work.

Saturday I met my mum for lunch and the terrific new English National ballet programme of ballets by the late Roland Petit. Sunday I went to the Ealing Global Music Festival in Walpole Park (a sort of one day mini-WOMAD) and danced my feet off all afternoon and evening. Monday was unpleasantly frantic at work, a classic “we’re short-staffed and the ‘phones won’t stop ringing” day, but in the evening I met my stepmum Jane for supper and the last Harry Potter movie – oof. At the London IMAX, so double oof.

I am now reeling slightly from the amount of activity; a lot of talking, a lot of eating out, three late nights, lots of dancing and a sort of cultural information-overload.

Mum and I found a new place to eat near Covent Garden, which is always good news; a small but pleasant bistro with the unimaginative name of “Bistro”. Mixed meze, pancakes stuffed with creamed spinach and goats cheese, salad, ice cream, a glass of wine; all very straightforward stuff, fresh and healthy (well, apart from the ice cream) and a bill of under £15 each.

ENB can be very happy with their Petit triple bill. Some of the newspaper reviews have tended towards the sniffy, but to me as a common-or-garden ballet-goer this was a cracking programme, full of energy and drama; the only thing that really looked dated was the copious amount of onstage smoking…

It was hard to believe, watching Erina Takahashi’s shy tenderness in “L’Arlesienne”, that the last time I saw her in action was as a practically fire-breathingly evil Odile in the Black Swan pas de deux. Her partner was the febrile, sexy Esteban Berlanga, doing a good line in wild-eyed distraction and frenetic leaps. Around and behind their doomed-love-story, a small corps de ballet dances lovely, folk-dance inflected rounds and chains that somehow convey both the contentment and the blinkeredness inherent in a tight-knit community.

“Le Jeune Homme et la Mort” brought another terrific young bloke on stage; Anton Lukovkin, a handsome young man with an unusually pointy chin, hurling himself with abandon around the stage in a pair of off-the-shoulder dungarees. It was short but very exciting stuff, and a tour-de-force for the two leads.

I’m not very familiar with Petit’s work. I’ve never seen either of these first pieces before, though I saw “Carmen” (the final piece in this bill) once on television when I was about twelve. I could remember being impressed then, but no particular details of what I was impressed by. Part of what grabbed me, then as now, was the sheer theatricality of it all; the sexiness, the aggression, the high drama of the final duet-cum-duel. My exposure to ballet back then had been very much of the order of “Swan Lake”, “Fille”, “Nutcracker”… Not chic-yet-vampy women in corsets standing on chairs and shouting, and certainly not erotic violence and murder.

I can only begin to imagine the impact this had on a London audience accustomed to the delicacy and classicism of the pre-Macmillan-era Royal Ballet… Not just the unabashedly sexual pelvic movements, but the furious energy, the stamping of feet, grinding out of cigarettes, slashing high leg extensions, all must have seemed like the proverbial bolt from the blue.

I loved in particular the way that even in the central love scene, as Carmen and Don José move through their highly sensual pas de deux, there’s a constant undercurrent of muted aggression that suggests their essential incompatibility as effectively as any amount of speech could do. A corking good show altogether.

Sunday afternoon was spent in the boiling heat, with a large water bottle, a couple of pints of Hobgoblin and an assortment of the usual Festival Food – Thai street nibbles, a crepe, some popcorn, veg curry, fruit sticks with chocolate sauce… Plus bluegrass, ska, Cuban rock, Balkan gypsy music, Hungarian traditional dance and Congolese soukous. Great dancing stuff, and one filthy, sweaty, tired and very cheerful Dent at the end of it all.

To finish off on Monday night with “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part two” was a very welcome finale to the weekend (especially coming after a pretty trying day at the office). It’s excellent; fun, exciting, a bit emotional, good battle scenes, cliff-hangers and great special effects. It was my first time at an IMAX, too – corblimey, now that’s what 3d cinema is good for! My only problem was that Jane and I had been to Sagar in Catherine Street first and eaten an enormous supper of aloo chaat and spicy creamed wheat and dosas, and super-rich creamy mango lassis, and we were both absolutely stuffed by the time we got to the cinema, trying not to entertain our neighbours with burping - such a ladylike pair we are...

At least yesterday evening I stayed in, wrote, and flopped. Pushing on with the revision of “Ramundi’s Sisters” I’ve noticed the spacing in my typing is all to pot. Between full stop and capital letter I've got one space here, two spaces there; it’s all over the place. Trying to make it uniform must be just about the most boring job out, but it has to be done. I like to know I’m producing clean copy. Chuntering through it I had a sudden good idea for solving something that has been bugging me in something else; it necessitates a bit of a rewrite there as well, but what the heck. So I think I’ll have a look at that tonight, for a change. And then an early night.

Guess what? - a busy weekend...

Lately life seems to be amazingly busy. I don’t know if it’s something to do with the burgeoning energy of spring, or simply that I have over-booked myself badly for March and April. I’m not complaining! – it’s lovely to be busy; to be seeing friends and family, going to concerts and ballet and opera, working in the garden, cooking, drawing, writing and so on. It’s great – I hate being bored.

This weekend was certainly hectic. Talking to the bank manager on Saturday, while not exactly fun, was at least useful (I was making arrangements about my savings, so it was the good kind of bank manager interview, not the painful kind). Trying to get my summer clothes sorted out on Sunday was less fun, owing to what I’ll politely call waistline issues. It’s left me with a pile of needlework to do, too, plus I didn’t get the job finished so now have a pile of summer clothes lying on the floor in an unwearable tangle. But - I also made a good chick pea curry and an excellent Spanish omelette, and cleaned the bathroom, and had a spin on my bike admiring magnolias and cherry blossom in other people’s gardens, and nearly did something awful to my back with five hours’ straight working in my own garden (which is still pretty immature, meaning everything is very short and I am bent double the entire time). And finally, after being galvanised by a friend into going out on Sunday afternoon, ended up having white wine and ice cream in a pizzeria on Southampton Row with some more of her friends who were on their way to “Aida” at the Royal Opera. They had standing room tickets, so on balance I didn’t envy them too badly, much though I love “Aida”. But intelligent company is always good, especially on a sunny afternoon with added wine and ice cream.

‘ “My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”
“That is not good company – that is the best.” ’

(Jane Austen “Persuasion” - but I’m quoting from memory so may have got it garbled).

A good weekend

On Friday we bade goodbye to my line manager Curlywoman; blast. I liked Curlywoman and she was a good boss, but she’s got a “dream job” selling hotel bookings - her idea of a dream job, not mine! – and in the end you can’t blame someone for pursuing their dream job. We all had a good evening at The Botanist, one of the local pubs, and I made the most of feeling okay again after my gyppy tum of earlier in the week. Many jokes were told, a fair number of glasses of wine were drunk, a lot of nachos and chips were eaten, poems were read, I bought a drink for someone I barely know because I thought she looked sad (only to find she looked sad because she was Very Very Drunk and feeling ill) and one of the Press Office suddenly cornered me with a barrage of questions about why-are-you-still-single-Imogen, to which I couldn’t give a satisfactory answer, largely because I don’t have one.

Got home at midnight, slightly tipsy despite having been sensible and had plenty of fruit juice as well as nice Aussie plonk. Dan v amused – “I’ve never seen you drunk before!” – I think he had a picture of me as a sober, wholefood-eating, sketchbook-wielding yoghurt-weaving type who never lets her hair down even a teensy bit...

Saturday – posted a birthday present, sent “Gabriel Yeats” off to the third agent on my list, fixed a problem with my rent payments, bought groceries, ran the washing machine, tidied and weeded in the garden, typed up some more of “Ramundi’s Sisters”, made cauliflower cheese, and watched a lovely sentimental movie.

Sunday – sorted out a lot of stuff, cleaned and tidied my bedside cabinet and my desk, typed up a lot more of “Ramundi’s Sisters” and dealt with a tricky revision, made braised quorn with lemon and herbs, and watched the last part of “Lark Rise to Candleford” (largely to report on it to my mum, who was out and whose video is out of action) and the latest episode of “Being Human”; then to wind down after that I finished another of the "back burner" project summaries, and started yet another. It took a while to wind down, truth to tell, as “Being Human” was a cracking good episode, funny and touching and thoroughly scary. When they get the balance right, they have a lovely little series there...

Typing and revising doesn’t leave anything concrete behind, the way working in the garden does, but it is very satisfying to see the pile of dog-eared manuscript getting smaller, and the size of the typed file getting bigger. I’ve got to the last section of “Ramundi’s Sisters”, I’ve reached 1927, and I’m just five scenes away from the end of the story.

Then I’ll need to re-read the whole thing, clean up typos I’ve missed, decide how much further revision it needs, and finally try sending it to the first agent I sent “Gabriel Yeats” to, since she did say that if I had anything more mainstream she’d like to see it. I’d be a fool if I passed up on an offer like that; as a tyro writer, I’m incredibly lucky to have that chance of further attention.

“Ramundi’s Sisters” is a different kettle of fish from “Gabriel Yeats” in many ways. I guess it is still magical realism, though; but it is at the end of the spectrum that has relatively little magic proportional to realism – “Gabriel Yeats” is right at the magic end, and possibly a little off it - the deep end, that is - as well. The other major thing they have in common is that they are both very romantic. It’s perhaps an embarrassing admission, but clearly I still Believe In Love.

Perhaps an even more embarrassing admission today. This Feb 14th I have had, for the twelfth year in a row, no Valentine cards. The frenzied month-long promotion of Valentine’s Day does get a little grating when one is long-term single; the only good thing about it was seeing the flower stalls I pass on my way into work, all packed with extra flowers today.

Finally, and I know this is a bit of an odd segue, but here’s Mr Orchid Nursery himself, telling you how to trim and repot your Phalaenopsis. A few nice shots of the interior of the Orchid Nursery (& a lot of footage of Mr O. Nursery’s hands – perfectly nice hands, I hasten to add, but the orchids are better).

Busy weekend

On Saturday I hit the sales and bought some cheap trousers, four new bras, and a pair of garden loppers. I also ran the washing machine, did the regular grocery shopping, and made soup. Sunday, I took the loppers and I went out and lopped. I got a little lopping crazy, in fact; and then leaf-raking crazy and compost-bin-filling crazy. Four hours worth of crazy in the garden. It was glorious - blissfully mild for January, with bluetits flying in and out of the conifers and a robin dogging me looking for grubs and reminding me that he's the boss... Then I did some cleaning, ate soup and spent the evening sewing. Today I am so stiff I feel like an octogenarian. My back! My knees! I love my garden, but it punishes me sometimes. It is so good though to look out of the kitchen window and not be staring into a mass of leaves - I was able to lop all those long whippy branches that were obscuring the view. Sometimes the best thing you can do in a garden is not to nurture and encourage, but to cut things back, so that the light and the air can come through for everything, and everyone...

It was a constructive weekend, though, no?

Oh my back. Oh my knees...

A constructive weekend is a Good Thing

...and this was one.

I had lunch with my stepmum Jane and went to a ballet matinee with her - the mixed bill at the Royal Ballet, including a wonderful new piece by Kim Brandstrup, a good revival of "Winter Dreams" (also sad) and a lovely bonne bouche in the form of Balanchine's "Theme and Variations" with the lovely Sarah Lamb and gorgeous Steven McRae showing off their best bravura chops.

Afterwards we sat in a café on the Strand drinking tea and eating cake, watching the world go by, and nattering. Simple pleasures like an afternoon with someone you are fond of just never seem to pall...

What else? I made a tentative start on some new writing and had a little nudge towarfds clearing a hurdle in some other, ongoing, writing.

I did my Tax Return and sent it off. Ooof! - what a relief...

I managed to charm Dan into fixing the broken light fitting in the kitchen (after a slightly fraught beginning we seem to have found a friendly modus operandi, which is good). A working light in the kitchen is very welcome as the autumn evenings close in and the mornings get dimmer.

And I did a pile of needlework; let something down, let something else out, took something else in, and mended two bras.

The ballet and lunch with Jane was probably the most fun. The writing still feels a little unsteady, as though the muse is convalescent after a bad cold. The sewing wasn't exactly fun, as it was all fine handwork and very squinty stuff, but getting a garment wearable is rewarding and the results will be very useful. The Tax Return was grim, but I feel terribly worthy and aren't-I-good now it is out of the way.

I also watched "Strictly Come Dancing" - definitely fun - "Merlin" - most definitely likewise - "The Pillars of the Earth" - fearful twaddle, but done with relish and a lot of fake dirt - "Countryfile", in which Adam bought a new ram ("I'm looking for a tup with good teeth and good testicles" says he cheerfully; the tup next to him in the pen rather sweetly hung his head as if embarrassed) - and my new dvd of "Coppelia".

That was a good weekend, I think.

...and a good weekend

One very constructive weekend later:
I have mended my broken doorframe – admittedly my father and grandfather would have chuckled at the bodge-job I’ve made of it, but at least it is nailed in place again now instead of hanging loose and tripping me;
I have turned out all my winter clothes and put away all my height-of-summer clothes;
I’ve turned out the linen shelf (since I was turning out the rest of the cupboard anyway);
I’ve also cleaned and put away my sandals and got out all my winter shoes;
Cleaned my bedroom floor;
And planted about half my spring bulbs, in the rain - getting very muddy in the process.

What a bunch of early-autumn jobs!

I have a touch of backache today, as that was a lot of bending and stretching and crawling around on my knees. Now I’m off to find a bus to Brentford and have tea with a friend.

Pick-of-the-Proms, and romantic comedies...

There were seven concerts I wanted to go to in this year’s BBC Proms season. Two were sold out by the time I came to book, and one clashed with a previous arrangement. I was able to get tickets for the other four, though. As an experiment, I had seats in different parts of the hall for each concert; this was interesting, and useful, though of course putting what I’ve learned into use next year will still depend on availability of seats.

My first Prom was “Meistersinger”. I like “Meistersinger” although it is five hours plus of bum-numbing Wagner; because it has buckets of thrilling music, because unlike most of his work it has a happy ending, and because I have played in the overture (& I still know the triangle part!). I had a seat to the side of the gallery, with a fair view and pretty good sound, and despite the heat it was a good afternoon.

My second Prom was number 32; Tchaikovsky, Janacek and Berlioz. I went with my stepmother Jane and we sat in the choir stalls. The sound is surprisingly good from here, though of course it is off-balance. Jane is used to this, as she plays regularly in an orchestra herself. I’m less adapted to it, as I haven't done so for years, but I also have a less-sensitive ear. We were right above the percussion section, with a splendid view of them and of everyone else except Maxim Rysanov. Recommended if you like watching the conductor (which I like to do occasionally) and don’t mind being blown out of your seat when the timpani let rip (not a problem for someone whose Dad was a timpanist), and of course provided you don’t have a crush on a string soloist.

Third Prom was Lugansky playing the Rachmaninov “Rhapsody”, reviewed last week. For this I was right at the back centre of the gallery. Seats here sell out ahead of the sides of the gallery, but my feeling was that the sound was worse - small and a bit muzzy - and the view awful. The back of the gallery is great, sound-wise, in the Festival Hall and the Barbican Hall, and even in Canterbury Cathedral (most of which has bl**dy lousy acoustics). Not so at the Royal Albert Hall. I have a bit of an “I-love-you” thing about Nikolai Lugansky and I’m sorry I wasn’t a scrap closer to him; it’s amazing just how far away the gallery is from the stage, in that huge building. It’s like trying to see the action from the back row of the Colosseum (NB not the Coliseum – where the cheap seats have surprisingly good sightlines).

My fourth and final Prom was on Friday, and it was easily the best. Of course, it was my favourite orchestra and my favourite maestro, so there is a remote possibility I was prejudiced... I’d splashed out on a seat in the side stalls for this. For me, that gave the best of both worlds; close enough to give me crisp, clear sound and a really good view, but far enough back that I wasn’t swamped by one section of the orchestra. It was a terrific concert.

It’s available on BBC iPlayer, at least for the next few days; sadly iPlayer slots only seem to last a week. The four pieces were well-matched; the Mosolov thrillingly hot stuff, the Pärt symphony haunting, tensely meditative and melancholy, the Ravel a jazzy treat. The final piece, Scriabin’s “Poem of Ecstasy”, which I didn't know before, absolutely blew me away. And Esa-Pekka Salonen was simply wonderful. Do have a look and a listen if you have the time (you can fast forward, in a rough-and-ready manner, to get through the applause and the talking-head presenter). I know I am a creature of crushes, and very boring it must get listening to me rave about them, but honestly; watch the Maestro, and marvel. Now that is one brilliant guy, and a damned attractive one too. And it is corking good music.

I had a constructive weekend afterwards. I got several small irritating jobs done - like retuning my television, which I’ve been meaning to do for months, and mending the handle of my nail scissors. I did a lot of gardening, bought my spring bulbs and made another batch of jam (strawberry and blackberry – oh yes, it’s good!). But I slept badly and had weird dreams on both Friday and Saturday night. On Friday it made sense; I was hyped-up after the concert, fizzing with energy after the magnificence of the Scriabin, and couldn’t shake the mental image of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s honey-and-silver hair and elvish smile, and his marvellous energy.

But Saturday puzzles me; I’d had a good, busy day, spent plenty of time outdoors in the fresh air, and had a very nice supper of home-cooked fasoladha and roasted squash with feta cheese. Then I dreamed that someone I was at college with had gone to live on the island of Hvar in Croatia and got in trouble. I woke up and said to myself “It’s just a dream”, got back to sleep – and had the same dream again. Creepy.

Last night I really wanted a relaxed, no-need-to-think evening. I cooked a dead-simple supper of pasta, veg and tuna, and sat down and watched tele. So I’m a slob. I ended up with a film called “Sweet Home Alabama”, which I’d heard was a good straightforward romantic comedy. It starred Reese Witherspoon, who is such a delight in the first “Legally Blonde” film (& is so badly let-down in the second by a truly dire plot and script). It didn’t look too intellectually taxing, which was fine, as I wanted fun, not intellect. I have plenty of opera and classic French art movies on dvd if I want to be intellectual.

But it just didn’t work for me. I didn’t really like any of the characters. I felt the heroine was silly, shallow and mean, and so was the husband she had fled from. There was no explanation of why their marriage hadn’t worked, beyond a nasty story about him throwing up at the wedding. I have no doubt that that would be vile, and infuriating – but grounds for separation? Not among grown-ups, I hope. The man who wants to marry the heroine seemed far too old-fashionedly decent and nice to be in love with her. It just – didn’t work. I gave up about halfway through, so I may have missed the moment when suddenly it all came together. But I don’t want to have to sit with a film for over an hour without a single character getting my sympathy.

It’s funny what works and what doesn’t, in films, tv, fiction, you name it. I guess it’s partly a matter of taste. Comedy is such a personal thing, too; and romantic comedy must be particularly hard to write and to play. I loved “Legally Blonde”, I enjoyed “Maid in Manhattan” and “Pretty Woman” – and the latter is about as air-headed a fantasy as they come – and “While you were Sleeping”, and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, and “Practical Magic” and “Hitch” and “Mystic Pizza” and “Moonstruck” and “Groundhog Day”… So I know I am perfectly capable of sitting down with a chocolate box Girls’ Night-type movie and enjoying it for exactly what it is. I just wish I’d had one last night.

At least I slept okay afterwards; and no bad dreams. But no lovely orchestral ones, either.

Merciful Monday

It's quiet. A quiet Monday, thank heavens. I've had a busy weekend; theatre, groceries/cleaning/washing etc and other domestic stuff, and a full day showing an old friend all over Kew. Have just been forwarding some of her ecstatic comments to the people in charge of the sections in question - she loved the Gardens and was so complimentary I just had to pass the pleasure on. But we walked a great deal on a very muggy, sticky day, and I am pretty tired today, so very grateful that it's not a busy Monday at work but a quiet one.

Hot weekend at the hot keys...

Boy, it’s hot. Yesterday was apparently the hottest day of the year so far – I see that today is officially one degree Celsius cooler. It’s a pity it’s so hard to get any air-flow through the office; it’s sweltering in here, and has got increasingly muggy as the day went on. It’s the humidity that gets to me, far more than the heat.

Had a busy weekend; doing all my boring but useful jobs like grocery shopping and washing clothes, and then writing. That slightly weird dream last week, the one that I thought had the germ of an idea in it, has stuck in my brain and got me buzzing a bit; it ties up terribly neatly with an idea I had years ago, and I suddenly want to take it further. I’m making notes and lists, trying to sort out time-scale problems, and working out what research I need to do and what the main problem areas are (the bad guys are cardboard cut-outs at present, one of the male characters is lamentably wet, there are too many identikit tough women, and there’s a vital plot line that doesn’t mesh properly with another vital plotline… oh yes, I’m going to have fun with this one).

I do mean years ago, by the way; I was a teenager sitting on the school bus, drawing maps of imaginary lands… Suddenly one of those imaginary lands has come back to me, and the muse has asked me to look into it a bit more. She's eliminated the dragons, the elves and the wizardry, and the result looks like it is going to be a rather dark non-sorcery fantasy. God know what genre that is officially. Who writes fantasy without any magic at all in it? Is that still fantasy?

I must be mad embarking on notes for another story – I have two things on the go already, and am still tweaking “The Eternal Love of Gabriel Yeats”. Perhaps I am one of those tyro writers who’ll never be ready to show her work to anyone; I’ll just keep writing away and piling up manuscripts in my shed - or in the nook between the hi-fi and the nick-nacks drawers, which is where they’ve all gone so far (apart, that is, from the ones stuck on my ancient laptop, where the revised “Gabriel Yeats” is currently sitting).

Ah, but I love it. I love it as the only end of my life. Making something where nothing was before – whether it be lines on paper where no drawing was, or a story where no story was. It’s the magic of creating.

A virtuous weekend and a bit of opera gossip

This has been a weekend of virtuous tidying, sorting out and clearing-up activities. Very tiring, and not terribly creative, and I’ve probably inhaled a lot more dust than is good for me, but I feel I’ve achieved something useful, and my conscience is now clear if I spend most of the next few weekends sketching or writing or birdwatching or baking biscuits.

On Saturday evening I flopped in front of the dvd player and gave my brain some time off. I bought several new movie dvds recently and I watched one of these; “The Red Violin”. I won’t say it’s a complete masterpiece, it’s a bit too rambling for that, but it is completely haunting. There are some odd holes and peculiarities in the plot (for example, at one point the whole story hinges on a bizarre act of grave-robbery which is completely unmotivated), and there are times when it feels a little bit rushed as the director tries to cram in all of his ideas; some of the plotlines are cramped for time and feel underdeveloped. On the other hand, it looks stunning, although it’s episodic it is very moving, it conjures the magical and transformative potency of music brilliantly, it has Samuel L Jackson in it, and best of all it has a gorgeous score by John Corigliano – I shall have to buy a recording – played, wonderfully, by Joshua Bell.

Now he’s another of my big heroes, is Mr Bell. The technique of a Heifetz and the passion of a god; delectable. I’d be happy listening to him playing whatever is the violin-equivalent of reading aloud from the telephone directory. It’s the same thing I was burbling about a few weeks ago, in re. Maestro Salonen and the Philharmonia; absolute technical mastery combined with absolute sincerity of emotional engagement.

“Emotional engagement”, nb; not emoting. No ham, please, I’m a vegetarian.

Thinking of ham, talking to my mother on the ‘phone on Sunday I learned that the so-called “Golden Couple” of the opera world are getting a divorce (I have my own views on who could be said to constitute a golden couple; not Mr Alagna and Ms Gheorghiu but Favourite Baritone and the Ballerina Missus – now that’s class).

Mr Alagna seems a nice chap, and judging by what I’ve seen of his work he can take direction (always a big help in an opera singer who is not a great actor), but Ms G has always struck me as a truly awful example of what happens if you believe your own publicity. For my money, her speciality, right from the start, was what my Dad called “ham, spam and strawberry jam”. She emotes, terribly (in both senses), but she can’t act to save her toffee. I’ve never liked her voice that much, either; I’ve heard more than one young soprano at the Coliseum in the last couple of years with as much talent in one finger as Ms G has in her whole glamour-puss person…

Now, I’m being bitchy, and I don’t want to sound as if I’m glad they’re divorcing. After more than a decade, sadly, this particular marriage hasn’t worked out. I’m the child of a divorce, and I’ve now witnessed several friends going through it, and I know how painful it can be. It is always, always sad, no matter what the circumstances, no matter who the people. I’m very sorry for the Alagnas; if the breakdown of a marriage weren’t enough pain and mess to be dealing with, they are also having to do it in public. True, they have brought their own lives, voluntarily, into the public eye; but then, as performing artists (whatever my personal opinion of Ms G’s abilities as such), they really had less choice than the rest of us about that particular issue. One cannot hope to make a career as a performing artist while shut away in a nice sealed box of privacy.

I must say, though, by avoiding Ms G I have avoided some desperately over-priced opera productions. I’d really rather not see or hear her in action. (If I ever learn that Covent Garden has a new production of “Tannhäuser” fielding Stuart Skelton as Tannhäuser, Favourite Baritone as Wolfram and Ms G as Elizabeth, I will want to jump in a lake). I think she’s an overhyped ham, and, too, rather like Callas, hearing her in action one is always aware first and foremost that this is The Great Performer, and only secondarily that this is Violetta, or Mimí, or Amelia, or whoever.

Hm; I’ve been rude about a Very Famous Singer and implicitly rude about two others, one of whom is possily The Most Famous Singer Of All Time (to my bewilderment). Will anyone now be rude to me, I wonder?!?

A good weekend and a great evening.

I hate to seem as if I’m moaning, but it is tough sometimes having to work for my living!

I have just had a lovely long weekend off, and I suppose that is what has precipitated this sensation of being ill-done-by. Even the fact that today it has turned cloudy and cool doesn’t completely assuage my regret that I am no longer sitting in the sun, drinking cold drinks and eating cashews, on a seat overlooking my mother’s large, ramshackle, richly-flowering garden and the fields and woods beyond.

“Don Carlos” was fantastic: an excellent production, honourable, illuminating and clear, with nothing imposed and no specious directorial tricks cluttering it up; good, striking designs that were visually strong and that used the stage pictures to help tell the story and intensify the atmosphere, an orchestra at the top of their game; and a top-notch cast. It is hard to know who to single out among the singers; hard, indeed, to know where to start in praise of the performance as a whole. It’s an opera I have loved ever since I first heard it; for the wonderful music and for the fact the tragedy is driven by serious issues and not just by a culture that is sentimental about doomed love affairs. To my father’s evident bewilderment, it was the first dvd I bought when he gave me a dvd player – the Chatelet production with the little-and-large act of Alagna and Hampson as Carlo and Posa. That’s a good production, too, but this had the added, immeasurable, benefit of being live. There’s nothing quite like live performance for the additional thrill factor.

Jonas Kaufmann was a wonderful Carlos. His voice is a thing of beauty, manly, bronze-coloured and baritonal, strong yet with the delicacy to move into an exquisite mezza voce; I would even venture to say I was reminded of recordings of Jussi Bjorling, and for me, you can’t say better than that. Factor in on top of this the fact that he looks the part and he can act, and you have one very happy Dent. This Don Carlos was not merely a sad and misunderstood boy, but clearly unbalanced from the start; painfully shy, then sliding rapidly into real neurosis and moments of wild hysteria. The character’s tragic lack of self-control was all the more intense when compared with the lucid and almost calculating intelligence of Simon Keenlyside’s marvellous Posa; (Favourite Baritone done good - that's Favourite Baritone, above, by the way; picture reproduced, with grateful thanks, from www.simonkeenlyside.info).

Marina Poplavskaya was a steely, exciting Elisabetta, John Tomlinson a scary Grand Inquisitor, and Ferruccio Furlanetto a tremendous, deeply complex King Philip; a figure almost as tragic as his son, full of fire, anguish and iron, bitterly lonely, cruel and troubled by his cruelty… He has such a rich, warm voice, yet conveyed a man capable of implacable coldness, eternally harsh towards the son whose own flailing character he cannot cope with; then consumed with grief as, alone, his voice blanched and empty, he struggles to come to terms with his loveless marriage and broken family life. The confrontation with Posa was almost unbearably intense; two great singer-actors, both at the peak of their powers, performing with heartfelt conviction and stunning musicality, as these two intelligent men face up to one another, pushing and pulling at the tensions and the power-play between them. The King shifts from anger to sudden respect as suddenly he sees the thing he has been longing for, an honest and honourable man who will tell him the truth, but he is agonisingly aware that the opening out of possibilities this offers him is an illusion; his heir is the volatile and disturbed Carlos, not this decent, brave, rational man who will take such staggering risks for what he believes in. In the moment when Posa challenges Philip outright, crying out, in response to the King’s claim to bring peace, that this will be only “la pace del sepolcro!” – and the whole orchestra explodes with a huge blast of fury to back him – this production puts him upstage, suddenly completely dominant and literally rounding upon the king, yet with arms outstretched in an almost Christ-like gesture; a veritable embodiment of moral force before which Philip visibly falls back…

It was a hell of an evening.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with a trip to a food festival (much sampling, of goodies wildly assorted, and subsequent mild indigestion), a trip to Challock church to see the murals, a couple of nice pub lunches, some walks and a fair amount of sitting in the sun.

I’ll write more about the food festival and the murals another time.

Kew is now officially 250 years old.

..and I saw the Queen at the birthday party. My goodness, she's short. She had on a wonderful hat, though; shocking coral pink with a black band, and assymetric. Very dashing.

Ate too much cake at the Reception, afterwards. Almost flirted with the head of catering. Had an interesting chat with David Shipp, a bloke I met three years ago at a training session on "making the most of your annual appraisal" (yecch). The other Kew staff at said training session were the only good thing about it, and I've often wished I'd had a chance to follow through on more of these brief aquaintances - but this venerable place practices some rather arcane operational blocks to fraternisation between departments. Result; I have (I think) chatted to David three times in as many years. Whereas The Geek, who was also at the training day but was also in the same department as me, went on to become a friend (& a good thing too).

An odd weekend. Tried twice to book a holiday; balked both times by the ridiculous prejudice more and more package tour companies have against single travellers. All I want is to go to Greece for a week and have a clean warm sea to swim in and wonderful scenery to walk in and sketch; good Greek food is another vital element, and that's about it. I want to eat, drink, walk, sketch, swim, eat, swim, sketch, walk back, eat again, and sleep. In the sun, if possible. Good birdwatching and wildflowers a plus.

Now I'm reduced to trying to book something independently, at twice the cost, knowing that if I fall down and sprain a wrist (not impossible, sadly) I do not have the safety net of a rep in the resort to whom I can turn and say "Take me to the nearest doctor". If I were part of a couple, I could not only go to my favourite Greek island for £225, but stay in my favourite resort of Skala Potamia, on Thassos, and be in a lovely apartment place I've stayed in once before that is literally twenty yards from the beach, with swallows nesting under the eaves and dozens of cats, lounging on the balconies and drinking out of the swimming pool like rock stars. They have plenty of availability; but they "never undersell"; company policy. I was sitting there in the travel agents saying "Please, take my money, I want to give it to you!" - but the computer says "no" and there's no arguing with the computer. Company policy.

Stuff them, then.

Never mind; I'll sort something out. I also planted a lot of dahlia tubers, did some more writing and made a cake, and went to a very enjoyable if slightly crazy late First-of-May picnic on Monday, which was forever threatened by rain but never quite got soaked, only dampened a little in places.

Going home to make a loyal toast, since I missed that bit of the celebrations, and to eat picnic leftovers, and no doubt do some more writing. "Café Tano" is proceeding into chapter three. I'm not entirely sure it may not be in fact "writing-as-therapy", which I believe is generally deplored as being a Bad Thing and jolly poor show, what, what?... "Café Tano" is proceeding anyway. Face it, no-one will never write a believable character that isn't created in large part through their knowledge of human nature; and my knowledeg of human nature comes from the people I have known and the relationships (small "r" as well as capital) I have had with them. So it is unavoidable that at times I will hear echoes of the voices and see flickers of the reflection of people I have known, as I write. That's my excuse, anyway.

Monday...

A busy weekend - running loads of washing (machine fixed, hurrah), going to British Museum, buying loads of nice things in charity shops, cooking, writing, turning out winter clothes and putting height-of-summer gear (flimsy cottons and suntops, etc) away for the winter. Sigh. Winter is coming. I know that if winter comes can spring be far behind, ect ect moleworth he sa, but as I look out of the office window at the thick grey sky I feel a certain mild depression creep in at the thought of HOW FAR spring is behind, as in a good four months from now. Boo hiss. The last few days with clear skies have been glorious, but now the autumn has struck back and we are deep in mist and dim gloom; it looks like dusk out there already. I am not a winter person, it's no good pretending. Boo hiss, boo hiss...
At least I have three new jumpers now - as well as a leather waistcoat, a new shirt and no less than four evening frocks (two of which need adjusting, so more sewing for me). All for the princely sum of £53 in total, going to the British Heart Foundation, the PDSA and Cancer research. I'd have been lucky to get one sweater from Marks and Sparks for that!
Going to reheat and eat my leftover stir-fry and then get back to work.

Monday evening...

...feeling rather embarrassed after spending a whole weekend doing nothing at all creative. I went to a couple of great concerts at the Southbank Centre, walked my landlady's dog five times, did some shopping, and started reading a spanish translation of one of the Sherlock Holmes books (to brush up my spanish, not out of sheer masochism!). I bought a second-hand cotton summer dress to convert into a top (beautiful fabric is worth a few quid even if the garment needs a complete reconstruction). I made some rather solid chocolate flapjack, and that's about it. But I did do some thinking on the Tube back from the concerts. Along the carriage from me a woman with a moany voice was explaining at great length to a friend how she never does any knitting any more because she is so terribly terribly busy and overstretched, although she had really enjoyed it and was apparently (according to her!) very good at it. It got me to thinking about all the excuses we make to justify our inactivity and our procrastination. Some, goddess knows, are valid, but others are really very thin indeed. Expect a post or two over the next few days on the many droll and feeble lines we feed ourselves!
But perhaps it would be more use (not to mention far more upbeat) to work on a list of tips and tricks to beat those procrastinatory excuses...