Not by bread alone...

It’s a long time since I wrote.  I had a lovely fortnight off; chilled out at my mum’s, then swam and sketched for a week in Kefalonia.  I came back to work tanned and refreshed, straight into a cloudburst at Gatwick.  That was just two weeks ago.  Work has been steadily busy ever since, which is good (I hate being bored).   

My cultural life since then has consisted of three mixed evenings out.  The first was to a concert that was a bit of a curate’s egg – a beautiful, lump-in-the-throat producing performance of The Enigma Variations, followed by Brahms’ Violin Concerto played by a Very Famous Soloist who I rapidly began to want to slap.  I’m sorry, but being a “character” does not entitle you to add extra percussion (sometimes off the beat, to add insult to injury) by jumping heavily up and down in fake exuberance as you play.  I love the Brahms concerto dearly, and the last person I heard playing it was Christian Tetzlaff, who is a musical demi-god in my book; I don’t want to see it turned into a self-indulgent party turn.

The second was last Friday, to a Hollywood blockbuster of the “lets trash New York with CGI” variety, and the last was last night, to “The Prince of the Pagodas” at Covent Garden.  “Prince of the Pagodas” was interesting stuff.  I gather the plot has been tweaked a bit, the intention being to make it a scrap more comprehensible; not very successful, I’m sorry to say.  Britten’s score veers between very beautiful and very weird, and so does the choreography.  But the orchestra and the excellent cast were putting their all into things, and I cannot fault the performance.  I’m just not sure it was worth reviving in the first place.  Marianela Nuñez was a radiant Princess Belle-Rose, Nehemiah Kish a handsome, gentle, gentlemanly Prince and Tamara Rojo a splendidly contemptuous Princess Belle-Épine, flashing her magnificent eyes and slashing high kicks at everyone.  The four evil kings who team up with Belle-Épine were terrific, the daft but saintly Fool bounced like the requisite rubber ball, and all the numerous bit parts were well done too.

But I’m afraid the blockbuster movie was a lot more fun. 

There are times when you want perfectly-cooked fresh food and top class wine, followed by superbly-played Mozart, and there are times when you want popcorn and a large chocolate milkshake, and lots of hunky men slinging each other about the place, and explosions.  “The Avengers Assemble” has the hunks and the explosions, a plot that is surprisingly easy to follow given its complexity, a script that is well-constructed, intelligent and genuinely witty, and a very good cast.  It was a perfect Friday-night movie, and I shall probably buy the dvd when it comes out, to add to my collection of things like “Aeon Flux”, “V for Vendetta” and the “Star Trek” reboot, for those “popcorn-needed” evenings.  Come to think of it, of course, although those are all popcorn movies they are, like “Avengers Assemble”, blessed with better than average scripts and good actors (okay, and eye candy). 

I’ll grant you that some of the Avengers are, to be polite, more limited as actors than others.  Captain America and Thor are big manly lunks of muscle, and they do “decent” and “honourable” and “heroic” to a tee, but I’m not sure either of them would do “Hamlet”.  Tom Hiddleston, enjoying himself playing the villain, would be a dream Hamlet, on the other hand (& is my dream Gabriel Yeats).  Robert Downey Jnr., Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo and Samuel L Jackson are all eminently watchable, in pretty much everything they appear in, whether they are paying their mortgages doing junk or acting their socks off in something intelligent.  They can all carry a movie on their own, and any of them would be worth seeing this for.   Yes, that’s right, I’m not being silly; this really is a superhero movie worth seeing for the acting. 

That brings me to Hawkeye, Jeremy Renner, who was new to me, and steals every scene he is in.  Even when he isn’t doing anything, one’s eyes stray to him; he’s so hot he burns.  I haven’t been able to muster myself to see “The Hurt Locker” (I have a vivid imagination, and don’t want to see the subject matter made any more real than my imagination already can); so I had no idea what this chap was capable of, or even what he looked like.  Indeed, I admit that I was vaguely expecting a handsome, high-cheekboned scenery-chewer, trying wildly to capitalise on having been flavour-of-the-month a couple of years ago.  Mr Renner however is the exact opposite; a middle-sized guy with nice eyes, who looks as if he might be part hobbit, and does bottled-in intensity so well he could almost be British.  He’s terrific. 

So, not for the first time, I have the great Joss Whedon (who wrote and directed this) to thank for a good evening’s entertainment.  Thank you, Mr Whedon; more, please!

I came home from this so fired up that the Muse popped in and has been hanging out with me ever since.  A new story!  I’m about 25 pages in, and it’s feeling good.

Odd, unsettled...

It's an odd patch.  I get bad news, I reel, I find my feet again, I realise that until I get more facts I can't make any decisions or plans, and I am left in limbo.  I won't get more facts until this Thursday at the earliest. 

At least it isn't my health, or that of anyone close to me.  

Meanwhile the weather veers between dramatic late autumnal sunshine and dramatic thick mists and raw chill.  The ground is thick with fallen leaves now, but even now there are still many more clinging on to the trees, for we still have not yet had a single frost, or a single gale. I am beginning to allow myself the hope that the weather for my winter break in Cornwall may be okay.  It's only ten days' time before I go now.

In the last week I have, besides work, been doing some more writing, had an afternoon birdwatching and sketching at the Wetland Centre, baked chocolate orange sultana muffins, had supper with a friend, been to "The Sleeping Beauty" (Marianela Nuñez, absolutely wonderful again as Aurora), sung (badly) in the first Christmas Choir practice and been on a Tree Identification training walk.  I've been busy, and happy.  But I hate this business of being in limbo.  It's like being in the dentist's waiting room, only worse by at least an order of magnitude.  Even if in the end the news is bad, I'd rather know, and at least be able to plan for it...

"Manon" poem

I have been haunted since the weekend by that heart-breaking performance of "Manon".  To anyone who isn't into ballet, or isn't into MacMillan, or isn't into doomed love stories, it must seem insane that I have taken myself to see this particular ballet no less than four times in the last year.  But MacMillan's narrative works are like the Shakespeare of ballet; endlessly nuanced, their understanding of psychology and character so deep and layered, one can keep on seeing them and always get something new. If I could afford it, I would go back again before the present run finishes; indeed, if I weren't going to tea at a friend's place tonight I could happily go back and see Marianela Nuñez again.  She was wonderful.  As were both the guys, and the whole cast, and the whole damn' thing.  I suppose there may come a day one day when I have seen enough "Manon"s, but that day is not now.

Lovers (MacMillan’s “Manon”)

When he first looks across at her

Shy and yet radiant, turning away,

The whole tragedy is there

Implicit in that moment.

My heart begins to break again

For these two foolish innocents

Who touch, delighting, unawares;

Too far apart to meet, though deep in love.

She is all happy brightness, full

Of certainty; accepts

This adoration as her only due,

Expects the world to be her slave.

He is the honest devotee

Who’ll never waver in his faith

Not even in the face of death.

His goddess is no constant star,

Though brilliant as a meteor.

He must burn with her as she falls.

Neither can see the other’s way;

The other path, untreadable.

The dancing steps must break apart,

And the heartbroken end ensues

Inevitable as every loss.

Hurtling into despair and death

All of us crying with their fall

All of our loves consumed with theirs.

Beauty and busy-ness

I think the autumn this year is the most beautiful I can remember since I have been here at Kew.  The first fall colours began to appear in September, but here we are in early November and everywhere I look I can still see spectacular leaves and berries.  What is more, unless we have a high wind, it looks set to go on a bit longer yet, for some trees are still green and unaffected.  Because of the weather has been mild and still for weeks, trees have held their colour.  Because we haven’t yet had a hard frost, every species has turned slowly, at its own pace, rather than all going over at once.  It has been a long, slow passage over from late summer into fall, and it has been as quiet and measured as the rising of the tide.

As I walk through the Gardens here at work I am surrounded by riches.  Scarlet and crimson, brick red and Indian red, chestnut brown, golden brown, golden yellow, ochre, Naples yellow, gamboge; everywhere  I look are these magnificent colours.  Every leaf of Virginia creeper is marked with brilliant patterns, like Venetian millefiori glass; the berries of a crab apple swing over my head like gobstopper-sized jewels, and the Grass Garden is a tapestry of pale golden seed heads and soft, feathery brushstrokes of colour...

Actually I cannot imagine, brushstroke metaphors or no, how on earth one could paint this.  It is staggeringly beautiful, but so much of the beauty is dependent on the immeasurably fine gradations of shade and the tiny details of structure.  One couldn’t use swathes of colour without losing all that delicacy; every tree looks like a mosaic with each leaf an individual fleck of gold or ruby glass.  Yet if one painted every leaf, compulsively, one would lose the sweep and scale of the view, and the result would look obsessive rather than beautiful.

Near the back door of the office I work in are a cedar that has been gilding the pavement with pale golden pollen; a camellia covered with bright early flowers in shell pink; a golden-orange maple, and one that looks as if it has been dipped in grapefruit marmalade.  Moving through the Gardens I am blessed by colour.  Dodging back indoors again as the rain starts, I can carry, held quiet within me, the beauty and delicacy of the autumn trees, and their grace.  Not just the grace of physical beauty, but the spiritual grace of yielding to autumn and flowing with the cycle of the year.  Trees are a model of grace.

Of course from a phenological point of view the cycle of the year is a little askew; here is a link to an article by Kew’s Mr Arboretum himself, Tony Kirkham (who knows a heck of a lot more about trees than me!) on the subject:

http://www.kew.org/news/kew-blogs/arboretum-team/a-very-strange-autumn.htm

It’s been a hectic weekend; all the usual jobs like grocery shopping, going to the bank, running the washing machine, gardening and so forth, plus a heart-rending performance of “Manon” at the Royal Ballet (Marianela Nuñez surpassing herself as a subtle, tragic, ravishingly beautiful Manon, Nehemiah Kish partnering her beautifully as a devoted Des Grieux [& on a more carnal note I see with satisfaction that he still seems to be resisting the fashion for chest-waxing!] and Thiago Soares a superb, powerful, charming Lescaut [I have never cried at Lescaut’s death before]); plus tea with my stepmum Jane, plus an absolutely spectacular firework display.

Now I’m back at work, and the whole office is being plagued with computer problems.  Strangely the internet isn’t behaving too badly; but our office email system is really not doing well.  Ah well, these things happen, in the modern office; but sometimes I long for the days of handwritten ledgers and paper correspondence.  So much less liable to technical faults!

Thoughts on a man who has since produced the goods...

I have been trying to tidy up some computer files full of out of date notes, and I found this - my thoughts after the last time I got to see two different casts in the same ballet programme at Covent Garden, back in the autumn. Since it contains a bit of musing on Nehemiah Kish, the chap I saw coming out of his shell to such excellent effect last weekend, I thought I'd pop it down in here, for my own reference as much as anything. Yes, more ballet-ramblings; sorry. But it's amusing and pleasing to see I was more-or-less on the button with him.

"I also went to a second performance of the Royal Ballet Mixed Bill; sheer self indulgence on my part. I had booked it because I read in an interview with Kim Brandstrup that he was fascinated by how his new ballet was shaping up differently depending on which of the two casts were dancing – he actually said something like “it’s almost like doing two different ballets”. Then a couple of days after I had treated myself to a second ticket for a performance with the other cast, poor Alina Cojocaru injured herself and had to drop out, and Ed Watson and Leanne Benjamin stepped up to do every night. So I got a double dose of them – at which I am not complaining (complaining? – at wonderful Leanne Benjamin and gorgeous Ed Watson?!), though I would have loved to see Cojocaru and Kobborg too. The rest of the casting for the whole bill had to shift around, too; I didn’t see quite who I had expected, either time.

Still, it is sheer luxury to see two performances of the same programme, and to be able to compare casts. I went to the Saturday matinee on the 16th, and the evening show on the 30th; the second performance in the run, and the last.

To be frank, first time around I thought “La Valse” looked a bit messy. The dancing was passionate but rather untidy and the final image was spoiled by the central sextet having trouble getting going – they were still trotting briskly in a circle as the curtain fell, when they should have been whirling madly round with the girls’ feet well off the ground. This Saturday, by contrast, everything was perfect, really elegant and polished, and the dramatic undertones came across strongly.

There is something weird about “La Valse”; Ravel’s music has a tension one doesn’t expect in a waltz, and Ashton's choreography hints at this same sense of danger. The men leap in unison as if bursting with sublimated stress, and there is an increasing feeling of foreboding as the dancing grows ever wilder without quite breaking its conventions; it is as though these people are trapped in some doomed kingdom, dancing forever in their fairytale evening dress. The best image I can come up with is of the citizens of the Land of Lost-Hope, in Susanna Clarke’s marvellous “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell”… These dancers are beautiful, yes, but also haunted and haunting.

“Invitus, invitam” knocked my socks off, and Watson and Benjamin were both dazzling, both nights. It’s one of the most nuanced pieces of contemporary ballet I’ve seen, and passing straight from “La Valse” to this was a good judgement call. It’s as if the general disquiet of “La Valse” has moved into a personal level; the device of the second couple apparently running through the blocking of the piece in rehearsal clothes, their own relationship lightly sketched in around the choreography of the central couple, suggests the timelessness of this story of heartbreak and separation. The lovers in the story must part, however much they long for another outcome, and even those to whom this is just a story to enact will have their own stories also, and their own partings.

I must say, though, following this with “Winter Dreams”, with its equally sad story, does leave one feeling pretty emotionally drained by the second interval. It started to seem as if the whole evening were one long descent into a realm of loss and sorrow.

For the first “Winter Dreams” performance I saw, the leads were Tamara Rojo and Nehemiah Kish; a mismatch, basically. I don’t want to be rude about the new guy – he dances well, but he looked oddly controlled, even cautious, for someone supposedly in the throes of an overwhelming passion. He was elegant (he has lovely arms) but his acting is on the quiet side and he looked downright subdued beside Ms Rojo, who as always was acting her socks off. But I do think it was a mismatch as much as anything. The best comparison I can think of is of what would have happened if you had ever been able to put Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi on the same stage; Callas would have acted Tebaldi into the orchestra pit, given her famously-intense histrionic oomph. And yet, in the long run, Tebaldi was the better singer, and the one who had the confidence to let the drama that is inherent in the music come through, rather than imposing her own drama upon it.

So I hope it will be with Mr Kish, as he gets the feel of the House. For all I know he’s been used to a smaller auditorium with better sight lines (CG is a bit of a barn, after all), and have developed an acting style to match – he may just need to open up and relax a bit more. He’s tall, which can only be useful in a Company with some (ahem) less-than-tall fellas, he’s got a pleasant quirky face (& a splendidly long nose), and he did a lovely job in the second cast of “La Valse”, partnering Lauren Cuthbertson beautifully, so I’m prepared to give him a chance and see how he shapes up as he settles in.

The other parts were well cast and well danced, especially Jonathan Cope as the unhappy Kulygin, and Itziar Mendizabel as Olga. I saw Cope again on the 30th, and he was even more nuanced and subtle second time around. His solos were almost painful to watch, so perfectly did they express pain. It’s a joy to see him in action again – dare one hope for more of him on stage again?

The Masha and Vershinin on the 30th were Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta. Wow, is Ms Nuñez shaping up into a deeply wonderful dancer! I first saw her in action ages ago as one of Swanilda’s friends in “Coppelia” - a charming girl with a huge beaming smile; then as Lise in “La Fille Mal Gardée” – another charming smiling girl; then as the Lilac Fairy – a beautiful embodiment of warmth and goodness (and pretty charming and smiley, too). Then in “Serenade” she appeared as the girl who arrives late; somehow without ever actually acting (after all, it is a non-narrative ballet) she conveyed a sense of the loneliness of someone who always “arrives too late”, who is perpetually on the outside with no real idea of why. Her delicate and graceful dancing was deeply moving, infused with a beautiful, subtle melancholy. I think she is learning the immensely difficult art of acting within the movement – as certain great opera singers (to extend the earlier Callas v Tebaldi metaphor a little) act within the music – trusting the material to give her the drama, instead of thrusting her own upon it. The results are proving magical; her Masha was utterly heartrending – I found her far more affecting than Rojo, heresy though that may be to say. Acosta, working beside her, was also full of feeling. I keep reading critics saying he ain’t what he used to be – after all, he must be all of thirty-eight – but he still seems pretty splendid to me.

Thank goodness, though, that the bill finished up with some delightfully crisp, sparkly Balanchine; no painful emotions here, just fun and games, the ballet equivalent of downing a glass of fine champagne. After all that heartfelt feeling one really needed it, and I came out humming the Tchaikovsky music happily."

Who is Sylvia?

Marianela Nuñez, that's who. Delicate, smiling, cool as a kitten and twice as lively Marianela Nuñez, dancing her socks off at Covent Garden last night.

"Sylvia" is, to be frank, some of the silliest stuff that ever I saw. It's also absolutely gorgeous. Like another fairly preposterous ballet, "Le Corsaire", it's set in Greece, or rather in an extra-romantic alternative-history version thereof...

Act One: The curtain rises on a wooded glade and a shrine to the god Eros. Dryads and fauns are cavorting in the moonlight. They are interrupted by the arrival of Our Hero, Aminta - Aminta-nice-but-dim, to give him what ought by rights to be his full name. He is smitten with the beautiful maiden huntress and devotee of Artemis, Sylvia - Our Heroine. As portrayed by Rupert Pennefather, Aminta is tall, handsome, badly-dressed and a bit daft, but boy, does he jump beautifully.

He prays to Eros for help, then hides as Sylvia and her fellow maiden huntresses arrive, carrying a comedy dead animal and wearing delicious curlicue-shaped helmets. They dance together, doing increasingly showy things, led by the beautiful Sylvia doing even showier things. As Nuñez is beautiful, and handles all the showy stuff beautifully, one can see where Aminta gets his problem. But Sylvia is scornful of love, and mocks the statue of Eros defiantly.

Unknown to her, Sylvia has another man problem, for she and her companions are also being observed by the villainous hunter Orion, who is lurking on a nearby bridge and clutching his spear in lust (I kid you not. Very big spear, too). The huntress maidens discover Aminta, and Sylvia sneers at him, but when she makes to shoot at the statue of Eros (presumably to show how completely she despises Love), Aminta gets in the way and is wounded.

Eros promptly comes alive (poor Kenta Kura has by now stood stock still for well over twenty minutes, wearing nothing but the very sketchiest of lioncloths and a lot of stone-coloured body paint). Nocking an arrow to his stone bow he shoots Sylvia in the heart. She at once begins to feel emotions hitherto undreamt-of. She leaves with her friends, but she's soon back, literally shaking with confusion and grief (fantastic pointe-work here), to hover over the rapidly-failing Aminta. The arrow of Eros is working its magic, and Sylvia, apparently too late, notices Aminta's noble face, muscular limbs and fine body.

Meanwhile another set of muscular limbs creep behind her, for Orion The Evil Hunter is stealing across the stage. Orion has a beard, seemingly ballet short-hand for being dastardly, and even worse dress sense than Aminta - think satin trousers and a weird sleeveless shirt-waister with satin revers panels in the skirt, topped off with dashing but rather camp lilac suede boots. Good old Gary Avis manages somehow to convey virile villainy even in the teeth of this outfit.

He snatches Sylvia! She fights! She kicks and leaps, and they do some spectacular tricky lifts as she tries to get away. But it's all too much for her emotion-buffeted heart and she faints dead away, beautifully, at the climax of a big overhead lift, and is carried off by her wicked abductor.

Some harvesting peasants find the hapless Aminta at death's door, and Eros reappears, in a deeply dodgy disguise, to revive him and heal his wound. Inspired by Love, Aminta sets off - I thought, to rescue Sylvia...

Act Two: ...but - it turns out she can rescue herself, or very nearly so, without his help.

Act Two is set in Orion's rocky hideout, where he is getting drunk and ordering his slaves to heap gifts of jewellery and fancy clothes on Sylvia. Sylvia scorns everything and tells Orion she isn't interested, as bluntly as she can given that it has to be done in mime. Her refusal has no effect, and nor do tears - both seem only to increase Orion's interest. She decides to play along in the hope of distracting him long enough to get away.

She accepts some of the fancy clothes and jewels, dances provocatively, and refills Orion's wine goblet repeatedly. Two of his slaves dance a rather embarrassing "We are exotic oriental savages" dance, and then Orion and Sylvia do a kind-of pas de deux of increasing athleticism and eroticism. Things are getting pretty steamy, but at last all the drink tips Orion over the edge between amorous and incapable, and he passes out.

Sylvia looks for a way out, but cannot find one; however, she steals the arrow of Eros, now her most precious talisman, from Orion's drunken hand, and prays to Eros to help her. Light breaks over the cavern as the walls fall away, and Eros appears, carrying a torch and ushering in a beautiful little caravel, aboard which he and Sylvia set sail to find Aminta.

Act Three: Aminta and an assortment of peasants, dryads, demi-gods and gods are awaiting Eros' return, dancing a series of rather lovely divertissements to pass the time. The caravel arrives and Sylvia and her companions disembark with Eros. She pledges her love to Aminta, and Eros joins their hands in token of their betrothal. They do a gorgeous, fiendishly tricky Grand Pas-de-deux, packed with exquisite footwork and athletic lifts and jumps.

Everything seems to be resolving towards a happy ending, when suddenly Orion barges in to demand that Sylvia return with him. It transpires that he thinks she is His Woman, and he refuses to accept her gentle explanation that she was just leading him on in order to be able to get back to her True Love, Aminta.

Orion and Aminta fight (cue more spectacular leaps and lifts, and balletic throwing of one another about the stage). Sylvia hides in a nearby temple and Orion, having knocked Aminta down, tries to smash open the door. With a thunderclap, the goddess Artemis emerges, bow and arrows in hand, beautiful, majestic and fizzing with rage.

It's at this point we realise Orion is just not very bright. Confronted by an angry, armed goddess, he doesn't bow down, pay homage, or even make nice; he gives her attitude. Artemis shoots him.

Exit Orion, stage left, with an arrow in him - he has to die offstage or get trodden-on for the remaining ten minutes of the ballet.

Artemis, it turns out, is spitting-tacks furious with Sylvia, who wants to marry and therefore break her vows of chastity. She expressly forbids it, despite pleas from the young couple. But Eros sneakily reminds her of her own lost beloved, the shepherd Endymion, who fell into an eternal sleep and never consumated their love. Artemis, overcome by the memory (& possibly just a bit embarrassed at this airing of her little secret), relents and gives her blessing to the marriage of Sylvia and Aminta. Cue general rejoicing as the young huntress Gets Her Man.

It's lovely and daft, and technically very tricky stuff, and made for a perfect birthday treat (well, one day early). A final bonne bouche was to come out of the theatre to find delicate snowflakes falling over Covent Garden piazza, and all the christmas lights glittering. I walked on air all the way back to the tube.

Today it has snowed on and off all day. I was meant to be meeting a friend and going to see the new "Harry Potter" film tonight, but I'm wondering if we may have to postpone. In which case perhaps I'll treat myself on the way home to a birthday Pizza Express trip. Or a birthday Starbucks. Or something. It seems odd to remember that last year I spent my birthday on a beach, swimming in the sea and eating ice-cream, and here I am in the office looking out at Kew Green under a thick, white blanket of snow.

But at least I have the crazy loveliness of "Sylvia" to remember.

A quiet night in...

…that’s what I need.

I have been going out a lot; not on the tiles (no such luck, though admittedly I wouldn’t have had the energy to make whoopee until quite recently) but to concerts and the theatre. Back in December, I looked at my plaster arm and thought “I’m going to need some enjoyable things to look forward to, or I’ll end up moping at home feeling sorry for myself, and drinking too much Laphroig”. Since spending every weekend in the southern hemisphere was out of the question, I compromised on upping my usual quota of theatre tickets, so that I would have a couple of evenings out each week.

And it’s been great – and next month should be great, too, bringing four ballet performances, three contemporary dance performances, one Indian dance performance, three orchestral concerts, three concerts of Sacred Music thru’ the Ages by The Sixteen, Monteverdi's "Vespers of 1610", two “Insight”-type events and a World Music group called Salsa Celtica. No opera, no straight theatre and no cinema (yet). March has had a similar mixture of events and activities, and most of them have been highly rewarding evenings out. But I am getting a bit tired!

Tonight I have a night off. I’ll make a risotto, pack my bag for my weekend away (only going down to Mum’s – nothing exotic) and then I may do some writing on the Work In Progress; or I may just sit on my butt and watch a dvd, and sip a drop of that whisky…

On Tuesday night I was back at Covent Garden for the latest Royal Ballet triple bill. Several of my favourite dancers were appearing – Yuhui Choe, Leanne Benjamin, Sarah Lamb, a good splash of top quality Acosta, and the two company ginger toms, Mssrs Watson and McRae, to complete the mixture. Not forgetting Marianela Nuñez being hauntingly graceful and serene in “Concerto” – though unfortunately partnered by Rupert Pennefather, who I’m afraid I find a singularly unexciting dancer, Bright Young Hope though he be (this may be partly because he looks alarmingly like Baby Bro, which I find oddly disturbing).

“Concerto” was great, and the music (Shostakovitch Piano Concerto 2) was gorgeously played. “The Judas Tree” was powerful and grim, as I’d been warned, and full of huge show-off jumps that just shout “made during the golden era of Mukhamedov”. “Elite Syncopations” was light and sweet and sparkling, but my enjoyment of it was marred somewhat by the chap three seats along from me who kept guffawing loudly. It’s a funny ballet, but soft chuckle funny, not “Ho, ho, ho!" funny. Maybe he really needed the light relief, after the violence of “Judas Tree”.

I also saw Stephen Hough and Rupert Christiansen in the audience (not together, I hasten to add!) and another of my favourite dancers on the Tube on my (& presumably also his) way home.

I was buoyed-up after that, ready for a good day yesterday; but my final one-to-one physiotherapy session has set me back with a bump. From next week I’ll be in “Wrist Group” which sounds a bit like boot camp for broken wrists. I’ve made relatively little progress – indeed, my ulnar deviation was actually worse than a fortnight ago. And I found out something I’d never previously known; the NHS, strapped for resources as they are, are not committed to getting me back my former degree of mobility. They just have to get me to the level of competence that is considered clinically adequate. And this clinically acceptable level is a bit less than 2/3 of my former flexibility. Help!!

If I’d been told that at the start, I would have started looking for a private physio on the spot. Two thirds of my previous capability is not enough, for the god’s sakes! I can’t live the rest of my life with this bl**dy rusted hinge creaking about on the end of my arm. I draw – I write – I cycle – I dance – I undo lids that other people can’t shift – I make my own bread - I WANT MY EFFING HAND BACK, AND I WANT IT BACK AS WAS!