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.

Hectic times, but a little ballet fun, and a rest is at hand...

It’s just over a week since I moved, and I am almost completely unpacked and stowed.  I have very nearly reached the stage where the last few items will fit in the bottom of the wardrobe (& can then be forgotten about for a while).  I just need to rationalise two last boxes into one, and find a home for my Tupperware. 

I celebrated on Wednesday by going out with the Dipterist to one of those Royal ballet cinema relays, preceded by a meal out at Nando's.  Peri-peri chicken is one of the dishes that makes me wonder if I am really a natural vegetarian, as I remember it always being simply delicious, but I was good and had a halloumi and mushroom burger and stewed black beans.   Yum yum yum.  Then “La Fille Mal Gardée”, which is also yum yum yum.  Particularly yum, as the Dip remarked, with Steven McRae in tight yellow trousers.

It’s hard to describe the unique charm of “La Fille Mal Gardée” without making it sound simply very, very silly.  I suppose to a modern, tired, cynical mind the idea of a pastoral world where true love always wins the day and the harvest is gathered by smiling people in matching blue smocks is so obviously silly it doesn’t need saying.  Well, it may be so; but this is joyfully, entrancedly, defiantly silly; silly and happy, and as dreamlike as any memory of the Best Ever Summer of your childhood.  Like that childhood memory, too, it has an undertone of pathos, a sense of anticipated, even accepted, loss.  Was it ever real, your Perfect Summer?  Is the ideal of perfect love ever real? – yet we still remember the perfect summer, and we still believe in the perfect love.  Lise and Colas play, kiss, flirt, tie each other up in pink ribbons, and then suddenly stop, looking into one another's eyes with quiet amazement, rapt away in love.  I was about to say it is possibly Ashton's masterpiece; but then I thought of "The Dream", and "Marguerite and Armand", and "A Month in the Country", and "Cinderella"...  Did he make anything that isn't masterly, I wonder?

I think part of why we believe in their love story is because they are so credibly human; this is no grand passion à la Romeo and Juliet, and there are no grand gestures.  The lovers are plainly potty about one another, but they are quite capable both of squabbling, and of being patient with one another.  Lise’s vision of the future includes a beautiful wedding in a lovely dress, but also pregnancy and dealing with naughty children.  I’ve burbled before about the onstage chemistry between McRae and his regular partner Roberta Marquez, and here they are entirely believable as they fool about and then embrace tenderly.

The pathos comes in the touching character of Alain, the half-witted eligible would-be bridegroom who Lise and Colas outwit, and also in little nuances all the way through; in flickers of expression, the curl of a hand, the energy of a jump, the electricity of a shared glance or a smile.   Marquez’ expression at the climax of the longest “pink ribbons” dance (the “Fanny Elssler pas de deux”) when she is lifted up and drops the handful of ribbons she is holding, is exquisite.  One moment she is the astonishing turning centre of a human maypole, the next it’s gone, and her face says “Oh, that was so pretty! – and it’s over...”; delight and regret battle for a moment as the ribbons flutter away.  There is another lovely little moment as Farmer Thomas loses his temper at the end, and the Widow Simone, who seconds before was stamping her feet in hissy frustration at her daughter’s disobedience, leaps to Lise’s defence like a small round lioness – “Don’t you dare speak to my girl like that!” 

In Ludovic Ondiviela they’ve got an excellent interpreter for the tricky part of Alain; he managed to convey the boy’s hopeless naivety and mental deficiency, but also his innate sweetness of nature.  I don’t suppose anyone trying to make this story into a ballet today would get away with the character Ashton made of Alain.  It’s obvious that he has what we now call special educational needs – I expect in 1960 it was still perfectly acceptable to call him a simpleton – and sometimes he can seem a cringe-making grotesque.  Ondiviela has both the technical skill to carry off the extraordinarily tricky unballetic choreography and the acting chops to make Alain a sympathetic figure rather than an embarrassing one.

Marquez is delightful, her elfin beauty and sparkling footwork a perfect fit for the mischievous Lise.  People with more ballet know-how than me tell me she is one of the company’s weaker principals technically; perhaps so, but she has character and charm in buckets.  As her Colas, McRae is in his element; he can pull off all the technical demands with an air of absolute insouciance that makes you (almost) forget what incredibly difficult stuff this must be.  Having seen Acosta (on Dvd) I really don’t want to see a Colas who looks remotely unsteady or uncertain! – but that’s unlikely ever to be a problem for Mr McRae, and his characterisation of a good-hearted, cocky, full of himself but deeply romantic boy is spot-on as well.

It made for a lovely, lovely, happy evening out. 

Now I’m off and away for two weeks’ annual leave.  Usually I go to Greece at this time of year.  Nothing is booked as yet, but I will probably still try to make a trip, since I’m not planning on going to Athens and I gather that everywhere else is still very peaceful and normal.  To begin with, though, I have a long weekend with my mother; peace and quiet down in Kent...

Moved. Thank God.

It's been a while since I posted anything, as I've been completely focussed on looking for a new house-share/flatshare and then, when I found one, on moving.  But I am now moved. 

On Thursday I was whizzed from my old home to my new - a room in a flatshare near work - by two guys from the startlingly efficient "London Man+Van" company.  They loaded and unloaded everything and got me moved in under two hours (including a break for tea and biscuits).  They even kept smiling throughout, which was more than I was doing, tense and exhausted as I was.  I've just been back to the old place (funny how quickly it becomes "the old place", and the new place becomes "home") to clean my room, and am now about to hand back the keys.  I'm not completely unpacked yet, but I've broken the back of it. 

What a relief.

Bleary-eyed and blue

Did I say 'it never rains but it pours' yesterday?  Guess what - it gets even more melodramatic. 

Last night, being tired and stressed, I went to bed fairly early.  I was woken from a deep sleep at 11.30pm by the unmistakable sounds of someone moving around downstairs in the house.  I was alone, it was pitch dark, I was disorientated and terrified, almost paralysed with fear for a moment.  I forced myself to get out of bed, put on my glasses and put on the light, and I went onto the landing as noisily as I could and called out 'Who's there?' loudly.

It turned out to be Emil, my landlady's daffy Polish handyman, delivering tools and equipment for some of the planned renovation work.  I went back to bad, shaking with shock and adrenalin, and couldn't get back to sleep until 3am.  This morning I texted my landlady to ask what was going on and was told that Emil is starting the first parts of the renovation work (installing a second toilet under the stairs) next week.

She has never paid any attention to the stipulation in the tenancy agreements I and all the other tenants have had about always notifying us and agreeing an acceptable time for a visit; she and her plumbers and odd-job men have always just rocked up unannounced and let themselves in (the previous handyman even used to come into the house to use the loo if he was passing through the area, rather than going to the public toilets near Sainsburys). 

But this was a really unpleasant experience that left me feeling very vulnerable, threatened and pressured.  I feel it's bordering on full-on harrassment.  So I am going to have to go back to the Citizens' Advice Bureau this afternoon to try and get more specialist advice on my position.  

Dear God, please solve this for me; I am not doing too well at solving it by myself.  I need help.

It never rains but it pours...

My bl**dy landlady is now putting pressure on me to be out by the end of this month, as she has booked builders to begin the renovation at the beginning of May!

She is totally out of line, but she could make my life very uncomfortable.  I have never had a dispute with a landlord before (apart from that ridiculous business with Stuart in 2007, which was purely personal [his new girlfriend objected to me] rather than a tenancy issue).  I've never dreamed of having to fight for my rights and I really resent being put in this position.

Carrying on looking but nothing suitable as yet.  Grrr...

Stress...

It's been an interesting week.

On the Thursday evening before Easter I was given one month's notice to quit the place I've been living for the last three years.  Only a short while before the landlady had asked me to help her find new tenants for the empty rooms by advertising them at Kew.  Then she sent me a text message to say the house is going to be renovated and giving me notice.  Gulp.  There went my four days of relaxing; replaced by four days of trying to relax and worrying non-stop.  One month is not long, to find a new place, in London.

But I went to the Citizens' Advice Bureau with a query about how to deal with the rent, as I'd been given notice partway through a rental period, and discovered that I can't legally be given just one month's notice; I have a periodic assured shorthold tenancy, and this means I have to be given two months' notice.  However, my attempt to confirm with my landlady that this is understood and accepted has so far gone unanswered (& boy, was that a delicate letter to write! - I really don't want to seem to be being awkward as I want a civilised departure, not to mention a reference and my deposit back).  At any rate, I'm now assuming that I have two months to find a new home - taking me into mid-June.  I'm on annual leave at the moment so am focussing on trying to make some progress on the problem.

I had got myself teamed up with another person working at Kew who was also looking for new digs, and we were looking for a two-bedroom flat.  But this morning she pulled out of the arrangement.  So I'm back to looking for a house-share or a flatshare, or a studio flat for myself.  Oof; it's a stressful business, and I hate moving.  The only good thing is that it has spurred me into doing some turning-out, which I really did need to do.  I'm delivering a lot of clothes to Oxfam and the local Hospice Shop; I can't afford to give as much money to good causes as I'd like, but clean, good quality clothes will raise a few quid for them, any way. 

I shall be so sad to say goodbye to the garden at Flanders Road.  I've been very happy in this funny, run-down old house, and having a garden to tend has been a blessing.

Big sigh...

Crikey, a month since I wrote anything!!

I seem to be forever saying “I’m so busy!” lately.  But tomorrow is Good Friday, which means church for my church-going friends and for the rest of us, a four day weekend.  Oof. A chance to catch my breath...

I worked through my lunch break today; but it was the first time in over two months that I have done that.  In the previous job I had to do it two or three times a week.  The new job remains refreshingly structured and organise-able compared to the old one, too.  And my new manager Paul still hasn’t shown his Dark Side – if he has one, which I am beginning to doubt.  So busy or no I am feeling decidedly cheerful about work. 

Of course there is the odd chaotic group planner, and the odd startlingly rude one, and as always from time to time I have IT problems.  Next spring is going to be a harder sell than usual because we don’t have our regular Trop-Ex tropical flower exhibition in February, which is a great pity.  And the weather has turned chilly after a beautifully mild March.   So it isn’t all shiny, but shiny enough for now.

But Kew is looking lovely, with delicate new leaves opening everywhere, glorious displays of magnolias and crab apple blossom, the first cherry blossom, early lilac species and azaleas, and great banks of native fritillaries near the river; and my own little bit of garden in Chiswick is looking lovely too in its more modest way.   I have been busy outside of work with sketching (I’m having a real fit of duck-drawing) and sewing, and tidying the garden, and I’ve been to the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy (wonderful: if you possibly can, go!) as well as two very enjoyable mixed bills by the English National Ballet and a couple of excellent concerts, including Britten’s “War Requiem” with Mark Padmore, the chap who was at school with my brother Steve, a heart-rending tenor soloist. 

ENB are in good form, though I managed to get rather a lot of Dmitri Gruzdyev, a dancer I find dismally uncharismatic, both nights – I would much prefer to have seen pretty much any of their other men as Nijinsky’s Faun, never mind as Balanchine’s Apollo – I don’t mean to sound bitchy, but Apollo he ain’t!!  The three Muses I saw were lovely, though, and Erina Takahashi was a terrific sacrifice in “The Rite of Spring”.  David Dawson’s “Faun/e”, a new piece on me, was gorgeous despite the men’s silly “will it fall off or not?” costumes, and “Suite en Blanc” looked even more luscious second time around.  

Steve, incidentally, has got his plaster cast off and is progressing well with physiotherapy.

A ray of watery sun has just filtered through the clouds; may it be a good omen for the weekend ahead! 

Against the blanched white clouds

Where last month there were only

Dark branches like scars, now

Everywhere I see shivers of green. 

Birds sing, or hop scuffling

Among the flashing celandines.

The swans stake out their usual demesne

By the lake, and a thousand coots

Chase one another like ninja chicks

Across the grey spring waters.