Three Days

I’ve just had three days when I’ve been too busy to get anywhere near this blog, or anywhere else on the web. Life has taken the forefront and as blogging must always take second place to living I have no guilt in saying so.

Saturday was the Husband’s birthday and so for lunch we got together with the Stepson and Stepdaughter and went to a local Chinese restaurant. The restaurant is somewhat upmarket compared to most Chinese restaurants and the food and the service were both excellent. Afterwards the Stepdaughter went off for the rest of the day to revise for some examinations while we all set off for London and the Proms. It always takes quite a while to get to the Royal Albert Hall when all the trains are working properly and with so many underground lines out of action or seriously disrupted at the moment it took ages to get there. However we arrived eventually and because we set out early we were in good time for the concert.

It was quite a popular programme with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwartz. The first half was Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture followed by the Bruch Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor. Both were played well and enjoyable, although I think I would have preferred them to be played with a bit more verve. All the “oomph” however was reserved for Vaughan Williams “A Sea Symphony” which the second half of the programme and wonderful. In addition to the orchestra there were two choirs totalling more than 200 people singing and giving all that they could give as well as a soprano (Janice Watson), a baritone (Dwayne Croft) and the newly refurbished organ which managed the not easy task of being heard and taking a significant role in the symphony without drowning out everybody else. Altogether it was an excellent concert and well worth all the trouble of getting there.

It is strange that no other member of my birth family has the same love for music as I do. When I was young I used to commandeer the radio to listen to broadcast concerts and as soon as I was 16 years old and at work I started to go up to London for concerts, especially the Proms, although I also used to go frequently to the Royal Festival Hal (I was living in Surrey at the time and so it was easy to get to the RFH). I am afraid that I do not necessarily agree with the frequently observed comment that the atmosphere at the Proms is unlike any other. With the exception of the Last Night of the Proms the feeling of anticipation in any concert is the same, absolutely magic. (Having said that at normal concerts you don’t get members of the audience bellowing out to the rest of the audience of collections they are making for charity.)

When the Husband and I both took early retirement last year we realised that we would have to pull our horns in over some expenditure and we decided that we would have to severely reduce the number of concerts that we go to. This is not the sacrifice it might seem because we can listen to the radio through the (excellent) Hi-Fi and the Husband is a collector of CDs (over 3,000 of classical music plus about a thousand of rock/film soundtracks and popular music). Still it is nice to go to a good concert occasionally.

Sunday was a family day. Both the Stepson and Stepdaughter came around for the day and a good time was had by all. I am very lucky that I get on so well with then. You hear horrible stories about second wives not getting on with the children of the first marriage but I have been very, very lucky in that way.

Monday morning I spent trying to work out why none of my e-mails were being downloaded to my computer from the Inbox at my ISP’s website. By the time I sorted that out it was time to go out with the Stepdaughter to the cinema. We saw “The War of the Worlds” which was, to be frank, better than I expected. As I read the book at quite an early age (H G Wells based it all around where I was brought up and so I enjoyed finding all the landmarks I knew in the book) I was a bit concerned that I would not enjoy the film. I find that if I watch a TV or film adaptation of a book I’ve read I often find that the interpretation just does not match up to the pictures I have in my mind of the characters or what happens. In this case, however, I was able to disassociate my mind from the book entirely and enjoy the film quite a lot. (Tom Cruse was all right, although I thought both of the kids in the film were terrible.) It was daft but enjoyable.