A busy week in many ways. This is the week of the 24th Chelmsford Cathedral Festival and there have been events on all week. The Husband went to a concert of Purcell with the King’s Consort at the Cathedral on Wednesday evening and came home praising the music and the skills of the musicians. Together he and I went to two concerts at lunchtimes at local churches. On Monday there was an organ recital with the organist Edward Wellman who played mainly English music from composers such as Byrd, Whitlock and Hollins but also included JS Bach’s Fugue in D major and Widor’s most famous piece, the Toccata. Friday lunchtime, at another of the local churches we heard a duo called Flute Magic. The guitarist, Roger Montgomery, we’ve known for years as he taught the Stepson classical guitar. Roger is a very talented guitarist in his own right and am always glad to hear his wonderful guitar playing. At the concert he played with his daughter Ruth, a wonderful young flautist who plays professionally and teaches the instrument. She is profoundly deaf but it doesn’t stop her being a wonderful musician. She and her father played a number of Latin pieces by such composers as Piazzolla and Machado, a piece writyten by Roger as well as a wonderful flute solo by Reade. It was well worth going, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

As we shall be going to the wedding of the Husband’s niece on 9th June, I also went out to buy an outfit for the wedding. I found something I like, a skirt and top in a flowered fabric and a jacket in a pink self-brocade, and a wonderful pink hat covered with flowers and feathers. The photo the Husband took of me wearing the outfit really made me wince, I am not photogenic at all and I’m sure that the face in the photo looks nothing like the face I see in the mirror everyday but here’s a photo of me in the new outfit.


















I’m not best pleased at the moment. Yesterday morning there was a huge racket in our back garden and opening the back door I was in time to see a big black cat wearing a collar disappearing down the side of the house. It wasn’t Nimrod, who doesn’t wear a collar (he doesn’t like them) and was sitting on the grass looking quite disgruntled for a cat who is usually so easy going. It was in the afternoon when I went out to do some gardening I discovered that the olearia and a nice iceland poppy that had just started to flower were both lying flat on the ground, obviously casualties of the fight. I suspect neither plant is going to look its best for the rest of this year, although I am hoping that with judicious pruning of the olearia both plants will be OK next year. Obviously one of the downsides of having cats.

Tonight we are off to another concert, nothing to do with the festival but of the Mugyenko Taiko Drummers. We went last year too and I’m sure I wrote about them then. We are both certainly looking forward to seeing them again this year.