love those cupcakes

There and back

We were in London most of last week.  No special reason, just a short break doing touristy stuff with the Boy.  We travelled by rail, rented a lovely apartment in a narrow little street in Spitalfields, hopped on and off underground trains and, mindful of the mister's still impaired mobility and differing interests, fitted in:

• an hour or two in the company of some celebrity vehicles
• a night at the theatre (yes, a different production to the one we had tickets for but a cast change and temporary closure meant some last minute rearranging)
• lots of coffee and cake breaks
• an evening meander along Brick Lane and being hassled every couple of steps by restaurant touts which had the opposite effect to the one aimed for  
• half a day browsing, tasting and spending at the market
• a linger by the river
• a moment to reflect alongside the poppies
• a visit to the Imperial War Museum and remembering that a much missed dear friend used to attend the school opposite
• about 5 minutes in Camden which was long enough, thank you very much 
• a ride up the city's (and apparently western Europe's) tallest building and a glass or two of champagne at the top
• a walk across a bridge and some landmark spotting

Now we're back home and have mostly caught up.  Animals have been collected from their respective holiday homes, cases have been emptied, clothes washed, ironed and put away, the garden has been tidied, a couple of recorded TV programmes have been watched and I'm sitting here asking myself:

• why, when it's so easy to jump on an East Coast train, don't we visit the capital more frequently?
• how come we brought back so much stuff - fruit, veg, bread, cereals (it isn't granola, it isn't muesli, it's granuesli), chocolate, cakes, coconut in various forms, cheese, oils, spices, Turkish delight - to eat?
• what the hell is going on with Lady Mary from Downton's accent?  

Shakespeare in the park

Seasonally appropriate, A Midsummer Night's Dream, performed in the big park down the road late afternoon on Sunday.  

'I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.'

You know the storyline - a love quadrangle, meddlesome fairies, thespian craftsmen, boo-boos and boohoos, after which we assume they all lived happily ever after (though I'm not overly hopeful for Helena.  I mean, would you want a boyfriend who was with you just because of some magic potion?)

The script may not have included a treeful of squawking magpies,  two squad cars and a circling police helicopter but it all added to the atmosphere.

Speaking of boyfriends, I'm in the process of choosing one.

The book was a gift from the Girlie and I seem to be drawn to the artistic type.

I think it might be the beard.  And the ponytail.

 

Christmas at ours

Our Christmas celebrations didn't pan out quite as planned due to the arrival of that uninvited and most unwelcome visitor, Mr. Norovirus.

The Boy was the first casualty.  He spent the whole of Christmas Day in his sick bed, his absence highlighted (we're only five with a full complement) by the unused place setting and unpulled cracker at the dining table and piles of unopened presents under the tree.

The mister was the next casualty on Boxing Day, quickly followed by yours truly. 

Just one word. 

Yuk.

Festive leftovers have been consigned to the bin, the fridge is still full of treats which are not yet tempting dulled appetites, the Christmas cake is uncut, the tub of Quality Street unopened.

But the Gorgeous Girlie has been home for a few days, stacks of lovely gifts were given and received (and I really must give mine some proper attention), Boo seems pleased with his string of smiley sausages and we all recovered just in time for a night at a really good local panto.  

De-Christmassing the house (and I can't wait to see the back of that droopy tree) will happen once we've welcomed the New Year.

And then we set off on an adventure.

Source

 

Enjoyed lately

A night at the theatre in Manchester with the Girlie, staying overnight at her house and catching up on each other's news until the early hours.

Savouring the first box of buttery Stollen Bites. If you like stollen, you'll love these from Lidl.

Browsing a few Christmas magazines.  I've drastically reduced the number of magazines I buy but I can't resist the festive issues.

Lighting a new candle.  Cinnamon pumpkin.  Appropriately seasonal.

Buying books.  The one about sewing?  Maybe it will help me reacquaint myself with the sewing machine.

Baking a chocolate cake.  Actually a chocolate orange Nutella Malteser cake.   Made up as I went along and which rapidly disappeared.

Today

About a week ago, I read somewhere that if your tulips hadn't already flowered, they wouldn't flower at all.  Happily, the ones in pots here have put in an appearance at long last.  Better late than never.

In the front garden, the better weather has coaxed the weeping cherry tree to blossom, though maybe not quite as spectacularly as in previous years.

New arrivals have popped up in the field at the end of our road.  This is the field which is part of one of several  farms hereabouts, was recently sold, along with the rest of the farmland, to developers who have been given the green light to build 290 houses starting next month, but which was being rented by a local company for animal grazing.  You know the sort of company, the ones that turn live animals into joints of meat.  Now I'm dreading the day we notice the empty field.  Maybe I should just copy Babs and pretend the sheep have gone on a lovely holiday. 

Tonight we're meeting the Boy at Sunderland Empire to see this.  I'm more than a little anxious after reading Derren's tweet.  Well, you know what happened last time........

Last night

An evening at the ballet.  Up the road in Newcastle.  Courtesy of lovely friends.

So, Matthew Bourne's take on an old favourite.

This is far removed from a traditional tutu and pointe offering.  For starters, the well-known fairy story has been tinkered with.  Carabosse snuffs it early on and it's her son who is hell-bent on wreaking revenge on her behalf.  Unsurprisingly, Aurora first appears as a baby, but in this version she's a brilliantly manoeuvred, curtain climbing, show stealing puppet.  Celebrating her 21st birthday, the Beauty still pricks her finger and sleeps for 100 years.  But our hero and her rescuer is a gamekeeper.  And a vampire. 

We begin in 1890, progress to 1911,  2011 and 'Last night'.  There are bare feet, bare chests, conveyer belts, Helena Bonham-Carter lookalikes, wings and heavily kohled eyes aplenty.  It's at times dark, at others funny, occasionally Downtonesque with a dash of panto, sometimes intimate, always visually stunning and thoroughly entertaining. All in all, a sharp contrast to that first experience.

Yet I did find myself a tad wistful for that unmistakeable clattering of block ballet shoes across the stage. 

And wishing for a more palatable Pinot Grigio in the interval.

 

A night out

Last Thursday night had us driving through the rain to the Theatre Royal in Newcastle to see Derren Brown's latest offering.  It's not the kind of performance I usually opt for but the Boy had been given tickets as a Christmas present and invited us along.

It's hard to write about in any detail as the man himself asked the audience not to give away the content when blogging or reviewing or tweeting so as not to spoil it for people who have yet to see it.  If you've watched his television shows then you'll know the kind of stuff he does - suggestion, prediction, illusion, mind reading.  It was all there, with lots of laughs, camera close-ups, plenty of "how on earth did he do that" moments, audience participation and a rather creepy prop in the second half.  Derren Brown has been described as the "consummate showman".  He is.  But he's also very likeable.

We arrived home after midnight and to top off a really enjoyable evening I managed to slip on our (not so long ago re-surfaced, treacherous when wet) drive and ended up flat on my back.  A trip to A&E a few hours later confirmed a bad ankle sprain. 

 

So here I am on the sofa, following instructions to rest, elevate and apply ice packs whilst hoping for a speedy return to mobility.

A lot of cake and a bit of culture

• Afternoon tea (yes, another one) at nearby Crathorne Hall with Aunty M and my Girlie and the Boy. The scones and little pistachio cakes were delicious and I'm told the carrot cake was very moist. The fruitcake?  I've had better. "I'll pay, I want to pay", insisted deaf as a post Aunty at full volume. Turned out she had nothing to pay with.  Still, it's the thought that counts.
  

• An outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing (Benedick thinks he hates Beatrice but really loves her. Beatrice thinks she hates Benedick but really loves him. Claudio loves Hero. Hero loves Claudio. Mix ups and misconceptions. Double wedding.  The end.) in a historic setting, accompanied by a picnic of homemade focaccia, a wedge of Brie and a tub of fat green olives, with a couple of chocolate and walnut treats each for half time. 

•   A belated birthday gift from a friend.  

Exactly.

 

A night at the opera

My first. 

At the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. 

Courtesy of one of the Husband's Christmas presents.

We started with an early doors supper, pasta arrabiata and courgette fritters with basil mayonnaise for me, pizza and chips (predictably) for him.

It bugs me that we have to travel to visit a decent theatre (there is a tiny one locally with limited performances) as this town was once overrun with them. 

Newcastle's Theatre Royal is about an hour's drive away and a wonderful venue.  It's about to undergo extensive renovation which will include new seating, much needed for those of us with long legs!   

As for the opera itself, this was a first and I wasn't sure what to expect though, obviously, some of the music was very familiar (the overture, habanera, the toreador song and the bit they used for the Esso television advert years ago).  I loved it (the performance was in French with helpful sub titles on small screens at the sides of the stage) though it's probably fair to say that the baring of breasts, mooning and a dog in a muzzle were a bit of a surprise.  

Now I'm wondering how I can get Boo an Equity card.

 

Catch up

Our little jaunt was a five day trip to Poland's second city, which was cut to four days after long delays (due to freezing fog) at the airport.  Krakow is a beautiful city with lots of places to explore and with so many stories to tell.  However, the weather whilst we were there (rain, fog and finally snow) wasn't great for photographs (and it probably didn't help that I'm still getting acquainted with the new camera) and only a few of those I did take are worthy of sharing.

Christmas market in the medieval square in the old town.

 

Wawel cathedral, the venue for the coronations of Polish monarchs and where, as a priest, Pope John Paul 11 delivered his first mass in 1946.

Part of the castle on Wawel hill.

A recently opened (just this year) museum is the one at the site of Oskar Schindler's factory.

Housed in the enamel factory's admin block, the museum's well put together exhibits, including one of Schindler's office, tell the story of Krakow, and everyday life for its inhabitants, from the early 1900's to the final weeks of the Nazi occupation and the arrival of the Red Army.

 

For all sorts of reasons, I wasn't convinced that our trip should include that most horrifying and tragic part of Krakow's history - the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.  Since 1947 the entire site has been designated a memorial to the estimated 1.2 million victims, a museum and historical document,  and, after much deliberation, we did visit. 

There are no photographs.  There are no words.