In the seven days since I returned from holiday...

In the seven (count them, seven) days since I returned from holiday, I have:

• caught a cold, more-or-less recovered, and given it to durham_rambler


• seen a small exhibition of the work of Richard Dadd (not the fairy paintings which are his best known work, but some of the paintings shown on this page, including Sir Thomas Phillips in a variety of eastern costumes, some very odd representations of the passions and the wonderful Crazy Jane).


• Celebrated Houghton Feast by touring Houghton-le-Spring in the company of crime writer Sheila Quigley, revisiting the scenes of her crimes.


• heard the wonderful Martin Simpson at the Buddle. If I were writing a whole post about the concert, I would talk about how interesting it is to go to folk performances with Sue, whose tastes are almost exclusively classical, and see how much strikes her as odd; also about how Simpson's repertoire is constantly in evolution, so that each time we hear him there will be some slight change in the treatment of a song, in which tunes go together, even in what he says about his material (so this time Little Musgrave is preceded by two instrumental compositions of his own, and the story of the tour guides in New Orleans, each pointing out his own preferred location for the one and only, original house of the Rising Sun, has gained a new punch line). But I'm not...


• cooked my harvest of quinces, brought back from the Bears' tree in London, into a slab of membrillo (which has set perfectly, and I am so smug) and a big pot of pear and quince compote (which should be cook enough to freeze before bedtime tonight).


• watched Bob Dylan at the Newport Festival on television; how can there be all this new footage, after all these years? And if this, what else?


• attended the press preview of Stardust, which I enjoyed. It was maybe just a little too excited about having Robert de Niro as the pirate captain, and blew up a small part and a brief episode beyond what they could take: yes, it's very cool having Robert de Niro in a bit part in your movie, but it would be even cooler to make less fuss about it. Occasionally I felt things were over-explained - since just about every piece of magic has a plot function later, we didn't really need to hear the spell repeated in voice-over when it came to fruition. But overall, fun. Neil Gaiman wrote recently in The Guardian that the book is "like an ice cream. It's to make you feel happy when you finish it." That's a good description of the film, too.


• and after watching an ice-cream movie, we all went to the pub and had fish and chips for lunch.


• went to a Flambard Press launch at the Lit & Phil, and saw many friends and clients for the first time since our break, so there was much catching up to do.

[ETA: Also a dental check-up. How could I have forgotten the dentist? All was well, thankfully, though I was a little unnerved by his evident refief that the last big filling was still holding.]

Not to mention a certain amount of sorting photos and washing clothes and updating web sites and beginning to catch up with LiveJournal... I feel quite tired just thinking about it.