November: where has it gone?

Things I might have posted about and somehow didn't:

• a weekend visit from the Bears (we took them to Seaton Delaval, then down the coast to Seaton Sluice; we attended a 'come and see my holiday photos from Armenia' party together; we spent a day at Beamish; we delivered them to a Sacred Harp house sing in Gateshead and paid a long-overdue visit to samarcand while they were singing)


• two excellent music gigs on successive evenings, Martin Simpson at the Davy Lamp folk club and Johnny Handle (with Chris Hendry) at the Sage: the Sage gig was great entertainment, and lft me earwormed for a week, but Martin Simpson was on top form after a sleepless night (late night post-show spot followed by early morning fire-alarm) with that balance of delicacy and combativeness that no-one else achieves.


• A couple of slightly random poetry events: the launch of Bob Beagrie's new collection Glass Characters at which the organiser (the publisher) was a bit taken aback by spots from a musician and another poet (both fine, but Bob Beagrie was better, particularly his longer poems); the Myth & Metaphor event at the Winter Book Festival, billed as "An evening of poetry, readings and discussion from Liz Lochhead, Chaz Brenchley, Desmond Graham and Tony Williams, 7.00pm till late" which was of course much less fun without desperance, which couldn't be helped, but at which he was replaced by an additional poet, discussion failed to materialise and the evening wound up at 8.30, which is not 'late' in my book - it was worth it, for Liz Lochhead if nothing else, but could have been more fun

Things which I mercifully have nothing to say about, beyond "that was fun!":Bellowhead at the Sage, Crime on Tyne day at the Lit & Phil (with diversion for the Lit & Phil book sale, plus durham_rambler being declared "third best detective on Tyneside" for unraveling Martin Edwards' classic country house murder mystery).

Things which I would have liked to do but didn't manage to fit in: see the bits of Lumiere we missed, visit the Ouseburn Open Studios weekend (for their own sake, and to spend time there with friends).

Random domestic note: the handle of the blue coffee pot has detached itself again, and so far durham_rambler has not managed to fix it. This doesn't leave us without a coffeepot (which would be terrible): we have the very elegant glass number that weegoddess brought us from the States, plus a very solid ceramic pot with spout, which I am learning to pour from. It does leave us with a blue vessel with a lip but no handle, which seems too good to throw away, but only marginally useful. This is the clutter of which we are supposed to rid ourselves, isn't it? But not today; today there is more book festival...