shewhomust | The weekend (short version)

The weekend starts on Friday afternoon. We met Gail-Nina at the Laing, and she walked us round the John Martin exhibition: an early painting of a castle gatehouse looking quite conventional until you realise that the tiny figures are completely out of scale, a watercolour of Canute on the beach, all turbulent waves and drapery, a massive painting of the coronation of Queen Victoria, each peer a realistic portrait but dwarfed by the soaring spaces of the cathedral, and finally, along one wall, three huge paintings, the Last Judgement flanked by the damned and the saved, wonderful unhinged paintings. Then back to Gail's for dinner with

frumpo and Helen.

On Sunday afternoon we went to the orchid show which was being held in one of the colleges by the British Orchid Growers' Association, who are clients of ours, and said hello to Dick, and took photos (as usual, I'm completely dissatisfied with the results: some overall views could be useful for the website, but the flowers were so utterly extraordinary, and I repeatedly failed to capture that). And since we were next door to the Botanic Gardens, we went for a stroll there and discussed how much had changed since we were last there a week or so ago.

We came home with just enough time for me to download some sort of virus before we went to the Sage to hear Spiers and Boden (

durham_rambler finally managed to disable it at 1.30 am, when he set the antivirus software going and came to bed). The concert was good, though. The support act, Ian Stephenson and friends, weren't bad, but the whole felt like less than the sum of its parts. I probably wouldn't have realised how much it really wasn't working for me if they hadn't been followed by Spiers and Boden, who were terrific, and absolutely co-ordinated, everything working together, the unity of one person but the fullness and volume of a big band.

I feel as if I've had a really busy weekend, yet that doesn't look like much: what am I overlooking? Reading the paper, shopping, work - those, of course. Last minute preparations for a week's holiday? Maybe that's it.