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shewhomustWe've had a busy few days, starting last Saturday when we woke up to see that snow was falling from the sky. It wasn't settling, and it was wet rather than fluffy, but it was definitely white, and it was definitely snow. In October.
It didn't deter my heroic cousins, who were driving up from various parts of the south, for the football, and they were rewarded with that rare thing, a Sunderland victory. We all met at the usual Italian restaurant on the seafront, to celebrate, and to swap news and generally converse. I liked A's story of finding a copy of Gore Vidal's Julian on his bookshelf, long unread, and deciding that the way to make himself read it was to nominate it when his turn came to choose his reading group's next book. This worked in the sense that he did read, and indeed enjoy, it, and so did one other member of the group... We stayed on talking so late that whendurham_rambler and I walked back to our car, the illuminations had been switched off, and what had been a ship in full sail with waves washing along its flanks was no more than a rectangular frame.
We were glad of our extra hour on Sunday morning, as we had a lunch date in York, where the Bears were spending the weekend with J & J: more good company, more wine, more book talk, a lunch composed in large part of vegetables from the garden... But we couldn't linger, as we had theatre tickets for the evening. The sun was already setting as we left York, and briefly showed a spectacular effect, gilding the lower edge of a low cloud while throwing a fan of art deco rays into the sky above it.
We were home in good time to walk to the Gala theatre for the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - now advertised as George Hinchcliffe's Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, not, the Bears tell us. because George has had an attack of megalomania, but because someone else has set up a ukulele orchestra and was trying to claim the name. Good grief! All the more disconcerting because the personnel of the band was not the familiar line-up: looking at their website, it appears that any given show may include a group from a larger ensemble, and on this occasion neither George nor Dave was among them. The show was When this lousy war is over: it was, for a Great War themed show, remarkably cheerful, drawing on music that was popular at the time of the war, rather than music about the war. Exceptions were some of the songs from the trenches, a searing a capella version of Hanging on the old barbed wire, and When this lousy war is over itself, which I hadn't previously thought of as a melancholy song (this is not a criticism). If I could find their version of George Butterworth's Banks of Green Willow, I would link to it, but I can't.
Monday evening's entertainment was a book launch: Ellen Mellor's Ghostkin, which I have known since it was ababy first draft, and am thrilled to see all grown up into a real book from Double Dragon. To celebrate this, we went to the Lit & Phil and ate cake - or in my case, the first mince pie of the season. There was a unicorn cake (iced with roses, ears and a horn) which we admired but didn't eat: Ghostkin is a vampire story, but the vampires are about as unsparkly as you can get, so it didn't seem right.
That's all the excitement for the time being: we went out to lunch with J today, which was a pleasure, but not an excitement; and there's just about time for a bowl of soup before we go out to the pub quiz this evening.
It didn't deter my heroic cousins, who were driving up from various parts of the south, for the football, and they were rewarded with that rare thing, a Sunderland victory. We all met at the usual Italian restaurant on the seafront, to celebrate, and to swap news and generally converse. I liked A's story of finding a copy of Gore Vidal's Julian on his bookshelf, long unread, and deciding that the way to make himself read it was to nominate it when his turn came to choose his reading group's next book. This worked in the sense that he did read, and indeed enjoy, it, and so did one other member of the group... We stayed on talking so late that when
durham_rambler and I walked back to our car, the illuminations had been switched off, and what had been a ship in full sail with waves washing along its flanks was no more than a rectangular frame.We were glad of our extra hour on Sunday morning, as we had a lunch date in York, where the Bears were spending the weekend with J & J: more good company, more wine, more book talk, a lunch composed in large part of vegetables from the garden... But we couldn't linger, as we had theatre tickets for the evening. The sun was already setting as we left York, and briefly showed a spectacular effect, gilding the lower edge of a low cloud while throwing a fan of art deco rays into the sky above it.
We were home in good time to walk to the Gala theatre for the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - now advertised as George Hinchcliffe's Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, not, the Bears tell us. because George has had an attack of megalomania, but because someone else has set up a ukulele orchestra and was trying to claim the name. Good grief! All the more disconcerting because the personnel of the band was not the familiar line-up: looking at their website, it appears that any given show may include a group from a larger ensemble, and on this occasion neither George nor Dave was among them. The show was When this lousy war is over: it was, for a Great War themed show, remarkably cheerful, drawing on music that was popular at the time of the war, rather than music about the war. Exceptions were some of the songs from the trenches, a searing a capella version of Hanging on the old barbed wire, and When this lousy war is over itself, which I hadn't previously thought of as a melancholy song (this is not a criticism). If I could find their version of George Butterworth's Banks of Green Willow, I would link to it, but I can't.
Monday evening's entertainment was a book launch: Ellen Mellor's Ghostkin, which I have known since it was a
That's all the excitement for the time being: we went out to lunch with J today, which was a pleasure, but not an excitement; and there's just about time for a bowl of soup before we go out to the pub quiz this evening.
