08:00 When Lois and I roll out of bed this morning, we feel a bit refreshed by the thought that this is the last day of the so-called 3-day mini-heatwave, and although there'll still be a high of 90F (32C) today, that things will start to cool down from tomorrow.
Later on in the day, we even see a few clouds in the sky, which is nice. We were beginning to imagine that the clouds didn't like the British any more, which would have been a pity, to put it mildly!
at last - some clouds return somewhat shily to the sky
over our back garden, which is nice
What a crazy country we live in !!!!!
My big task of the day has been to use the computer to blow up some scaled drawings of the rooms of our projected new house in Malvern, and to work out how much of our current furniture will fit into it - the new house will be quite a bit smaller than the house we've got now.
I go round self-importantly measuring all our pieces of furniture and then I try drawing them in on the scaled room-plans.
me, proudly showcasing the tools of my trade: the room plans,
some squared graph paper and my metal measuring tape
My hard work sounds like a big step forward, but when, after lunch, Lois and I are in bed again, in our daughter Sarah's old room, having our nap, I tell Lois about what I've worked out, and I discover that Lois has already worked it all out perfectly, just in her head - she's got an instinct for these things, and she can take one look at a room and see at once what will fit in, and where it ideally should go. She doesn't need to take measurements or draw anything out on squared paper.
What a woman!!!!
And oh dear, what's the matter with me!!!!
Time to sharpen up, Colin, and get your act together, no doubt about that!
Meanwhile Lois tells me about her church's two zoom meetings today, and also about the session yesterday at sect local elder Andy's house when 3 Iranian Christian refugees got baptised by full immersion in Andy's hot tub in his back garden. Lois had been intending to watch it on zoom, but got distracted yesterday afternoon by our nap, which went on too long, and in the end she forgot to log in.
But the triple baptism almost didn't go ahead anyway. Mike, the sect-member driving the 3 Iranians to the ceremony in his mini-bus, ran over some debris in the road - actually a wheel jack which for some reason was lying around there, and the collision punctured his petrol tank.
What are the chances of that happening, eh? !!!!!
What a crazy country we live in !!!! [You've done that one once already today! - Ed]
Mike's mini-bus breaks down after some debris in the road
punctures its petrol tank
flashback to last October - Andy's hot tub in happier times,
when a previous baptism takes place in Andy's back garden
picture of me "killing" a mostly-used bottle of Wicked Wolf Gin
20:30 Time for Lois and me to settle down on the sofa with another Larkin poem on the radio - this time it's his "High Windows" (1974), one of Larkin's later poems.
That's all understandable for 1974, as is the idea of the repeated generational envy: an older generation envying a younger generation's freedoms, freedoms they wish they had had when they were that age, and then the young becoming old and envying in their turn. And meanwhile, we're all going speedily down that "long slide".
But what's all the stuff about "high windows" and "sun-comprehending glass" etc towards the end of the poem? Many of tonight's programme's pundits see it as a vision of a post-religious world - the high windows and glass make you think of churches, the buildings where "the priest and his lot" once held sway, but remarking that the things that used to inspire people to religion, have now been revealed as infinite emptiness.
Well, maybe - or maybe not! Come back and tell us, Philip - all is forgiven haha!
21:00 We unwind on another Proms concert - Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" overture, followed by two of his Piano Concertos. The Piano Concert No. 20 in D minor is one of our particular favourites.
Still, he does his best to "make a good fist of it", which is heartening! Of course, he has to manage without a baton - it would asking for accidents if he had to pick it up and then put it down somewhere where he'd be sure to find it without dropping it - can you imagine the accidents there might be!!!!
For Lois and me, one of our favourite little sports when we're watching concerts like this from our sofa is to try and catch glimpses of audience members "sneaking out" before the concert's over - with the perpetrators obviously not realising that their betrayal is being captured on camera for perhaps millions of viewers to witness.
Tonight, however, we think that those people sneaking out may have been doing the right thing. For his encore Leif chooses the unsuitably long "adagio" movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24, rather than the simple "Chopsticks" piece that Lois and I normally recommend - "Chopsticks" is a piece everybody knows and can hum along to, and most importantly of all - it's mercifully short, which is the main thing at the end of a long evening!
before the music begins, the BBC's music pundits discuss
the enormous challenges facing pianist Leif, who's also
been lumbered with the conducting
And the "backroom boys" may have perhaps made things slightly easier for Leif by unscrewing the lid off his piano so that the orchestra can see him more clearly, which was a brilliant idea. Or is there a simpler explanation - that the lid had been stolen, perhaps taken by "souvenir-hunters" among the many deranged BBC Proms classical music fans? Perhaps we should be told?
Leif approaches his piano and appears unfazed
by the lack of a lid, which is reassuring
three of the many examples of audience-members obviously
having something else more important to do than to wait for the end of the concert
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment