South Seas, Trees and Happy Christmas!

We're having Christmas at home this year, so the twins helped me make a Christmas cake. This year I tried a "wholefoods" recipe from an old Cranks Cook Book which used 100 percent brown flour.  That's serious flour, so the cake weighs a ton, but it's delicious.

The twins also helped us to decorate our tree. It is not quite as good as their tree, (they solemnly informed me) firstly because it is black, and secondly because it is small. However, it does light up different colours with lots of little LED lights inside the plastic needles, which they thought very pretty, and they loved having two trees to decorate.

We went out with our friend Annette a few days ago to catch the last of the "Oceania" exhibition at the Royal Academy.   It covered art ancient and modern originating from the South Seas, and Annette loved it so much that was her third visit!   As soon as we got inside I heard the sound of Beethoven, and went through the exhibition till I saw this....

Messrs. Steinway might not thank me for the sound recording quality of that clip, but in fact their grand piano is an artwork from New Zealand, by Michael Parekowhai. It's called "He Korero Purakau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu"  and is carved and decorated in traditional style by Maori craftsmen.  An astonishing thing. Here's a detail complete with paua shell eyes. 

The other amazing NZ creation was a gigantic film installation, called "The Pursuit of Venus,(Infected)" It is based on a huge and costly hand painted wallpaper diorama of the South Seas that dates from 1806.

The NZ artist Lisa Reihana uses the wallpaper as a lifesize background and combines live action, green-screen and animation to tell the story of Western colonisation in the area - both the good and bad aspects.  

Here is a tiny clip...

...but it is impossible to give an idea of the scale of this and also to convey that in fact this life sized diorama is actually moving from right to left so the scenes constantly change.  I've never seen anything like it before, so if it ever shows near you, you might want to go and take a look. 

My favourite traditional object in the exhibition might have been this feather headdress. 

Here is some very different artwork here, which the twins made for their Auntie Aoife. I can tell you a lot of hard work went into these cards, which depict trees, windmills, suns, exciting battles and lots of stars, hearts and stickers.

So, what else? We went to the mini-pantomime at Kings Head Theatre Pub, in Islington, London.  The pub's usually busy, and the theatre is in a back room, although it's moving soon to bigger premises.   The company, Charles Court Opera usually does great performances with a cast of about 6 trained opera singers and one guy who's a magician on the piano - we once heard him play the entire orchestral score of "The Magic Flute" without a mistake. 

If you are not from these parts and haven't attended a British panto, I'll tell you it's generally some approximate adaptation of a traditional fairytale and has certain stock characters and phrases which the audience shouts in appropriate places. There is lots of cross dressing and anything can happen really. There's always a Dame, who is a man in over-the-top frocks.  Here s/he is with an audience member who has been pulled onto the stage to be the man s/he is in love with.  

 I loved the music, which was amusing covers for well known songs, including "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Single Ladies"  and "Thriller."  And the plot, such as it is, revolved mostly around Cinderella's teddy bear Buttons, with the handsome Prince posing as a #metoo "woke" male, but, perhaps predictably,  turning out to be anything but that....

I'm trying to take some exercise most days even if it is just a cycle ride up and down a few hills.  We passed Fenton House the other day and as I slogged past up the hill I thought it looked so pretty with the morning sunshine illuminating its front gate.  I blogged about it here, in 2013, but it hasn't changed much. 

We collected the twins from school yesterday.   Their school is about a mile and a half walk away up (and then down) a very very steep hill.  So we walked up, hung about in the cold and then picked them up and set off back.  The first thing that happened was that girl twin ran into a bollard.  It was the same height as her and bashed her forehead and under her eye, which was horribly painful. We did not continue home, but instead detoured to a nearby cafe to sit down and get her a drink to settle her down again - not to mention boy twin who was upset to see his sister in such a state. 

The cafe was VERY crowded and the only seats available were bar stools at a counter, and the seat of each stool was approximately at the eye level of the twins.  We somehow managed to get them on and staying on without falling off the stools, and they drank their drinks without anything getting spilt, and then we set off again, avoiding bollards. Halfway down a very long steep hill, boy twin suddenly realised he desperately needed the bathroom. Like, NOW.  And no, discreetly behind a tree was not possible.  Luckily T remembered an arts centre at the bottom of the hill so we raced down, telling boy twin to just hold on one moment longer...

However, the arts centre was shut.   

I then remembered a cultural centre just across the busy main road.  So we waited for the traffic lights, and reached the cultural centre. Unfortunately it is a centre for a group which is a bit sensitive about security so we had to wait till our backpacks were searched before they let us in.  So we got in and T and boy twin disappeared to the bathroom while girl twin and I sat down to watch the skating rink from a large picture window in the centre.   She was fascinated, (and so was boy twin when he returned). Neither wanted to leave, and to be honest, nor did we. It's a lovely place and so relaxing...  

When we finally got home, our mile and a half walk had taken two hours.  So they were quite glad to get their tea.  I thought that when I was a busy mum of young kids, that kind of thing would have driven me round the bend,but now it's great to be relaxed about it and see it as the way life goes. After all, we did enjoy a nice drink and some entertaining skating that we were not expecting!

 So that is what I've been up to, as well as working on the Durrell project, sorting out gifts and cards and getting on with the ordinary things of life. 

I hope that you will all find good things, hope and happiness at Christmas and in the coming year.  Have a lovely holiday!