Including Music.

Everyone's Facebook pages (including mine) have pictures of snow today.  We didn't have any last year, and I do love to see it coming down, although I am not so keen on it lying in the streets for weeks on end.   

T and I haven't been out and about as much as usual, (although I've had some nice walks) because T. has managed to wrench his back. He's on the mend but he is being careful not to overdo things.   Actually I've enjoyed my own forays into the cold but colourful outdoors. A week or so ago I spotted these three fellas sitting on a dead tree, cawing in turn. 

Are they crows or ravens? I'm not enough of a birdwatcher to know - in fact, I think I did pretty well to spot them at all!   But I hope they are ravens, because I love the "Three Ravens" folksong, written down by (appropriately enough) Thomas Ravenscroft as long ago as 1611. This performance specially appeals to me, but the band, "Black Country Three" was active in the 1960s so I don't suppose I'll find any more of their singing.    

For birthdays and Christmas it's sometimes nice to have an outing - to a movie, a meal, a play, musical or opera or - well, anything really!    For Christmas I got tickets for  "Iolanthe" at the ENO.  It has only recently opened so we finally went and saw it the other day. I love Gilbert and Sullivan, although I know it's not for everyone. Gilbert's barbed wit of the 1880s often seems eerily topical even today, and Sullivan's music is so much fun. It's ironic really because apparently the poor man always yearned to be remembered as a serious religious composer, and not the entertaining guy who gave us this...

There have been four birthdays this month, two of them the twins -  I was pleased that my gift of a Spiderman umbrella went down well, as you see.  The party was fun but many of the guests were just as keen to play with the twins' toys.  That's one of the things I loved best at parties when I was little too - did you? 

I had a lovely surprise too. It arrived in the mail from Jeanie at  "The Marmelade Gypsy."  one of my favourite blogs. I was a prizewinner on her Blog Anniversary giveaway, and so a week or so a beautifully packaged item arrived in the post. 

Inside was a beautiful painting taken from a photo I posted from Miyajima island last year! 

It is nicely mounted in brown, and now I am on the lookout for a suitable frame.   Thank you so much Jeanie, it's lovely to have something so pretty and personal!  To me it makes the scene seem really magical in a way that a photo never could. 

The bulbs I planted last autumn have been coming up.  More crocuses - and my favourite variety, "Tricolour".  This was taken 3 days ago when the sun was shining and the bees were out, but I'm afraid the snow might have done for them now.  

I haven't been much at the computer - we've had workmen in and everything's very dusty so the best thing has been to sit in a nearby cafe and read a bit more than usual. I've just finished Edna O'Brien's "The Little Red Chairs" - a powerful, original and remarkable book, which I found extremely difficult to read at times.  It tells of what happens when an erudite and intriguing war criminal escapes to rural Ireland, and the village beauty, who longs for a baby, falls in love with him. 

If you think this sounds like a pleasing (though slightly challenging) read, you'd be wrong.   The relationship is glamorous and exciting in its way, and yet eventually we realise that the real story is  about different sorts of exile, and that some people are exiles from the human race.   

If I still wrote book reviews professionally, I'd have found it hard to produce an article about something as unusual and disturbing as "The Little Red Chairs."  Although it's so well written that I couldn't put it down, I began to feel in an odd way as if I was having to read it at gunpoint, unable to stop.  Alarming. Honestly.

If you'd like a proper review of it, click here and read what Julie Myerson wrote in "The Guardian."   

There's been quite a bit of music in this post, and so I should say that for the first time in all my years travelling on the London Underground, I saw a man busking with a didgeridoo.  It was a wonderful thing which appeared to be made out of a tree trunk.

I'd never thought I'd like didgeridoo music until I went to a concert by the virtuoso William Barton, and then I saw what this instrument can do. I was pleased to find a recording of him on Youtube so see if you agree with me that he is something special. 

Heath, Ghosts, Grafffiti and a Mysterious Ad.

I need to start posting more than once a month :) but anyway glad to say that the bug has finally left and I'm back to normal energy levels. And Spring is on the way. This and the coming 2 months are my favourite time of year, and I'm so delighted to have crocuses and a few early daffodils showing.  Here are some crocuses lit by the sun.

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I'm trying hard to get fitter again, having sat around like a slug for 6 weeks. Our older daughter is a tai chi fan and has made a short video for us of a daily routine. It keeps some flexibility but more importantly is a daily focus on how my body is moving, and reminds me to exercise it more. 

T has also been ill with the same bug and he's only just getting better, but we've taken some walks on Hampstead Heath. This is still wintry but, as ever, there is always something to see, even if only shadows and reflections.  

                            In the sunshine, the lakes shone, and bare tree branches glittered.  

One morning our walk took us across the viaduct quite early in the day. (The viaduct is a whole story by itself but let me just say it was built about 1890 and stands alone in the woods.) The low sun cast the carvings into bold relief.  I had never noticed them before, and liked the variety of the carvings. This one I thought very elegant. 

I also wondered who worked so hard and for so long to carve "STONED HERE ON DAY"?  What they were trying to say isn't quite clear ....but perhaps that's to be expected.

Some of this stone graffiti had the air of primitive carvings. What do you think this might be?

About ten minutes walk from the viaduct is Kenwood House,  the Heath's big mansion.  If you click the link you might recognise it from many movies, most recently, I think, Belle.  I am a big fan of English Heritage which keeps the house and its treasures open all year, free of charge, complete with its interesting art collection, grand interiors and other treasures.  I liked this gilded lion lurking on the side of an 18th century table

And this detail from an early JMW Turner painting shows what his work was like when he was not being quite so abstract. I love it, and it makes me wish I could have known the seaside when these old boats were a common sight.  

A days ago T and I got the tube to a Southwark pub and attended to an amusing and interesting talk at the Southeast London Folklore Society by the artist and ghost-hunter Sarah Sparkes. She was talking about the magical library and extraordinary life of Harry Price, ghosthunter. Here's a photo I took of one of her slides projected on the screen. I think Harry looks quite the lad.  

  The library is held at Senate House, of University of Central London, which dates only from the 1930s but is said to be riddled with ghosts, including several haunted elevators.   Not sure I would take that too seriously. 

Sarah also touched on Borley Rectory, Essex, a large old house which Harry Price once owned. It was for many years famous as the Most Haunted House in England.  In fact, my parents had a book about when I was a kid and I have to say that even at the age of 8, I was not convinced by Borley Rectory! But Harry Price's life story is a great, sometimes laugh-out-loud tale of a humble-born magician and born entertainer, who was determined to be remembered one way or another. 

I also did a clear-out, and found this little book dating from 1852. I'm not that interested in Paris's Principal Monuments (which at that time, of course, did not include the Eiffel Tower) but the book was only 50p at a car boot sale, and although small, the engravings are beautiful when looked at through a magnifying glass.  But what is this building on the cover? Does anyone recognise it? 

T felt recovered enough at the weekend to take a walk with me over to Highgate, where we spotted this interesting advert stuck on a community notice board. It really ought to be the beginning of a novel or a movie, don't you think?  How do you think it will pan out?

By the way, since this is a real person's real advert (even though they are advertising on a public message board) I've blocked out some of the phone number.

So that's been me - and I wish you a very good week!