A Trip to the Theatre

Having received the last of the money from Daddy and Joan’s estate, it seemed like a fitting tribute to them to spend it on theatre tickets.  I began with Noel Coward’s Private Lives, starring Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers. Very witty, and well performed, but the treatment of domestic violence is rather uncomfortable for a 21st century audience.

It was good to wander around my old theatre-land haunts, and the lights in St Martin’s Lane were pretty.

Two cathedrals in one day!

After a hearty breakfast, several of us joined a guided tour of central Hereford.  We started at the cathedral.

And continued around the immediate vicinity, including the last remains of the castle moat.

 I left the tour to head to the station, passing the site of yesterday’s festivities, the Town Hall.

Caught a train to Newport, then Paddington. Hammersmith and City line to Farringdon, where I discovered Thameslink was closed for engineering work.  So a bus journey past St Paul’s, and finally a fast train from London Bridge to Orpington. Phew!

Early Dance Festival

A wonderful day of dancing and music.  Being in the moment, I didn’t take any photos of the dancing – they never do it justice anyway.  But the contributions were extraordinarily varied, the dinner was good and the masquerade ball in the evening was fun, with an excellent band.

We did pay our respects to Elgar during a short walk round the block:

A very lucky journey to Hereford

In spite of major disruption on the railways today, my train to Hereford left Paddington on time and was a mere ten minutes late arriving.  I was able to walk to my hotel, while less fortunate passengers had to wait for transport to wherever they hadn’t been able to get to.

I had barely settled in my very elegant room when our friend Phil arrived and we went for a coffee and a good chat.  We forgot to take a photo, though…

The evening’s activity was a lecture about masquerade balls in the 18th century, with some fascinating slides.  A short walk back to the hotel and drop exhausted into bed!

 

Birmingham – A local walk – Friday

This morning the weather was beautiful.  Lucy stayed in and spent time in the garden while Gemma and I went for a walk.  There was a vague plan, but it changed as the mood took us.  We paused for a swift half at The Navigation…

No pork scratchings, so we had to make do with crisps.

Then a stroll along the canal, and return via King’s Norton – on foot since the buses didn’t want to play!

Birmingham – City centre – Tuesday

Today we got the train to New Street.  There was a very scary bull!  It moved at 12:15…

We then went to a talk about the stained glass at the Cathedral, which included a visit to see the windows, which are being refurbished, close up.  Brilliant!  I forgot to take any photos, so here’s a link:

https://birminghamcathedral.com/windows/

After that we went to China Town for a late lunch.  There was a lovely fountain.

Another busy day!  A quiet day tomorrow, methinks.

Birmingham – Botanical Gardens – Monday

Rather than just mooching around looking at the plants, we decided to do some sketches at the Botanical Gardens.  You can see Gemma’s sketch book if you look carefully!

As usual, Gemma and Lucy were very encouraging to me!

There were lots of different things to draw, and discover, in spite of it being autumn.  We were very taken with the pitcher plants.  These were just a few.  There were so many sizes!!

The Bonsai collection was amazing.

Allegedly, there were real peacocks, but we only saw this one.

There was a handsome aviary which we couldn’t get close to because of avian flu.

It was a lovely day, we were lucky with the weather and came home tired but happy.