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:
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!
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!
We had another quiet morning and early afternoon. A game of Carcassonne and some more art…
After a late lunch/ early supper in the Chinese quarter, we went to the Crescent Theatre to see an excellent production of “Pride and Prejudice”. Back home for a nice cup of Horlicks…
Today there was a yellow weather warning, so we stayed indoors and did Art…
I had my first go at lino printing since secondary school:
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.
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.
After a lazy start, we (Tina, Gemma, Paddy and Lucy) walked and bused around a number of studios and houses in the Open Studios scheme. We looked at a wide variety of art and craft, and had some interesting conversations. Not much opportunity for photos, though, because it seemed inappropriate to photograph artists or their work.
We bought some, though!
After more thought provoking discussion last evening and this morning, I felt the need to study what Baden Powell called that other great book, nature, so I went to the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens. I walked there past colleges and cows…
The gardens were lovely. Lots of evidence of scientific enquiry!
A substantial glass house.
And a limestone garden, which was very nostalgic.
My feet were tired, so I planned to return by bus, but it was held up somewhere, so I walked back past the colleges and cows.
After a morning of theological discussion, we all went our separate ways, and three of us had a mooch around Cambridge.
More theology this evening!