A BBC concert with Christiane

I met Christiane as arranged at the bus stop at 11.30 in the morning. We sat upstairs on the bus and went to Watford. We walked up the High Street, and I photographed this statue, and then my camera batteries ran out!




















The weather was very cold, but we had time to look in one of the charity shops before deciding that we had better see exactly where the Watford Colosseum is. Having found it, we went into MacDonald's and had a small sandwich and coffee each, and Christian had bought some very nice French cake with her too.

Feeling better we walked to the Colosseum where there was now a long line of people waiting to go in for the concert by the BBC Concert Orchestra, a programme for radio 3. While we hesitated, a man asked us if we would like to know a short cut to the entrance, and following him we went through the council offices, and out again, and came out near the end of the queue. I noticed how smart he looked, and as if he had just left the barbers, as his hair looked immaculate.

We were soon seated in the Colosseum with an excellent view of the orchestra. We listened to music by Balakirev, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Benjamin Britten (Four sea interludes from Peter Grimes), Copeland and Ravel. We had a short interval, but did not leave our seats. We noticed that the man who had shown us the shortcut was playing a cello in the orchestra. The conductor was Keith Lockhart.

It was a very good concert which we both enjoyed. When we left, Christiane bought a butterfly dish as she was going to make a grandchild a butterfly birthday cake, or more accurately, a two butterfly cake. We took the bus back, me getting off in Edgware, and Christiane travelling further. It had been a really nice day.

Visiting Pete in Brighton

On Saturday Mas had his yearly 'flu' shot before we went off to get shopping and have an early lunch in Stanmore. We watched a 'Midsomer Murders' in the evening. Toby phoned on Sunday, otherwise we just pottered about indoors as it was raining all day, and I did a bit more to Pete's skelly picture.

Nothing too exciting was going on until we went off to Brighton to visit Pete. Luckily the weather had changed completely and was bright and sunny, and the countryside, as we sped through it on the train looked lovely. We got to Pete's just before lunch time so we had time to meet Calliope and have a cup of tea and chat. Later we sauntered downtown to a Gourmet Burger Kitchen, and had a huge lunch, and afterwards had a short walk to the Mock Turtle which has wonderful cakes and is a very cosy interesting place.

Calliope

We returned to Pete's home and had a short rest before playing with his kitten a lot while Pete prepared dinner. Lorraine came round after work as planned; it was nice to meet her at last. Unfortunately Pete had a bad migraine so poor Lorraine took over the dinner which was very nice. Pete came back once his migraine fireworks had stopped, and we chatted for a while before Lorraine left and we went off to bed.