I feel I’m rather letting my blog name down at the moment

It isn’t that I’m not seeing theatre (though I’m not seeing as much as I would like to), it’s just that I’m not writing about it. I have written more about walking over the last few months than I have about theatre, and that’s rather shocking.

To bring you up to speed, I have seen the following:

Twelfth Night
Peer Gynt
Dido, Queen of Carthage
His Dark Materials Parts 1 & 2
Barbershop Quarter – an Avignon Festival Fringe show – in French!
Blood Brothers

Quite a mixed bag really, and all enjoyable in their own way. Twelfth Night was a YTR production, and was pretty good, though I didn’t like their Olivia. Peer Gynt was a National Theatre of Scotland production, but it was at the Barbican, and I wondered if once again the Barbican was going to be the theatrical pits. Thankfully, though not ‘my’ Peer, which is much more beautiful, there were a lot of things I liked, and ultimately it moved me. Dido I enjoyed, though as a play it’s clear from the writing that Marlowe* wasn’t Shakespeare (not even very early Shakespeare). Some good performances though. If this is all sounding a bit half hearted, well, none of the productions were standout.

I did really enjoy the two parts of His Dark Materials at West Yorkshire Playhouse. I hadn’t really liked the books and had stalled part way through the second one, so I came to a lot of it new. What stuck me was that it’s a very complicated story. As with most alternate universe stories, there’s a lot to take in, as you can’t rely on the natural order of things to carry you through, also, the names can be difficult to remember. The other problem with any fantasy story is, of course, how do you stage it? This one has an ‘armoured bear’, and I’d never actually worked out what one of those was in the books, never mind what it might look like on stage.

They actually did it very well, though I felt Part 2 worked much better than Part 1. It was definitely a production where you needed to see both parts – a potential problem in Leeds, as there were considerably more performances of Part 1.

As for the last two, well, one is coming up in my ‘holiday blog’, and the other is a whole other story.

*Though it is equally very clear that Shakespeare knew the play, and ripped off some of the ideas mercilessly for Hamlet. It’s a good job Marlowe was dead by then, as Will did it all so much better

Travels with a Mercedes*

This year, we hired a car. It was something of an experience, being, of course, left hand drive, and a diesel. I volunteered to drive it from the airport. There was a great deal of cursing and swearing and gnashing of teeth as I tried to find the gears.

It was fine on the motorways, but driving round some of the towns was a bit of a challenge, particularly as we seemed to go round Aix at least 3 times trying to find the hotel. After that, J drove, and got used to it, and quite enjoyed it, so I became the navigator, with my ‘super map’. This was also a challenge at times, as the French tend to be a bit sparing with their signage, and you have to work out where a road might be signed to, which probably isn’t the place you’re trying to get to. Again, towns were a bit of a problem.

Then of course, we had to work out how to put fuel in. We could find the fuel cap, that was obvious. But how did we open it? It didn’t help that all the instructions were in French.

‘What’s French for petrol, or petrol tank?’
‘Not sure’
‘There’s usually a little lever somewhere inside the car’
‘The one in my car has a little drawing of a petrol pump on it’

We looked at all the buttons and switches. There was a distinct lack of anything with a pump on it, though there was lots of other buttons.

After a few days, we’d got down to a quarter of a tank of fuel, so we really needed to work this out. Back to the instruction books. Finally, in the back, I found a picture of the fuel cap.

‘Right, where does it say the button is?’
‘It doesn’t, look’ (There was nothing on the diagram to indicate how you open it)

Once again, we searched the car looking for the elusive button. Suddenly, I had a brainwave.

‘Maybe it isn’t locked, and I should just try it’

I pushed at the fuel cap. It swung open so that you could get to the screw cap for the tank.

‘Oh!’

*this did say 'BMW', until it was pointed out that I was wrong!

**The picture is the Rest Stop which we found when we were looking for petrol near the airport. It seems not all French Rest Stops have petrol, some of them have Roman Theatres instead.

A Week in Provence

For that’s what I’ve just had. Last year, I visited Aix en Provence on my cruise, and fell in love with it, determined to go back. This year, we had four nights in Aix, and three in Avignon, which is in the middle of its Festival, which has a huge Fringe event, very similar to Edinburgh.

It’s a beautiful area, and one I think I’ll return to, as I don’t think you can do it any sort of justice in a week. It’s been lovely to get away from everything here for a while though.

We were much more independent than last year, hiring a car, and navigating our way to the various places we wanted to visit. There’s a lot to say, and how much of it I’ll get round to saying I’m not sure. I loved:
The weather, the scenery and the history. The lovely rose wine.

I was less keen on:
The lack of road signage in some places. The prices; the fall in value against the euro has hit hard, and things seemed very expensive. The food (yes, I know I am faddy, and difficult, but it turns out I just don’t much care for French food, and there is only so much salad you can eat without turning into a rabbit!)

Well, I always said I'd get round to it one day

I know that this may shock those of a sensitive disposition, but this is a picture of my garden. Well, when I say ‘garden’, bare patch of ground might be more accurate. To appreciate the change, you would really need to see a ‘before’ picture, but for obvious reasons (embarrassment!!) I haven’t any. It used to be lovely, but that was about 7 years ago. That's the trouble with gardens. They grow, and then they overgrow.

OF COURSE I didn’t do it myself. How could I? You should have seen the chap’s face when I explained that there was a patio and chairs and a bench under the briars and brambles.

At least I have a blank canvas, though I’d better do something with it before it all starts to grow again. I’m thinking grass would not be the best of ideas this time!

People Watching

It's well know that I tend to be more interested in places, (buildings, history) than in people, but I find people watching is definately a seasonal activity.

This is mainly because what I'm looking at is what they are wearing; winter is rubbish, as everyone is so 'coated up' that you can't see much; the best people watching of all is from a pavement cafe in (pretty much any) Italian city on a balmy evening.

However, over the past few weeks, I've been spending a lot of time at railway stations. And it has been hot, so no coats required. I've loved watching the people gathering for the London train, and trying to work out who is working, and who is heading for a day out. Not always that easy, in these days of 'smart-casual' office wear. There are still plenty of 'suits' though. The traditional briefcase is now mainly replace by the laptop bag (the fact that I choose to carry my work papers in a Tesco Cath Kidston shopper is not lost on me).

I usually start with the shoes, as good shoes usually means the rest of the outfit will be good. You have to admire the girl with the four inch heels who is braving the Tube and London pavements (particularly as I left a shoe behind me just outside London Bridge last week, as it caught in the pavement.)

Then there are the people in 'holiday wear'. Oh dear. Sadly, with the British, this frequently means a total abdication from any style. Allowances can be made for hot weather, but very few people can wear cut offs, though few seem to realise this. If you have chunky calves, people, please stay away.