Lost in London!

Never seen them before on this bench!

I had planned to go to the Globe Theatre in honour of my new scarf, but somehow managed to get lost!  I bounced all over the place, until I eventually gave up, hailed a cab, and went to my Club for afternoon tea.  I did take lots of photos.  It was an overcast day, so the colours aren't brilliant.  Still, I hope they are enough to enable you to walk with me through the nation's capital....

The velveteen sports car - a new trend, apparently!  Really does feel like velvet!

Fake grass - feels like the car!  Church garden.

Crucifixion painting?!?

Just think how long that little tree must have tried to get to the sun!

Chelsea Farmers Market

Roof Garden!!!!

London Peace Pagoda - First time I have ever seen it

New feature on traffic lights - they count down how many seconds you have left to cross the road!

Nasty street furniture - ivy covered concrete block.  If you hit that you'll be in for a sharp shock!

Just before I ran out of steam/pictures and hailed the cab

Shakespeare Scarf Theatre Challenge

Today I took delivery of two amazing scarves!  One for a friend of mine, and the other for myself.  The one for myself will dominate the entire year, because I have set myself a challenge based on it.

People of a certain background and education are supposed to have specific interests and behave in particular ways.  Being a foreigner of long standing, and anyway highly individualistic, I frequently offend against these stereotypes, much to the perturbation of unsuspecting natives.  I don’t habitually drink wine, never eat oysters, rarely listen to classical music, don't read highbrow modern French novels (except occasionally by accident), and Hate Shakespeare!

There.  I said it.  I hate Shakespeare.  The great bard has blighted my existence at irregular intervals, from having him rammed down my throat in school to being subjected to his plays at Uni.  Yet worse, any number of people have assumed over time that I would love to see his plays and have applied pressure to entrap me into going.  I have been singularly resistant, though did not always manage to escape. 

In addition to being victimised by teachers and university lecturers, I attended the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, saw several plays at the Rose Theatre in Portland, and suffered through a few open air performances in Oxford.  None of this exposure has improved my opinion of the great man’s work, which is, in my illiterate opinion, either bawdy or gory, and I appreciate neither.  I also have a problem with the guy’s literary magpieism – most of his plots were lifted from earlier folk tales or other writers.  Didn’t he have any ideas of his own?  I am continuously bemused by the praise heaped upon this hero of the middle class educational establishment by the kind of people who wouldn’t be caught dead watching a gory slasher movie or smutty Carry-on film.  Because Shakespeare appears to have been the Elizabethan’s equivalent!

Nevertheless I have decided to have another go (in a positive way!), because I fell for a truly amazing scarf and needed a justification for buying it.

The silk in question is a Jacqmar, an English scarf producer long since defunct.  I have a few of their small scarves, the silk is flimsy and perfect for hot weather, and also they tend to be quite cheap – I pick them up in charity shops and such like for a few quid.  But the Shakespeare scarf is another matter altogether.  It is large, 90cm square, and the silk is thicker than the stuff used for the small scarves.  The colours are very nice, too.  But the real selling point is that the scarf depicts the characters of four major Shakespeare plays, complete with stage instructions.  There is a different play in every corner, and the centre shows the Globe Theatre.

You have to admit, this is exciting!  So, to justify the purchase of this scarf, I set myself a challenge for 2014:  I shall see every play depicted on the scarf!  Also I will visit the Globe Theatre, a task I have put off for years, which is a cultural outrage.

So keep an eye on this blog, and you will be able to vicariously tag along to The Tempest, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth.  At least I am spared King Lear, a play I was attacked with at Uni and which struck me as utterly pointless.  I mean, finally the King learns his lesson, and he dies?!?!? What ever happened to happily ever after?  I want happy endings!  In the word of an immortal poet who occasionally inspires me,

Oh cursed tragedies

A murder on each page.

Perverted fantasies

Are acted out on stage.

I just cannot be thrilled

By people being killed!

 Anyway, I hope you like the scarf!

The Tiny Visitors - Learning to fly isn’t as easy as all that!

When Fatty told the sports gliders that the bombers had decided to learn how to fly, they became terribly excited and wanted to know how the bombers proposed to achieve this.

Unfortunately the bombers, though grimly determined to succeed and ruthlessly reckless with their own safety, had so far failed to make progress.  Every night they gathered their mental strength and ordered their bodies to take off into the air, and every night they failed.  Small as they were they were still too heavy to fly unaided!

After several weeks of this even the haughty spitfire had to admit that learning how to fly was not as easy as it looked.  “Very well then,” he said in a dignified voice, “if we can’t fly away suicide it is!  Next time they use me to teach the spotters how to distinguish between me and the German bombers, I shall slip from Herr Grunewald’s grasp and crash to the floor and hopefully break in the process!”

The other bombers were dubious, but did not argue with him.  But the sports gliders thought it was hilarious!  Fancy one of them breaking just because he crashed to the ground.  That might happen to a big airplane, but to a scale model made of solid plastic, designed to survive the rough treatment meted out by small children to their toys?  Not likely!  But why bother arguing with the Limey?  He would find out by himself soon enough!

Such was indeed the case.  The spitfire, and several other bombers who managed to slip from Herr Grunewald’s hands, failed singularly to break when they dropped on the floor.  Aside from a scratch or two they remained unharmed.

“Deutsche Wertarbeit my dear boy,” Fatty told the spitfire.  “Nothing doing.”

The sports gliders had watched the efforts of the bombers with an air of superior amusement.  However, although they failed to fully grasp the seriousness of the situation, they did agree that something had to be done.  Moreover, here was a chance to prove once and for all the superiority of gliders over bombers!

Mechthild Meise, the most strategically minded among them, elected herself Project Manager and organised a brainstorming session.  “What are our strengths and weaknesses?  What are the environmental constraints we are facing?  Who are our allies?  And first and foremost, what do we want to accomplish?” 

After some discussion they agreed that they wanted to escape from their present situation and fly somewhere where they could not be used to destroy their bigger brothers in the sky.  They had no exact destination in mind, but given their size, and the fact that they would probably never be able to fly very far anyway, if indeed they would ever manage to fly at all, this was not a big concern.  “We’ll just go as far as we can, and then hide,” suggested Rex Rhoenadler hopefully.

Which led them to the question of how to make their escape.  Once they had a bit of wind or a thermal they could get away, but thermals and winds were rare inside a closed room!  Suddenly Fatty spoke up.  “Watch the dust,” he said.  “Watch the dust that is suspended in the air and see where it goes when the door opens.”  Next time Herr Grunewald entered the room the tiny gliders watched with rapt attention as the tiny dust particles swirled and danced in the air.  “The fireplace!  There is a draft between the door and the fireplace every time some one opens the door!” observed Waltraud Weihe.

Another Great Birthday!

Friday was my birthday, and since one day isn’t enough to celebrate it I extended it to last for three days.  Friday I treated myself to breakfast at the café, later enjoyed the customary birthday gifts and congratulations at work, and afterwards some good friends took me for cocktails.  Saturday I went to London.  It was a beautifully sunny day, crisp but just perfect for Walking & Talking, which we did to great abandon.  I also managed to buy another scarf, Chasse en Inde, in turquoise and green, which goes very well with a certain cardy which I have never been able to wear because I had no matching scarf for it.  Aside from that I just bought tea.  I tend to buy tea only once or twice a year, in large quantities, and am always amazed how expensive it has become.  £80 for a year’s supply seems a tad on the steep side!  Of well, I never was a PG-Tips kind of girl – I am expensive!

Aside from shopping we mainly walked around.  I took lots of photos of Green Park, just off Piccadilly, and Trafalgar Square.  Quite a few tourists, of course, but not as many as I expected, given the weather.  We also indulged in several large meals, mainly of the seafood variety, and haunted my Club’s premises.

Today I had a long breakfast, first with another friend who had forgotten it was my birthday and paid for my breakfast by way of an apology, then with the Observer and streams of weak milky coffee.  I said it once, I say it again, there are few joys greater than wasting copious amounts of time by reading the papers and drinking weakish coffee in a congenial environment.

Then I went shopping.  I had been given all sorts of vouchers for Christmas and was anxious to spend them.  And I was extremely lucky at East in locating a fabulously green boiled jacket!  I had been looking out for one for a number of years, and never managed to snag one until I saw this one hanging in the sales section.  Sadly it was the wrong size, but after some encouragement, and mentioning the fact that this was my birthday!!! the sales ladies set to and managed to find one my size in Brighton.  They will send it to me later this week.  Yippee!!!

I noticed that mentioning my birthday has a very good effect on others.  Aside from friends paying for my meals and drinks and plying me with gifts, I got a cut-price taxi ride from the man who deposited me near Harrods, and a complimentary bottle of perfume from the Hermes boutique (in addition to six sample bottles!).

The last few months have been very green for me.  I managed to acquire a little collection of green cardigans/pullovers/jackets/vests, as well as a few green scarves, including the justly famous and much coveted Brides de Gala en Finesse in the grass green colour way.  When combined with yellow scarves, they enable me to realise my long held ambition of looking like a dandelion in a field of fresh green grass – an excellent look, you will agree!  Perhaps I will do a little post on green clothes soon, paired with yellow accessories, and then you can judge for yourself. 

In the meantime you will have to make do with my photos of Green Park, the Green Wall of a hotel opposite Green Park, and a snap shot or two near Trafalgar Square, which is just down the road.  I hope your weekend was just as nice as mine!

Just so you know where we are

The Green Wall

Notice the red bird houses?