Emerging from the cave

We have been out and about a little more of late, taking in a couple of performances at the biennial Mayfield Festival.  Last week we were at an enjoyable Cole Porter evening: two capable singers and a pianist who warmed up as the evening advanced.  Last night was the high spot of the festival - for us anyway - with a superb recital by Imogen Cooper.  Mostly stuff I hadn’t heard before, though the second Schubert impromptu was familiar, and I knew one of the Bach chorale preludes.  She paired a piece based on a highly depressing Dowland composition, written by one Thomas Adès, with a Beethoven sonata which neither of us knew, but which delighted me with a couple of lengthy fugato passages in the final movement.  I likes me counterpoint.  She was never going to get away without an encore, and rounded off the evening with a familiar Chopin piece.

Despite having taken cushions with us, we finished up with gravely numb bums from the church pews.  As I still have a lot of post-operative discomfort in that department, this was a bit of a trial.  But one nice surprise was to have my glass of wine dispensed by our former GP, who is plainly thriving in retirement.  I complimented him on his choice of our current GP to take over his list: ‘not that we don’t miss you, of course!’.

The weather has moved from chilly and very wet to sunny and very warm, so we’ve been out in the garden quite a lot, planting out summer bedding, doing a spot of weeding and just sitting beneath the parasol for meals and a bit of general idleness.  Today it’s off to the stores for supplies of compost to earth up our vigorous spuds.  We’ve sown them in the raised bed by the kitchen door this year instead of using bags, so will see if that makes any difference.  We’re experimenting with a salad potato, Alexandra, which we’ve been getting from Fortnums and enjoying.  I couldn’t find seed potatoes, so just chitted a bag of shop stock, and hope for the best.  The aquilegia seedlings I grew last year seem to be coming true to the plants I harvested the seed from: they in turn were seedlings fro Sutton’s Simply The Best.  Recommended.