Two weeks in UK
I spent most of it worrying about my garden and wishing I was in it. I had some time off from baby minding (I was there looking after my one-year-old grandson).
I had a meal with my 28-year-old grandson, and we walked by the canal which brought back memories of my childhood. My grandmother lived by the same canal and my Saturdays were spent playing around the lock, running under and over the nearby bridges of which there are many as it sits at the junction of the Trent and Mersey and the Cauldon. It was near to the Harecastle Tunnel built by Brindley and one of the longest canal tunnel in Europe.
I had two special meals (produce from the garden) at the home of my gardening Guru. We toured the garden both times and I noted the Latin names and the cultivars of some of the flowers he grows. Will my garden ever be anywhere near as amazing as his?
I watched the sunset one evening from Mow Cop ridge with a friend who is so generous that she lends me her house and car whenever I go to the UK. Mow cop is the Southern end of the
Pennines.
I drank coffee and ate too many cakes in the very pretty garden of my writing supporter and her friend S. S is 80 and still plays drums and has only recently and reluctantly given up her motor bike.
Pushing the pram around a local park and then taking tea in a café with a very dear friend was another escape. Unfortunately, I feel I ranted rather too much about negative things. I should have talked about R's visit to hear Judy Chicago. Creator of The Dinner Party. If you don't know about it, then Google it. You will be amazed. I should have told her about Havegal Brian's Gothic Symphony which was on the last Sunday nights prom. Havergal Brian was born in the Potteries my hometown and The Gothic Symphony is the biggest and longest symphony ever written. It uses four brass bands off stage, four choirs, one hundred musicians of which there are nine clarinets and a thunder machine. The North Staffs Symphony Orchestra performed it many years ago in the seventies, I think. I was lucky enough to go to the concert. The audience had to sit in the half of the balcony and the gods because the performers filled the stalls and half the balcony. My then husband taped it on two cassettes but unfortunately, they disappeared long ago as did the souvenir programme. There is one Slovakian recording available on amazon, but I am hoping the proms performance was recorded and will soon be on sale.
I had a meal with my 28-year-old grandson, and we walked by the canal which brought back memories of my childhood. My grandmother lived by the same canal and my Saturdays were spent playing around the lock, running under and over the nearby bridges of which there are many as it sits at the junction of the Trent and Mersey and the Cauldon. It was near to the Harecastle Tunnel built by Brindley and one of the longest canal tunnel in Europe.
I had two special meals (produce from the garden) at the home of my gardening Guru. We toured the garden both times and I noted the Latin names and the cultivars of some of the flowers he grows. Will my garden ever be anywhere near as amazing as his?
I watched the sunset one evening from Mow Cop ridge with a friend who is so generous that she lends me her house and car whenever I go to the UK. Mow cop is the Southern end of the
Pennines.
I drank coffee and ate too many cakes in the very pretty garden of my writing supporter and her friend S. S is 80 and still plays drums and has only recently and reluctantly given up her motor bike.
Pushing the pram around a local park and then taking tea in a café with a very dear friend was another escape. Unfortunately, I feel I ranted rather too much about negative things. I should have talked about R's visit to hear Judy Chicago. Creator of The Dinner Party. If you don't know about it, then Google it. You will be amazed. I should have told her about Havegal Brian's Gothic Symphony which was on the last Sunday nights prom. Havergal Brian was born in the Potteries my hometown and The Gothic Symphony is the biggest and longest symphony ever written. It uses four brass bands off stage, four choirs, one hundred musicians of which there are nine clarinets and a thunder machine. The North Staffs Symphony Orchestra performed it many years ago in the seventies, I think. I was lucky enough to go to the concert. The audience had to sit in the half of the balcony and the gods because the performers filled the stalls and half the balcony. My then husband taped it on two cassettes but unfortunately, they disappeared long ago as did the souvenir programme. There is one Slovakian recording available on amazon, but I am hoping the proms performance was recorded and will soon be on sale.
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