I nearly always are able to go to a hunt meet. This was called cubbing because it is before the opening meet which is usually the first week in November. There is no colorful red coats etc for cubbing. There were forty hounds and about 25 riders on this Saturday. We had to get up early for the meet at 8 am and then went and had breakfast.
This was the 56th time I had stayed at Garrington - the farmhouse from where my brother in law developed the farm and my sister raised four children (and now 8 grandchildren). Nowadays my nephew Robert runs the farms - there are seven different farms with about 3300 acres (1300 hectares) under his management. They have four full time staff and huge machinery. It is mostly arable - wheat, barley, beans, soy but also a small herd of cattle. There are also many other farm activities like horses, pheasant rearing, bee keeping, chickens, solar, rental cottages etc.
My sister Anne is not allowed to drive after a head injury earlier this year which means she does not get out so much. Her brother therefore acted as driver. One day we went to Whitstable where as a teenage driver I had delivered ice creams and then to Sandwich Beach near the famous golf club where we walked her dog Bandit.
The final concert of the Canterbury Festival was in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral with the Canterbury Choral Society performing J.S. Bach’s B Minor Mass. My sister and I also scattered some remaining ashes of my mothers which niece Helen had retained in the Memorial Gardens of the Cathedral. My mother died 12 years ago at the age of 97 and would have been 110 on November 1st. Most of her ashes were buried in this garden in a small ceremony conducted by a priest about 12 years ago.
Most years I manage to arrange to stay with my sister Anne on her farm near Canterbury while the Canterbury Festival is on.
The Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Stephen Barlow performed a concert titled The English Soul. “The English Soul endeavors to capture the emotive and spiritual nature of Englishness through classical and popular music. From Purcell to the Moody Blues Vaughan Williams to a World Premier of a new work by composer and arranger Michael McDermott”
The new work was a tribute to Elizabeth II titled “Heart and Soul of a Nation” and was a world premier. Much enjoyed.
A talk “ The BBC: A People’s History” by David Hendy based on a recently published book was fascinating. “From its maverick beginnings through the war, the creation of television, changing public taste, austerity and massive cultural change, the BBC has constantly evolved”
Classical Therapy by the MozART Group who are from Warsaw Poland was great fun. “We all agree that laughter is the best medicine. The MosART Group have been dispensing their unique comic brand of Musical therapy around the major concert halls of Europe, Asia and the America’s since 1995. Virtuoso playing of favorite pieces of the classical repertoire meets hilarious physical shenanigans and musical jokes a plenty. Guaranteed to lift the spirits and leave you howling with laughter. A real tonic for the times - sadly not available on prescription - but you don’t need to be in BUPA to access their cure.”
Amazingly there are 41 walks listed in the Canterbury Festival Program. “Canterbury’s Pilgrimage Routes” organized by the Canterbury Ramblers with a very informative guide Cliff Huggett was a “walk of the last mile or two of the routes from Winchester and Southwark, the Augustine Camino and the start of the Via Francigena to Rome”
My friend and contemporary Tom, who is a widower lives on Chesterton Road close to the middle of the city of Cambridge. We both rowed (he still does go sculling on the Cam), were at the London Hospital together for our clinical years and were in the Public Health field. One of his last responsibilities was as manager of the UK’s National Cancer Registry. I have stayed with him several times. The first evening a couple who we had known as undergraduates came to dinner - Nick and Jo. They had got married we think while we were still undergraduates. He became a Pediatrician in Cambridge and she a GP. They had three children, adopted two more and now have ten grandchildren and three great grandchildren! On the last day I visited the Cambridge Museum which my Grandfather had played a big role in getting started in about 1935. Tom came with me as he knows a great deal about the history of rowing in Cambridge, in particular the Rob Roy Boat Club which was for the Townies. I am hoping the Museum may pick up on some of his knowledge. They will need to interview him and take and oral history because it is too much to expect home to write it all down.The museum is focused on Cambridgeshire life over the centuries rather than anything to do with the University.
While staying in Cambridge the British political soap opera/fiasco has been playing out. One political commentator Peter Osborne who used to write for the Daily Telegraph, wrote a piece for the New York Times saying “the country has been reduced to a global laughing stock”. It has been interesting to watch some of the BBC coverage with commentary from people in Yorkshire, Scotland, Wales and Ireland - not all of which would make it to BBC world.
I had booked a train from Liverpool Street to Cambridge. Having to move out of my room at the Reform Club at 10.30 I had time to spare. Why not walk? It took about an hour but involved walking along the embankment and then through the middle of the city of London. One benefit was there was only one place I had to climb steps (unlike the Underground where there can be lots of steps). Another benefit is I only have one carry on case and a shoulder bag that contains my IPad etc. One really gets the feel of London, its history and how people move about when you walk. Much enjoyed. The first pictures are from the Reform Club. Then the Embankment and lastly Trafalgar Square.
At home we might spend the evening watching a movie. When you are in London and a four minute walk from Theaters why not go to another show.
“Only Fools and Horses” is a musical created from a long-standing sitcom TV show of the 1980s at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. A highly discounted ticket was available.
Having lived for three years in Cockney London at Stepney Green as a medical student at the London Hospital the humour was great. The show apparently used some of the best parts of the sitcom and then set some of it to music.
It was a wonderfully slick performance- rapid pace, great dancing, jokes, humorous family events and singing etc.
It was serendipity. I saw an advert while riding the tube that La Boheme was being performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. I thought - maybe I will go to-morrow. Then at about 6.30 pm I thought I had better check which days it was being performed. It turned out that it was on on Monday night but not again until Thursday. According to Google maps it was an 18 minute walk to the Opera House. Amazingly I got there in time to purchase a ticket in the Amphitheatre, have a snack and be in my seat for the performance at 7.30.
I think I had seen a live performance once before but have a CD with Luciano Pavarotti singing the role of Rodolfo which I have played many times, particularly in the past on Polyandra.
It was a great performance. It was a co-production with Teatro Real, Madrid, and Lyric Opera of Chicago. The Royal Opera House now is the home also for the the National Ballet. The old Covent Garden buildings have been partly taken over so that the Opera House has extensive areas for eating, drinking and for ice creams. I sat next to one woman who was in London for three days from Switzerland and another one who was a hairdresser from Los Angles who was spending three weeks visiting the UK and Paris.
I count myself lucky to have chanced on this great performance of Puccini’s La Boheme.
