A day in the life of the Big Smoke...

A wee mini adventure in-between house clearing chores took us to London town to enjoy and rather stunning space spectacular concert at the Royal Albert Hall this last weekend. This was my first visit to this venue and we had a brilliant night out. Dr Fred and I were guests of two very dear pals who treated us to a private box, we made a serious effort - you know brushing hair and proper clobber and all looking the bees knees we had a very enjoyable evening - fab meal at a nearby Lebanese restaurant and then superb music from various composers (including John Williams) performed by the London Concert Orchestra with Raymond Gubbay, accompanied by a laser light show and indoor fireworks. ET turned up as did Superman and Darth Vader - the music was amazing - varied and it surprised me how much of it I instantly recognized from the various film sound tracks - many movies that I have grown up with over the years...

The next day we got up and organised and went to the Tower of London - another place I had not visited before. we have always felt that if we did ever get in power as a group of dissidents we would rounding up a lot of people and sending them to the Tower so it would be a good idea to scope it out!!!

It was heaving with tourists!!! So we joined the various queues and had a really informative day out... we wandered around with one of the Beefeater tours - very entertaining and full of the gory details so often associated with the Tower (less than I'd imagined) - the Crown Jewels were very sparkly and seemingly lacking much security but we decided not to test this theory - bloomin thick doors on each end of display room but we had expected more visible armed protection - after all the single diamond in the sceptre is worth a mere 400 million squids!!!

The ravens were evident but really not happy to pose for photographs - I expect it gets a bit wearing being so responsible - legend has it if they leave the tower it will fall and the country will be ruined - they are well cared for ... meanwhile their wings are clipped, but they are on rations ... probably get fed better then some families....

The Tower is a institution, run on routines and rituals. Its not quite as fanciful as Gormanghast but similarities emerge... traditions are upheld and played out daily, there is even a room with bright carvings - the wooden horses date back to the 17th century (some earlier) and they are quite exquisite and beautiful.

It was a long day - so much to see - we got museum leg after about 4 hours, just couldn't take any more in so we headed of to a very fancy patisserie to eat lovely french cakes and coffee before returning to the car to head back into everyday life...

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Autumnal Garden Days

I love these (rare) warm sunny late summer days and there is all sorts of lovely things going on in my garden... I counted 12 red admiral butterflies whizzing around the over grown ivy which I had been about to hack down but then left until the flutterbies have finished with it... The late blooms add a dash of colour and the daisy strewn lawn is littered with autumnal leaves, debris from my brief half an hour of slash and burn and the stone wall is covered in glorious soft moss all shiny and tactile with a few late nasturtiums loitering. I've hacked out the brambles for this year, sadly I missed the fruit as we were away, ditto the strawberries, we never seem to get the fruit before the birds so I've made space and moved the plants that were getting swamped and so not performing to their potential - hopefully next year they will literally blossom now they have light and room to flourish.

Goodbye Dissertation!!!

The dissertation is finished... it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh... I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic! there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all....

Planet Ruby Starrs

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