An evening with Madam Butterfly....

I had a lovely evening at The Royal Albert Hall yesterday....a beautiful production of Madam Butterfly.....

Not a particularly good photo, but it is staged in the round and the set was lovely....it was an all round exquisite production. Which of course brought a tear to my eye at the end as it always does.

The tickets were a steal through an offer from Time Out, so my friends and I only paid £37 for £68 tickets in the stalls.  A little bit of a nailbiter as you have to wait and see where the theatre will seat you, but although we were a little bit round to one side, we were in the front row!

I work almost opposite the Royal Albert Hall, so it was a very good location for an evening out, but I didn't get home till quarter to midnight.  The cat was sitting waiting for me with her arms crossed, tapping one foot on the floor and glaring at me as if to say " where the heck have you been....I've been sitting here waiting for hours!" She couldn't wait to get in the bedroom and flop on the bed with me! Then coming to work this morning I felt like I hadn't been home at all!

Don't disturb me....I'm meditating.....

World's Biggest Coffee Morning.....

Well not so much a morning as a day!

As you may know Macmillan Cancer Support organises the World's Biggest Coffee Morning each year to raise funds for the excellent works.  So today at work we had a Charity Bake Sale to do just that. 

Making tea and coffee is a bit problematic for a large group of people here so I roped in enlisted the help of various people to make and bring cakes.  We have had a great day, there are a few leftovers, which may very well keep till Monday anyway, and we have collected £150 for the charity.

Star Baker was this donation from Thomas (age 3) assisted by his mum!

 

Don't they all look fabulous!?

 

 

In my garden this afternoon....

He knew I was there, but wasn't particularly bothered!

 

I got bored with my cat...so I decided to grow a new one....

Little things that annoy....

There is a car illegally parked in Piccadilly, London (for those of you who might not know this is a very busy road between Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner).  It's blocking the traffic and has a clamp on it, but it's been there for 3 days....why hasn't it been towed away!? 

This is annoying to me because where I live in East London, you can get towed away for parking with half a tyre outside the white line which indicates where you can park partly on the pavement....and it's not even a main road!!

Moan over....

The view from the window...

One of my favourite blogs is by Lucy at Attic 24.  She has a lovely writing style and a good eye for a photo.  I love her posts about the outings the family have in and around her home town in the Yorkshire Dales.  I would love to be able to go for walks like that at the moment.

Unfortunately I'm having some issues with sciatica and joint pain generally which prevent me from walking very much, but I love the countryside and as I live in a particularly grimy part of London I often long to get out of town.  One of the things I do occasonally is drive out to my favourite farm shop at Calcott Hall Farm.  I don't go on a regular basis as it rather far to go on a regular weekly trip, so I use it as a bit of a treat.  I go for lovely locally produced fruit and veg, plus they have a great butcher and fresh bread. Plus lots of other general groceries by smaller producers that you won't find in the high street supermarket. Anyway...I digress... there are two routes I can take to get there, the first is the A12... no way, on a Saturday!  The other is via, Epping, or Theydon Bois, through Ongar and so to the outskirts of  Brentwood.  This is still a busy route (not half as bad as the A12!) but at least I get to see some greenery! I shop for yummy goodies, and usually treat myself to coffee or lunch on the way home.

So there I was on Saturday, in a little traffic queue waiting to go over the quaint bridge into Abridge. It was a lovely day, and the windows were open, I was gazing out over the field to my right, and just grabbed my phone and took a quick photo out of the car window....



The view from the window

The flash of yellow caught my eye particularly, even though I know it's Oil Seed Rape, and smells disgusting! Not a brilliant phot, but given that it was taken in 10 seconds flat...not bad!