The Hague

Driving from the ferry terminal at Europoort to The Hague was easy, if not quite the most picturesque journey but just an hour after our arrival we were there to meet Ilya and Marieke anticipating a fun day discovering the city.

Our friends are excellent tour guides and we spent a happy day with them. More details to come, however, as we discover that European hotels are not the best places to keep up with email and blog posts. At 50c a minute, online activity is rescheduled for the next stop and a cheaper connection.

The hotel art is stunning here!

Zero miles on the clock – off we go

Passing quickly through Hull, stopping briefly to check all is fine in Cottingham where the bungalow is still for sale, we headed for the ferry. Couldn’t quite resist the lure of haddock and chips though!

Sailing out of the Humber estuary, we enjoyed passing familiar landmarks: Hedon church tower here, in the village where we lived when first married.

Then, further out, the flat Holderness fields, where there seems to be more sky and water than there is land, where my Grandad’s family farmed and where many of my roots are.

Then, just before going indoors for a nightcap, we take a glance at “the other side”, where the yellow bellies live...

Works every time

Opera on an English summer evening can be a risky business except at Longborough, where last night we enjoyed a fine supper in amusing company and a terrific performance of that old tear-jerker, La Boheme.  Wise friends booked a table in a marquee for our picnic and the performance itself takes place in a comfortable, if basic, opera house created from a farm building some years ago.  Still, heavy rain could mean a muddy field and a soggy evening all round, so we were relieved that the weather stayed dry and clear.

A cast of young singers in a contemporary set could have resulted in a performance which was memorable for all the wrong reasons: We still remember the performance of Rigoletto we saw in Sydney Opera House many years ago, not for the wonderful singing or the great production, but for the "hu-u-p" uttered by the henchmen as they lifted the sack containing a rather well-upholstered Gilda causing a few giggles in the audience.   But last night we could sit back and let Puccini play to all our emotions exactly as he designed.

The young cast played convincing roles - I've seen a few productions with singers who looked far too well-fed to persuade me that they were starving artists. Noel Hernandez, playing Rodolfo, looked a bit uncomfortable in his role at times but won me over with his fine voice and overwhelming ability to raise his game at all the right moments.  Madeleine Pierard was a wonderful young Musetta and Duncan Rock a fine Marcello.

Ultimately, though, it's Puccini himself who works the magic.  No matter how many times I hear it, even though I know what happens and I'm aware of the trick of the suspended note and spoken words when Mimi dies, it always makes me cry.

Genius.

Packing up, going home, putting it all away again

For days, we've enjoyed a great working space to ourselves.  A place were we could enjoy sharing our ideas, offer to show each other something new and generally have fun together.  Almost every flat surface was covered with interesting and colourful ingredients, machinery and tools and the room buzzed with life and activity from breakfast time until late into the night or, sometimes, early the next morning. 

Occasionally there was music: Motown, Janis Joplin, Bach...we have eclectic tastes!

But all good things come to an end and this morning, in the space of an hour or two, our lively, inspiring room was returned to a plain old vanilla studio.

Cars were packed and we were all away, most with far longer journeys than me.

Did we leave anything behind?

New friends, old friends

So, we've been here four days and we're all still good friends.  Some of us had met before, a few knew each other pretty well and others had never met face to face.  But several years of emailing and chatting online with the occasional Skype conversation means that we already knew one another, regardless.

Nevertheless, there was the ever-so-small fear that perhaps - just maybe - spending so much time together would provoke a bit of rivalry, a minor irritation might grow into something more and possibly worst of all, one of us would feel less than comfortable in the group.

We needn't have worried.  We are all still rubbing along together pretty well and no-one has been sent packing yet!

This morning a group of conference delegates joined us for breakfast and I spotted a familiar face amongst them.  Not having the confidence to introduce myself without checking first, a quick look at the cast list on reception confirmed the name of a colleague from the first school I taught in, some thirty years ago.  Lovely to see her again, to share a couple of memories from the old days at Kitbridge Middle School on the Isle of Wight.  Of course, she'd not changed a bit!