Off the Boil
23 October

This has been the week of my half term. It's a week earlier that the schools but that just makes it all the more enjoyable.

There have been two main reasons for having this week off - opera in Llandudno with Welsh National Opera and completing the decorating in the music room. We haven't quite managed the latter but the week has meant that we are much further on in our endeavours.

Part of the reason that the decorating is taking longer than it might is that Ross keeps having good ideas like taking the radiator off the wall so that we can paper and paint behind it, like undercoating the lining paper with white emulsion so that the wall paint really stands out, like putting on second coats of paint here and there to secure a fuller richer tone.

All of which I agree with but I also acknowledge that it adds to the time and it adds to the work that (primarily) I have to do.

The one area with which I am in complete agreement with my little poppet is in his choice of environmentally friendly paints. They have been an absolute joy to use and come in delightful colours and it is heart-warming to have a quality product which also reduces the strain on the planet.

There have been a few soundtracks to the week. We've recently acquired some CDs of Dinah Washington singing a host of standards and these have proved most pleasant. It's been a joy also to listen to Thomas Hampson and Dawn Upshaw singing Copland songs. And Ross has been most taken with a CD of Thomas Allen, one of my all time favourite artists, singing operatic selections; his favourite track was from Billy Budd which is good news since we are travelling to London to attend a performance in December.

At bedtime, we've been settling down to Barchester Towers. This classic Radio 4 dramatisation has provided a backdrop to the last decade since we've listened to it three times already in 1997, 1999 and 2001.

It's interesting to note how my views change over the years. I find myself much less accommodating of Lily Dale's unbending self-righteousness and I'm less likely to overlook Johnny Eames's canting hypocrisy. Conversely, I find more time to be sympathetic to the deluded ambition of Mark Robarts and I find Sowerby's fall from grace entirely tragic. I'm won over by the sentiment of the union between Mary Thorne and Frank Gresham. I still love Mr Harding and Miss Dunstable, later Mrs Thorne. I somehow manage to have a soft spot for Mrs Proudie.

What else have we been doing. Well, on Monday, we spent nearly £1,000 in a year's time. We did this by purchasing two sofas for the front room at DFS in Speke - payment has been deferred by twelve months in accordance with the credit agreement.

Our sales assistant was Matt. He was entirely delightful, chatty, knowledgeable about his product and, according to Ross, had very large balls. I asked how Ross knew this and he talked of trouser movements. Each to their own I say. All I'd noticed were the pleasant buttocks and Michael Owen-ish look to the face. I think we'd both like to reward him with a large deposit on his bonus.

Tuesday took us over to Llandudno for Welsh National Opera's performance of Franz Léhar's The Merry Widow. It was a centenary tribute so the production to the work seriously on its own merits. Unfortunately, this meant that all of the dialogue was included and we spent some three and a quarter hours in the theatre. Someone needs to remember that singers don't do speech very well and take some scissors to the script.

Luckily, we'd boxed clever and avoided Lesley Garrett as the Widow. Naomi Harvey may have been missing the odd note here and there but she vocalised well and was a generous acting partner to Jeffrey Black's Danilo. He was vocally moderate but, again, scored well in the believability stakes. I cared for both characters.

Otherwise the cast was OK but not exactly fine. The exception was Geoffrey Dolton's Njegus who was sensationally funny. The sets and costumes were staggeringly and elegantly good.

There was so much about this that was right that I'm really sorry I can't summon up more enthusiasm for it. After the disaster of Die Fledermaus three years ago, it was an utter joy by comparison. And maybe there's the rub. The company just need to relax more into the operetta style.

If they've not thrown away the perfectly serviceable sets and costumes for Die Fledermaus, they should get someone else to direct a production inside of them. Ross and I would be glad to see this The Merry Widow again in two or three years time, in the summer, on holiday in Llandudno, when it's all matured and become easy for them. This time, however, it's just two stars.

As a foot note to the performance, the last time that Ross and I went to see this work was in 1997 when the Royal Opera was migrating around London because Covent Garden was closed. The cast included Thomas Allen and Felicity Lott. The music was lovely, the production was stupid, the cast sang well and spoke the dialogue badly.

It was the last time that Ross walked to an operatic performance. Six days later he cried off going to see Janacek's From The House Of The Dead at English National Opera. It was a sign that his CFS had become debilitating.

That was eight years ago. In between times, there have been a number of ups and downs. Ross went to Barton in February 1998 to stay with his parents. He came back to London that August to complete his degree and lived in a variety of flats in East London, latterly with his friend Chris. After my return to the North West in 2000, I settled here in Crosby in November of that year. Ross joined me in the following December. It took us a couple of years to put in place the support network of care assistants, stair lift, wheelchairs and balanced medication for Ross and a four day week, reiki, yoga and Quakerism for me. So, really only in the last two years have the two of us begun to feel more in control of our lives again.

There was an example of this on Wednesday. Ross had a meeting scheduled at Crosby Catholic Primary School where he did some work during the last school year. He used to get there either by car or taxi, crawling through the drive time traffic. On this occasion, he struck out and, given that it was a bright if cold day, used his electric wheelchair. It took him just 20 minutes to get there under his own guidance. Probably less than five minutes longer than by taxi.

He's also been up to Crosby to do shopping on his own. These are small things by themselves but he simply wouldn't have had the self-confidence or wherewithal to consider them even two years ago. From such matters do we gauge our progress.

The day had a number of curious turns to it. Our neighbour Chrissie was taken to hospital by ambulance. Her drinking sets off her epilepsy. Really she should allow herself to be taken into some sort of supported care. However, the only route available would be to go into Psychiatric Hospital and I suspect that the stigma of that is too great for her to bear. So, she will probably go in and out of hospital until she does something so foolish that she kills herself. It's also probably unfortunate that her closest neighbour is Bev whose social culture revolves around alcohol.

Come the evening after a day of painting the ceiling and me getting a crick in my neck, we headed off to Bootle Town Hall for a meting of Sefton Council Planning Committee. This was, we had been told, the meeting at which the future of Crown Buildings in Crosby would be discussed. In the event, it was a non event. The item wasn't on the agenda but it was interesting to see that the democratic process hasn't changed very much since the 1970s when I was working for Merseyside Arts Association.

So we headed home and I stopped off for some wine on Mersey Road. And that's when I noticed that our splendid Vision Video rental shop had closed. I asked at the wine shop and was told that they had been struggling for about a year. The decision by the distributers to release films to DVD for sale and rental at the same time had hit the whole sector. Peer-to-peer downloading has presumably also put a dent into the market. If you are operating on tight margins, the two together were probably enough to take more than the icing off the gingerbread.

What is really disappointing is that I didn't get the chance to say goodbye or to offer thanks for four years of excellent service and chats. Talking to the guy in the off license, he was saying that the closure would inevitably affect their business. Which must be true. I've often got a DVD and bottle of wine at the same time. If I'm not going there for DVDs, the chances are I will go there less for wine. And I shall be one of many and so another small, specialist, local retailer comes under threat. How these things are inter-linked.

We went home and watched Wallace and Grommit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Which was fun and inventive and everything you'd expect from an Ardman Animation film.

However, we watched it on a DVD supplied by a colleague with good peer-to-peer connections. So, we, in our way, are also part of the closure of the DVD rental shop. We've not rented a lot this year - not because we've downloaded everything but more because there really hasn't been a lot we would have wanted to rent. And we tend to see the main films that we want to see in the cinema at Plaza.

Thursday, I had my first reiki session with Janet in nearly six months. All my chakra centres were open and turning in unison. And the reiki itself was as deep as though six months had not intervened.

We've continuing with the painting. The ceiling is now done and the frieze below is mostly complete. I've started on the cornice moulding which we decided to pick out in the same colour as the gloss for the woodwork. It was a good idea but it is causing me all sorts of bother trying to get reasonably straight edges of paint on the joins.

Friday, Ross spent the morning in his studio with Sue whilst Sandra cleaned the house and I continued with more painting. The undercoating of the lining paper is now finished and I've cracked on with the frieze to the point where it's all but done. The cornice moulding is taking longer because the concentration is draining, painting upside down is tiring and I don't want to hang off the top of the ladder when there's no-one else around.

So, when Ross went to sleep in the afternoon, I took the opportunity to do some shopping and household things like paying for our new mattress and closing an old Building Society account so that, in the near future, we can open a joint savings account. And I sorted out the car parking for when I go to Barcelona in November and I sorted out the hotel for when Ross and I go to London in December and I bought tickets for Ross and I to go and see English Touring Opera in Ulverston in December and I chased the builder for his quote for the work to the front bay window.

Saturday morning I lazed in bed. Ross brought me a cup of tea and I thumbed through The Guardian whilst listening to Radio 3. So, you might say, why mention such trivial idleness. Well, as Ross agrees, it has been entirely untypical of me over recent years. I'm more likely to be bouncing out of bed come what may. The fact that Ross has beaten me to it at least three times this week shows that I am happy to take the chance to relax.

I have also, mind you, been keeping a cold at bay. I just wish it would break and leave me. But, hey.

Come the afternoon, I climbed into the car on my own and drove off to North Wales. This year's summer was accounted as being very dry in most places. This is the avowed reason why the autumn colours are so bright this year. It's a while since I have seen so many rich reds, deep yellows and acid oranges in the trees.

My reason for the journey was another Welsh National Opera performance - this time Verdi's Don Carlos. My reason for travelling alone was that, at over four hours of music, Ross felt it was just too massive an undertaking for him.

The company presented a very full account of the score. I'm not sure that the opening chorus really gave us that much extra but, later on, the extended scenes involving Eboli really helped to flesh out her character and motivation. Guang Yang really excelled here.

My other cheer of the evening went to Daniel Sumegi as the Grand Inquisitor - he really should have been singing Philip. Certainly, it was a much more tightly focussed performance than his Escamillo in Carmen last year. I also liked Sofia Mitropoulos's Elizabeth but it is clearly a rôle which she will grow more into.

So, there were pluses and minuses. I felt I understood the political motivations more than I have done previously. I saw more balancing strength in the other love triangles involving Eboli.

However, Andrea Silvestrelli's Philip was a dud, boomingly sung and acted as though he had come straight out a hammed up version of Pagliacci. The big auto da fé went for very little - a bit of dry ice does not make a heretic burning. And there was more to the relationship between Carlos and Elizabeth that we saw or heard. I think I am not a fan of Paul Charles Clarke's voice. It is just not opulent or ringing enough for this sort of music. I made a similar sort of comment about him when I heard him sing Pinkerton in 2002.

So, I can award the performance three stars for good but, really, Don Carlos demands more than just good - it cries out for excellence in all departments. And here, really, it just felt all the time as though WNO were trying to box above their weight. Yes, fabulous company achievement and all that darlings but what about Macbeth? what about Simon Boccanegra? what about something rare like Il Corsaro? These would seem more likely to bring four and five star performances out of the company. I know that they have had personnel changes and a change of venue to content with but WNO have really gone off the boil recently.

I got back late, slept in, got a cup of tea and The Observer delivered to me in bed and had sex with Ross for the first time in some months.

This latter may seem odd given the juvenile consistency, rapidity and regularity with which nookie used to take place. But, though many things have improved over the past few years, our abilities to handle intimacy have taken something of a knock. So, sex is another thing that has gone off the boil. But we are working on it.