Wind and Rain
29 October

Recently, when I read some parts of last year's Journal, I experienced a mild sense of déja vu.

I was prepared to record here about the gales and the torrential rain. I wanted to point out that it was still incredibly mild - we have caterpillars on our herbs.

However, the world was much the same this time last year.

I was prepared to record here how I was feeling quite reasonable in myself. I wanted to point out that I was free from medication of all sorts and that my sinuses, eczema and asthma were not troubling me.

However, once again, the world was much the same this time last year.

What I suppose I can say is that, although the generally oppressive layers of cloud weigh heavily on me (I'm sure that it was brighter at this time last year), I do not have the same lurking fear as I had last year or in previous years. I feel that I shall just try to cope with whatever comes my way.

Ross is still feeling tired after his bout of cold. However, between now and Christmas, he has much less work on so he can relax a little and concentrate on his own creative work.

Work continues. I'm picking up on the general feeling that everyone feels that the programmers are the only group of people who appear to matter and whose professional needs are understood. I still feel that most of the people who are complaining do not know when they are really well off. Still, I am also completing a job application for the Land Registry.

Friday night brought a trip over to the Wirral to see my parents and the Prescotts, including sister Linda and goddaughter, Mary. We had a good time.

Mary told me all about her school work and I saw a video of her involvement in a school play and a school assembly. She is tall for her age and full of energy. Possibly as a consequence, she is prone to throat infections. There's the old adage about out-growing your own strength at that age. Still it's nothing to be worried about.

The last time I saw Tristan and Isolde was on 24 February 1996 in a performance given by English National Opera. Three years before that, I actually saw Welsh National Opera give a performance in Liverpool in this production conducted by Charles Mackerras. In all I have now attended five performances of the work in my lifetime and, for the moment, it is right to call a halt. I think that I have had it with Wagner.

During the course of this journal, as well as attending two performances of Tristan and Isolde, I have also seen The Flying Dutchman given by English National Opera on 17 September 1997 and Parsifal given by Welsh National Opera on 1 November 2003. If you compare that number to the performances of works by Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Puccini which I have attended, then you can see immediately that his works are not my first love.

But I think that it's become more than that. I left at the second interval. I left because it was an average performance - worth just two stars - and average just does not cut it with a work of this magnitude. With an hour's interval facing me and then another eighty to ninety minutes of music to come, I realised that I could be home and in bed before the final curtain. And so, I left. I left because vocally it just was not interesting enough. The vocal line was boring and the voices were dry and uninteresting.

Every single performer sounded over parted and this was in a small theatre after only four performances. Heaven knows how they will sound in six weeks time in the barn that is the Liverpool Empire. John Mac Master has a small tight voice that was inadequate. Annalena Perrson had heft for the curses and breath for the paragraphs but no beauty of tone. Between the two principles, the second act love duet was the most raucous I have ever heard live.

I did like Robert Hayward's Kurwenal (he had some juice to his voice) but Alfred Reiter, who I heard three years ago in Parsifal as an exceptional Gurnemanz, sounded thin and grating. Worst of all was Susan Bickley's Brangäne. She was so good in Albert Herring, Jephtha and Rusalka that it is painful to record that she sounded quite discomforted in the rôle.

The ticket cost nearly £50. Initially, the idea was that Roland and I were going to have a night out together. However, in the event, Roland could not make it. Despite other attempts to find a companion, I ended up going alone. As a social occasion, it might have been fun but I don't think that I'm going to feel pressed to repeat the experience for many, many years.

Luckily, the hour changed overnight and so I wasn't under any time pressure this morning to get to Quaker meeting. I was in charge of our first children's meeting for a number of years and so got to meet Alex, Thomas and Abi and their mother, Kath. That was immediately followed by a meeting of the Quest study group so it was a very Quakerly day indeed.

Evening brought a little television including Torchwood, the Dr Who spin off starring John Barrowman as Captain Jack. It is early days to make too many judgements but it feels to be OK to good so far.