Slipping By
25 August

The summer is slipping by as it is wont to do.

I've spent quite a bit of the last fortnight or so on my own. Ross has been off at his parents. He does that once or twice a year. And what with him going off for a couple of weeks, me taking trips down to London and me going off round Europe with Roland every so often, we probably spend the best part of a month apart each year.

On the whole, I think that this is a good idea. Respite for the two of us from each other and a measure of our interdependent independence.

As a prelude, Ross's parents came over and we all went out for a meal. We were joined by Ross's brother Sam and his (relatively) new boyfriend Jamie. Jamie is also a medic. In fact, he is a practising anaesthetist (and I'm really surprised that the spellchecker has told me that I have spelt that correctly first time of asking).

Jamie lives over on the Wirral reasonably close to my parents. He goes sailing on the Dee estuary and has taken Sam out. I'm reasonably jealous. I'd quite fancy seeing my old territory from a different angle.

the two of them have also been doing their thing for gay rights and the NHS at Pride celebrations in the North West this summer. At least, I think that this is what is happening in these photographs.

It could, of course, be formal notification that Steps are re-forming after all.

Anyhow, we all went out for a meal and had a reasonable time of it. We went to Matou where Roland and I had had lunch back in July. Everyone liked the food which was a great relief since this was my suggestion. As well as the River Mersey, we also had this cruise liner as a backdrop.

It is called The World and, apparently, people rent apartments on it and live there whilst floating from one place to the next. Unlike commercial cruises, they tend to stay in places for a few days so that the inhabitants can explore the locality. I guess that it is quite a coup for it to come to Liverpool.

And then Ross left with his parents and I went home alone.

Usually when he is off like this, I have a reasonably enjoyable time of it. It's a chance to stay up late, open the curtains first thing in the morning, fart with impunity, that sort of thing.

This time, I just felt alone. The house simply felt empty. My only consolation was that I did cook some nice meals for myself. But, as for doing all the household tasks I thought I would do, the only thing that I managed was laying hardboard in the bathroom in preparation for laying some tiles.

One bright spot came on the Saturday night. As well as New York's Metropolitan Opera broadcasting live opera to cinemas, our very own Glyndebourne Festival is getting in on the act. So, I took great delight in going to FACT and catching up with Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress in a classic production directed by John Cox with designs by David Hockney drawing deeply on Hogarth's etchings.

And, frankly, I enjoyed it a lot more than I did back in 1992 in Manchester. What sounded really difficult on the ear eighteen years ago was now very jolly, almost like a Broadway musical in some respects. Maybe I've just heard an awful lot more Handel and Kurt Weill since then.

I was very impressed with Matthew Rose as the devil incarnate, Nick Shadow. I seemed to me that he both sang and inhabited the rˆle with great élan. Topi Lehtipuu's Tom Rakewell was another excellent creation and I also liked Miah Perrson as Anne Truelove. Among the smaller rôles, Susan Gorton as Mother Goose, Clive Bayley as Father Trulove and, especially, Elena Manistina as Baba the Turk all made sturdy contributions. Vladimir Jurowski was excellent in the pit.

A very good night out.

On Sunday, I took in Quaker meeting in Southport. Given the past few years, there is nothing entirely outrageous about that. However, It will be the last time for a while that I will got there. Since work moved to the centre of Liverpool in February, I've felt that my centre of gravity has shifted again.

So, I'm going to try going to Meeting for Worship in Liverpool just to see how things work out despite a bad experience there in 2003.

Nevertheless, I felt that I should be telling my fellow Quakers in Southport what I was doing.

Then I returned to Crosby, settled the cats down, battened down the hatches and got into my car to drive over to the east coast. There was a pleasant evening and a meal with Ross and his folks and a good night's sleep.

And then, in the morning, we came home via the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We've been there twice before in June 2006 and in September 2007. This time we were visiting especially to see an exhibition of works by David Nash. We went to see some of his stuff last year at Blackwell Arts and Crafts House and Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal and really enjoyed it.

We enjoyed this show as well. However, I would have to say that I don't think that it added anything to my knowledge of or understanding of the artist that I hadn't already gathered last year.

In fact, some of the pieces were exactly what we had seen last year including the rather fun film of a wooden ball being carried down the course of a river over several years by the spring and autumn surges until, at last, it disappears out into Cardigan Bay.

There were one or two pieces which were new to us and they were truly splendid but, overall, whilst not a disappointment, there was little or no Wow!! factor about the show.

And it rained.

It rained a lot.

So, just three stars I feel.

The cats were glad to see us and to get out for a stretch when we got back. And then I was back into work on the Tuesday. However, when I have a trip away like that of a weekend, it really does feel as though I've been away from a long time.

Currently, we are winding down our present contingent of students with more to start in the near future. However, I would have to say that I don't get much sense of urgency from Jill as to drumming up business. If we don't start making more money soon, then I could well understand the company looking hard at our jobs.

Tuesday night Ross and I zipped into town after a very quick bite to eat for another helping (for me anyway) of opera from Glyndebourne. This time it was Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. Unlike Saturday's performance of The Rake's Progress, this wasn't being given as live. It was a video capture of a recorded performance.

And someone had done something very odd with the acoustic so that the solo singers sounded just about as loud as the chorus in full flight. The balance was all wrong; it was unnatural and lacking in stage focus.

So, in the circumstances, it is amazing that I still felt as drawn into the performance as I did. I think that the set, designed by Christopher Oram, worked incredibly well and Michael Grandage's gave us a set of fully-rounded personalities on stage. The human drama was entirely believable. and the music making under the baton of Mark Elder was fabulous - it's the best thing that I have heard him conduct in a long time.

Jacques Imbrailo's Billy Budd was athletically personable and very moving in his acceptance of his death sentence. John Mark Ainsley is one of my favourite artists and I was not surprised that his portrayal of Captain Vere simply added to a list of memorable performances by him. Phillip Ens gave us an all too credible Claggart - not a personification of evil but a desperate man driven to the bad. Matthew Rose popped up again as an excellent Mr Flint and Jeremy White put in a good cameo as the old sea dog Dansker. All in all a very good performance.