The earthenware tiles in the kitchen are cooling underfoot as autumn approaches.
Thanks to Sainsbury's yellow ticket discount policy, I was able to have a fabbity morning repast comprising fresh brewed coffee, walnut bread, blue stilton, cambozola, garlic paté, salami and prosciutto ham. Nom nom. Actually, I'm not sure nowadays as to whether you'd call it a Continental Breakfast or a Brexit Brunch. Ha!
There has been a round of regular Dentist visits and flu jabs.
I saw my first opera of the 2017/18 season thanks to the public service of cinecasts direct from the Royal Opera House. As a piece of sublime fun and profoundly joyous entertainment, it is difficult to think of a work that could out-class Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.
I was a bit surprised, when I checked, to discover that I hadn't seen a performance of this work for nearly fifteen years.
The David McVicar production, however, is an old friend and the performance, conducted by Julia Jones, was abso-flute-ly marvellous.
The cast worked together as an ensemble which is the right approach to this opera. Nevertheless, there were two stand out performances.
Roderick Williams is such a focussed, down-to-earth person that it should have been no suprise that his assumption of Papageno would have all of those qualities and more (I didn't realise that he had such good comic timing for example). And he took the character's one moment of pathos (the attempted suicide) and made something deeply saddening about it.
I've heard a number of Queens of the Night as some have been more successful than others. Sabine Devieilhe was, without doubt, the real thing. The notes were all there but the words were sung with true meaning as well.
I realise that what I am about to say exposes my limited understanding of the teachings, interpretations and practices of Buddhism but, to me, the idea of a Buddhist army in Myanmar sounds like a contradiction in terms.
I have also attended my first RLPO concert of the 2017/18 season conducted by Vassily Petrenko. Barber's Overture School for Scandal was well played but it's not a piece I find that I can get excited about.
Rachmaninov's Symphony No2 was dusted down and given a full, ripe performance. It was certainly romantic but it was never sentimental. There was ebb and flow and there were overwhelming climaxes and true moments of inner reflexion. I (and the audience agreed with me) felt that it was as good a reading of the work as you are likely to hear anywhere at present.
The major disappointment of the evening was the concerto - Dvorak's Cello Concerto. I can't say that Alexey Stadler particularly was at fault with his command of the cello. But I do think that Petrenko doesn't get works that grow organically and require the lilt and sway and snap of peasant music at their heart. Still, it would be wrong to expect him to be a genius at everything.
We have had a poorly cat who was passing blood through her rear end. It all happened over a weekend and so Ross and I took Jemima down to the PDSA clinic in South Liverpool.
The working prognosis was for a gastric infection of some sort and appropriate medications were prescribed. Thank goodness the blood tests showed that nothing horrendous was going on. At the same time, Jemima was due a regular vets' visit shortly after for an ongoing thyroid check-up so she had a second look over without the expense of a second lot of bloods.
Anyhow, Jemima responded well to treatment. She very quickly became a lot brighter and started eating food and drinking water independently. Most importantly, she began grooming herself. We hoped with all due fervour that the blood filled poo was a thing of the past.
Here are some autumn leaves. Some would see dead leaves; some would see mulch; I see a gift of colour.
