And we're past the equinox and heading towards the time of darkness.
And still some persist in talking as though the climate of our planet is not changing.
Mary started her final year at university: she'll be living in a house off campus with a group of girls. I'm sure it will all be character building.
Roland and I both wanted to catch Martinu's The Greek Passion but, because of diary clashes for him, our best chance to see it together was to travel to Leeds which we duly did. It is a remarkable work and, despite some intrusiveness, David Alden's production served it well.
The male cast including Stephen Gadd, Jonathan Best, Nicky Spence and Paul Nilon read like a who's who of British operatic talent.
Nevertheless, the most praiseworthy performance came from Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Panait - probably the best I've seen him give since his compelling Peter Grimes.
My second Book Club meeting revolved around Yaa Gyasi's Home Going. This is not a book that I would have come close to reading in a million years without this Club. There were themes of oppression but otherwise nothing that was specifically queer about the narrative so we were all out of our comfort zones and into someone else's territory - which is one of the amazing things that literature can manage.
I enjoyed the book simply from the point of view of an historical narrative. There were few punches pulled as to the conditions which enslaved Africans endured and the collusion of rival tribes with European people traffickers was fully explored. My naïve assumptions about slavery were quietly debunked. Any number of black slaves in the South preferred being in slavery to being emancipated. Black people in northern USA states were not necessarily much better off than those in Southern states: they just had different types of shit to deal with.
I wasn't happy with the conclusion of the book which inexorably drew the two separated strands of narrative (one staying in Africa and the other forcibly transported to North America) back together again. That just felt a bit twee and managed.
Otherwise, I was more than happy to have been motioned towards reading the work. I also had a more social experience at my second reading than I did at my first. I felt good at the end.
But in the kitchen... That moment when you pop the flip-top bin in the kitchen and some rice grains fall out... And then they start wriggling away. Eeeeeewwwww
There is a new incidence of fungus in our back garden - mushrooms presumably though they might be toadstools for all I know. I wonder if adding them to an omelette would make for a lovely taste or a hideous death. Caution is definitely the wisest option at this juncture.
And on Crosby beach, some of the Iron Men are undergoing repair.
Ross has begun a long haul of binging on ER via All Four catchup from Series 1 (25 years old) onwards. Occasionally, I've been there looking over his shoulder thinking "How young does George Cluney look?!"
Marketing has much to answer for. These two unfortunate examples of how labelling can go wrong simply add to the cannon. Someone surely could have come up with a better phrase to translate the original German than "according to the German Purity Law". Or have the young forgotten that much already. Meanwhile, I'm honestly not sure whether or not Caribbean tastes focus on male chickens for their favourite dishes but there are other words than "cock" which might have been used.
I brought Luke and Danny together for a couple of hours of evening fun.
Danny fitted straight into the role of Bottom Suprême. I'd thought that Danny might fancy jumping on Luke's dick and settling down for the long haul and I was right.
Lol
Luke and I both fucked him quite a lot. I think we basically tagged him.
We saw quite a lot of his mellow side but the cheeky smile kept breaking out as well.
Finally, Luke came and, at his bidding, I jumped on board for sloppy seconds. Big smiles all round.
Continuing in the world of lads, here is Russell Tovey with his art and Troye Sivan with his smile.
And here is Timothée Chalamet having fun with water, gravity and a boat.
And here is Tom Daley with his son waiting for the arrival of someone from somewhere.