Already a sense of the evening starting later although mornings still feel grim. I keep telling myself it won't be long until the worst of winter is over for us once again.
It's at moments like this that going to concerts is a real blessing.
The name of Webern is likely to send many people rushing from the concert hall and to be sure much of his later work still demands a great deal of attentive listening despite its brevity. However, some early pieces are, like early Schoenberg, incredibly lush and part of the Viennese post-romantic oeuvre. I'd never heard a live performance of his idyll for large orchestra, Im Sommerwind, before. And it is, like the Passacaglia of the same period, very easy on the ear. I'd be more than happy to hear it again sometime.
I was less taken with the orchestrated Schubert lieder which followed. Nothing to do with the performances. Benjamin Appl was absolutely peerless in his singing and Vassily was an attentive accompanist. It just that, with this particular set of works, I'm not convinced that the orchestrations do anything for the original works.
The novelty value was high but I wouldn't chase further examples.
It's been quite a long time since I last attended a performance of Mahler 1. I was prepared to have the decibel meter at the ready as it's a work which is pretty notorious for conductors and orchestras starting loud, getting louder and having nowhere else to go by the end of the piece. Petrenko, however, gave an object lesson in how to create a sustained crescendo from the first note, patiently building through to the final, exultant climax. For once, it was that ecstatic release of energy that drew the cheers rather than a manufactured frisson through a rapid acceleration and hell-for-leather dash to the finishing post losing all sense of clarity.
And out into the night elated and beaming.
Claude Bosi is a Michelin starred chef. I believe it is absolutely fair-handed of our current government to crap on him from a great height in the same way that they are no doubt crapping on hundreds and possibly thousands of individuals and families who have no similar access to widespread public awareness.
It's difficult to over-estimate the amount of hurt and pain situations like this cause. I've had my share of such situations with the DWP and they have not improved my mental health. A vast number of correct processings don't make up for the ones that go horribly wrong. And, in most cases, there are simple remedies. It's just that they take place under duress. A simple phone call to check the facts would probably unearth the information request that had been misunderstood or not emphasised enough.
Nevertheless, it would appear that yet another policy promise has either been forgotten or gently brushed aside.
If there are no concerts immediately to hand, then coffee and cake can offer a useful substitute
And, if not cake, then sex.
Over the past few years, I have enjoyed a number of frisky three-ways. I've only participated in one previous fourgy and that fell in my lap - as it were. Having had a good time with Luke and Shayne earlier in the month and having realised that the other Luke lives but a spit and a cough away, I thought that it might be a good idea to bring us all together under one duvet.
All three lads have very lovely asses and I was certainly hoping for the group dynamic to give me enough of an energy boost to sample one if not all.
And it simply didn't happen for me. The three lads had a more than tolerable time. Little Luke certainly took a shine to big Luke's big cock and threw those legs to Jesus with exemplary enthusiasm. Shayne was a little spiky: he seems to have very well defined, if very private, personal boundaries and reacts suddenly to the perceived threat of any transgression. I found that off-putting but I wouldn't place blame at his door.
No, I think quite honestly that it's another sign that age is catching up with me one step at a time. I think I need to try and be more realistic about having the fun I can actually have as I approach 66. There was just too much going on and not enough space to find the room for me. It probably mirrors my recent lack of interest in the novels of Dickens - too many characters to remember and too much happening for me to retain a clear picture of the action.
Little Luke introduced the group to his 7.5" glass dildo with a "textured shaft" as it says on the box - said ripples giving the object its professional name of Mr Swirly.
Surprisingly, perhaps, it was Big Luke who took to it straight away with Shayne sucking him while Little Luke gave him a good pumping. Little Luke also had a go with Mr Swirly before climbing on top of Big Luke and beckoning Shayne to join him in there. It was fabulous to watch them all moving together like that.
And I guess that sort of sums it up really. I was happier to watch than I was to join in. I made myself an uninvited guest at my own party.
Still, no regrets. We regroup, we reassess and we go again.
One quick thing that I've meant to mention before. It seems that there's a new SARS-like thing over in the Far East. Places like Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan have obviously been waiting for the opportunity to put into place all of the procedures they learnt from last time and seem to have gone into some sort of early warning mode. In China, where it all seems to have started, they've got a whole city locked down with no-one allowed in or out. It all sounds very like Eyam - the Derbyshire plague village that Ross and I visited five years' ago.