Albert Hall

One of those days where any single picture was totally inadequate to sum up what happened! I've tried to make some sort of "composite" thing, but completely failed - I'm really no good at all that sort of thing, so I just put up this one and will have to try to summarise the day in this write-up! I fear I won't do it justice. This is why I am neither a photographer nor a writer!

For the first time in many many months, when I started the car to take the Wonderspouse to the bus stop, I was on my way too, and wouldn't be home for many hours. Instead I went back to Bridgnorth to see the wonderful @MarDixon again (and to collect the trombone mentioned in the 23rd June blip).

It was a fabulous fabulous morning. Mar is just brilliant, and has pretty much the same idea as I do as to what you can get done in a morning. So, we went to coffee with her friend (who also has an adorable dog), then to Coalport where we saw rather grotesque pottery and also some very impressive kilns, then to the Victorian village at Blists Hill, which was totally fantastic - it's so well done, and there's so much to see and learn there - and then to Ironbridge to see the bridge and have coffee before I headed home again!

I had a brief 15 minutes at home - enough time to eat a banana, give Athena her medication, and put the trombone together and blow a few notes before setting off to collect the Wonderspouse for the second part of the day!

The BBC Proms have been going for a few days now, but numbers 6 and 7 were our first live ones of the season. Number 6 (7pm start) was an all Beethoven programme - a bit like two traditional "first halves"! Egmont Overture followed by Piano Concerto No.1, then Prometheus Overture followed by Piano Concerto No.4 (Paul Lewis at the piano). Wonderful stuff!

Between concerts we sat by the Albert Memorial and watched the day turn to dusk, then I had a fortifying cup of tea!

The second concert (10pm start) was really really magical. Maria Joao Pires (one of my FAVOURITE pianists) played a programme of Chopin Nocturnes. It was simply magical and entrancing, and despite the lateness of the hour and the busyness of the day, I was totally focused throughout. Utterly divine!

Then it was time to drive home! We got to bed at about 3am.

Furthermore, following on from a conversation with Mar, I had an extensive discussion with the Wonderspouse in the car, and over KFC at Beaconsfield Services (the only meal of the day). All sorts of things got sorted in my head. Mar and the Wonderspouse between them did, in a day, what would probably take my shrink about 6 months! Thank you, both of you! Another giant leap on the road to recovery and a happy life! :-)

No single picture could possibly sum up such a day!