River View

Wow! Long day today!

It started slightly earlier than normal when the Wonderspouse got first and second alarms confused and brought tea slightly earlier than he usually would!

It continued busily - work at my desk, trip to Staples to get various stationery sundries, appointment with my "back to work" lady, weekly shop at Sainsbury's, home, lunch, viola practice, get all cats in and give a little lunch, drive to Oxford to collect Wonderspouse, drive to London, have supper, browse bookshop, see string quartet concert, drive home, snack, wine, blip, and, in a moment, bath and bed! Phew!

It was great to get back to concertgoing though - the first one for 2011. We heard the Takacs Quartet perform Haydn Op.71, No.1, Bartok 3 and Smetana 1. All wonderful. The Bartok is one of my absolute faves and brings back superb memories of playing it when I was in my MMus year at college. And the Smetana, just gorgeous - my fingers were really itching during the fabulous viola solo at the beginning! There was an encore just starting as we left, but the sound was down on the screen in the foyer - I'm still trying to find out what it was, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. We needed to get home & calm down - it's a "school day" tomorrow!

In the interval we wandered out and looked across the Thames from the South Bank. Beautiful. I adore London and would love to live there again one day. Although we live in the countryside (mostly because it's cheap out here and we can rent a big enough place to keep pianos and loads of stuff and have our own studies, but also because it's great for the cats), our hearts are in London. To me, views across the Thames are some of the most beautiful in the world!

A wonderful evening! :-)