The evening before yesterday, I received one of those really heart-warming emails upon the following lines. My ex-University of Winchester colleague, who has invited me to her 65th birthday celebrations in a few weeks time, had visited the pub which is to host her event and they knew that I was one of the gusts and had booked in for the night of the celebrations, the following day happening to be my own birthday. Anyway, at the initiative of the pub, they want to put on a special celebratory birthday menu breakfast for myself and other guests from the day before – they have a Michelin star trained chef who would like to provide the special food (things like ‘Eggs Benedict’ for example) as well as some specially prepared titbits. So, this is something to which to look forward and will help to make the day a little special for me which will be marvellous as on the day before we will collectively take a little time out to celebrate the first anniversary of Meg’s passing. The night before, before I came to bed, I had a quick burst on providing both the Italian and English translations of the Mozart arias which form the substance of my little presentation. Altogether I have five of these to prepare and am not quite half way through the task having prepared the first two and now in the throes of doing quite a long third, being the seduction aria from ‘Don Giovanni’ (included only for the amusing ‘patter’ of the Don himself which I am including in advance of the main aria) This is one of those tasks that I need to do in little chunks when I have a spare half hour or so. Perhaps because I had an early night last night, I actually woke up wide awake at about 3.30 in the morning and was disinclined to get up. So as this is the week before Easter, I asked the ‘Alexa’ smart speaker I have beside my bed to play a version of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and the version which came to the fore was Harry Christopher and ‘The Sixteen’ which provided a wonderful rendition whilst I dozed for the remainder of the night. As the week wears on, I shall look out for a performance of either of the Bach ‘Passions’ (Mathew or John) to which I always think it is appropriate to listen on Good Friday. One of the very vivid memories that I have as a schoolboy was preparing to leave my boarding school just before Easter when I was aged about 13 and I heard in our Music Room the closing chorale of Mathew Passion ‘In tears of grief’ in which the genius of Bach is manifest in the way in which our sobs are incorporated into the closing cadences of the chorale. I think this is a case of once heard, never forgotten. The day is promising to be quite a busy one socially as my son is calling around after his swim, it is the day that our domestic help performs her weekly miracles and I am meeting a U3A friend for a coffee later in the afternoon.
In the late morning, I went down into town for my weekly Pilates class, picking up a copy of my daily newspaper (the last on!) en route. When the class was finished, I came home and made myself a quick lunch of grated cheese and beetroot on a slice of toasted sourdough bread. Actually, I had precious little time because I needed to back in town by 3.30pm in the afternoon for my coffee appointment. We are both going on the coach trip in about 10 days time and are therefore each wondering whether we need to buy for each of us a really lightweight shower jacket because although the weather forecast is set fair when we visit Scotland, it is probable that we will encounter a light shower even if alighting from the coach and starting a sightseeing tour. We may visit a camping and outdoor clothing specialist shop in the area but it may be that we can purchase what we need online which might both be cheaper and save us the petrol money. I have already seen a light and waterproof jacket which I think will suit my purposes but I need to have a further think about this before I press ahead. The UK is entering a tricky diplomatic period in the few weeks ahead because it has been decided that the King and Queen should visit the USA, despite current difficulties, in order to help to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. I can quite understand the calls from various quarters including he Liberal Democrats that this visit should be cancelled in view of the insulting remarks hurled towards Britain by Donald Trump. But I think more long term damage would be done if the visit were to be cancelled- after all 250 year anniversaries do not come along very often. The visit to the USA is timetabled for late April which gives time for the Trump regime to extricate itself from the Iranian mess. The point I am sure that will be made by the British government is that the visit to the USA is to assist the American peoples, of all political persuasions, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American War of Independence and there are elements of the ‘special relationship’ (for example, co-operation between the security services) that is still strong and effective and the Trump regime cannot last for ever. When I got home and consulted my emails, I was pleased to see that my application to join the next excursion of the U3A local days out had been accepted and, in late May, we are due to visit Bakewell and Kedleston Hall. Once an event has been advertised than those who have expressed interest are invited to make their payment into a special account and this is assurance that one is well and truly ‘booked’ upon the trip. This seems to be a well tried and trusted system and all one has to do is to turn up in a local car park to be picked up by the coach and transported onwards. So now I have two events to which to look forward in May, the first being a celebration of a friend’s birthday (and my own the following day) and the second te U3A trip.