Having got back from holiday in the late afternoon, I was glad to get unpacked. Unpacking a holiday or weekend suitcase is slightly less straightforward because, apart from transferring clothes back to the drawer from whence they came (the easy part), there are also the collection of bits-and-bobs that you take along with you in case they might be useful (the difficult part) These tend to be little things like a folding penknife, various plugs, adapters and batteries and even a spare toilet roll (which can be handy on days out) My son had been for his early morning keep-fit swim and then called in quite early in the morning and, as always after a holiday, there is always quite a lot to catch up on. I gave my son a day by day account of everything I had been doing for the last few days explaining how my American friend and I had had a good time in each other’s company as practically everybody else on the coach trip seemed to be married couples or friends travelling together in groups of two or three. I showed my son the two purchases I had made and I am still mightily pleased with each one of them. The first of these was the sleeveless jumper I bought in Moffatt for the price of £20 and it is interesting when I go on the web to find similar items. These tend to be either cheap, Chinese made acrylic at a price of about £15 but if British made in wool, the price rises to about £70 with nothing much in-between. However, upon doing a bit of investigation one kind of sleeveless jumper that I particularly like is sold under the aegis of Amazon. One manufacturer sells a garment which is 35% cashmere, 18% wool, 20% cotton and the remainder mixed fibres. This sounds like an interesting purchase for me some time in the future. But I am pleased with my purchase as I am with the very special Loch Fyne whisky based liqueur enhanced with chocolate and orange. This I regard as a sort of anticipatory birthday present but I suspect that I shall consume it in very small quantities such as birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas. I have been rather ‘out’ of the political news agenda with not having access to Sky News and YouTube in the hotel’s satellite system but I gather that Donald Trump is still hurling insults at Keir Starmer for not giving him 100% backing in the Iran conflict (perhaps not knowing about the assistance he gave in British lives in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks in the USA) But the King is due to make a visit to the USA to help celebrate 250 years of their independence and Trump is full of praise for the King. He does not appreciate that he King only visits the USA with the explicit advice of the UK government but then the whole of Trump’s grasp on reality is tenuous these days.
The morning after my return, I am going quite slowly gradually putting things back in the place where they need to be and thinking ahead to my commitments in the next day or so. The principal one is the musical demonstration of Mozart arias to the U3A group which is meeting in the afternoon so I am ensuring that my technology (iPad, power brick for the speakers) is working as it should. After I had an a very light lunch, I motored over to the house where our U3A Classical Music Appreciation group were having our monthly meeting. The presenter of the first item was one of the choir who had recently given a performance of ‘The Armed Man’ and we had a description from the inside, as it were, of each of the thirteen pieces which make up the Mass as a whole. It is always very interesting to get the background story and the performance seems to have had an extremely emotional effect upon the audience. Now we come to my presentation which was almost over as it began. I found that I could not get an internet connection for my iPad and my phone refused to respond as well. One of the other group members explained that the house in which were meeting was a notorious blackspot but then our host rode to the rescue and let me utilise his network for my two devices after which all was well. I had rehearsed all of my material well and had to cut some of it a little short but it was pretty well received. One of (male) members said he found the performance extremely emotional and it really moved him deeply which was gratifying to hear. I mentioned to my host that I had three others waiting in the wings as it were (Mozart’s instrumental pieces, some Beethoven and then some Bach) but they were just simple YouTube accesses without any videoclips to accompany them. As such, of there was a blank spot then I could fill in once everyone else had had a go as it were. Over the tea break that we have at the end of our meeting, conversation turned to other days out and it seems that most of the music group are also signed up go on the Derbyshire trip to Bakewell/Kedleston Hall in about five weeks time. I discovered from one of the other group members that there is going to a free ‘cake and coffee’ concert featuring a flute quartet this Saturday at 10.30 in St John’ Church which less than a mile away. So I definitely wish to attend this as in the local parish church there are lots of opportunities to mingle and to meet up with people which is the name of the game nowadays. Bromsgrove does have an official festival in the third week of June but as well as the concert on Saturday but there is now an organisation called ‘Bromsgrove Arts Alive’ which seems to be offering low priced events regularly throughout April, May and June so I must keep my eyes and ears open for events in which one would like to participate. There is another U3A group in which I am enrolled and this takes place imminently. This is ‘Conversational Spanish’ and I need to do a little bit of preparation for this as it has been decided that we shall have a session in which we talk about ourselves to the other group members. We need to mention two things about ourselves that are ‘true’ and one that is ‘false’ but I think that making up a story that is untrue might be slightly more difficult than the other two topics. Presumably, we have question each other rather as we would along the lines of the TV programme ‘Would I lie to you?’