September

I’m clearly going to have to get some tips from friends with blogs. I appear to be fully useless at writing this more than once every other month, and I’ve been keeping a long list of things to write about, most of which I’ve now crossed off: I’ll never catch up if I write a separate post for each one, so I thought I’d do a round-up of last month and the month before, and then see if I can’t get into more regular blogging habits. For shame.

So here’s a lightning-quick summary of September’s stand-out stuff:

First up, the Lord of the Rings musical that I saw with various members of the family, to celebrate Dad’s birthday. This isn’t something I would have chosen to go to myself, I don’t think, and I was a bit sad that it clashed with the online airing of my mystery mix (see previous posts here and here), but I really enjoyed it – and it was certainly a lot better than a lot of its reviews suggested. At times it felt like it was modelling itself too closely on the recent Peter Jackson films – both stylistically and in terms of what was included/omitted, and the story did suffer being condensed so much – but in terms of spectacle it was really something, with a few quite stunning set pieces. The set design and the characters’ acrobatics were breathtaking in places, and the sense of both menace and wonder that you get from the books (and the films, especially the first) really came across. My main criticism (apart from the feyness of the elves, something the films almost entirely avoided) would be that none of the songs were catchy enough: if you leave a musical without whistling at least one of the numbers, then I think something’s been missed somewhere along the way… Still, thanks Dad for a great night out.

And now for something completely different: to the 02 arena (previously the Millennium Dome) for some genuine NHL ice hockey, with the LA Kings playing the Anaheim Ducks in the first of two showcase games to open the season. Canadian friends have pointed out how lucky we were to get some top-flight ice hockey over here – it was the kind of game that would have been difficult (and expensive) to get tickets for in North America. I think it was the first professional sports match I’ve seen live, and it was brilliant fun – a real sense of theatre and excitement, and ice hockey’s a very fast, exciting sport to watch. I was rooting for the Ducks, since they’d recently signed my favourite hockey bad boy, Todd Bertuzzi, but sadly they were defeated. Ah well. Here‘s a clip of the national anthem being sung at the match opening. Good times!

Hmm. I must have done more than that in September, but that’s all there appears to be of note.

Tomorrow: October. I promise.

pleasure gardens

Apologies for the month in between postings, after only two posts… Things have been rather hectic for me recently, with house moves, holiday and searching for gainful employment all in the mix. Lots to catch up on.

First off, dinner at the Bonnington Café, where my brother took me to cheer me up after a sadder day last month. It’s a community-run, vegetarian café in Vauxhall – local, non-professional types take it in turn to cook. It can be hit and miss foodwise, but it’s a lovely place, set in a really tranquil part of town, good and cheap… After a dinner of noodles Matt and I swung on the swings in Bonnington square, another community-looked-after spot, near the site of the old Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (‘a major feature of London for three centuries; a place of curiosity, promenade and play’). It’s just a small square (the physical space created by bombing in the Second World War), but it’s an unexpectedly beautiful, calm haven in an already surprisingly peaceful part of London. And it has a huge wheel at one end:

 

The wheel at the end of the garden is a classic piece of Industrial Revolution Art dating from the 1860s. It was rescued from a nearby marble factory (under demolition as we were constructing) where it was used to ‘wet cut’ marble. Legend has it that once a year the wheel turns, bringing forth beautiful, crystal clear champagne from the worlds below… a delightful fishing boat that floated above the pergola on a sea of wisteria set sail one midnight eve ne’er to be seen again – but only ever for believers.

There’s something achingly beautiful about gardens at night in summertime, and especially trees. This is a beautiful poem by Elaine Feinstein from her most recent collection of poetry, Talking to the Dead (2007, published by Carcanet) – I heard her and Michael Schmidt read at the launch of their respective books back in March, and have been slowly reading both volumes since.

Moving House

We used to travel light. Grandparents knew
how to pack up and go in a single night,
with house spirits in a shoe.
Three generations on, we’ve lost
the knack.

Watching, from bed, a full moon caught
by nets of leaves in a familiar tree
I thought
while we live here, a planetary fruit
belongs to me.

How can I bear to leave that glow behind?
Walking today, I laugh at the conceit;
the niche we make on earth is all we share.
As for the moon, we’ll find
her everywhere.

If only I could learn to travel light; just tonight I finished bringing up the last of my boxes from the cellar, ready to be moved into my new room on Saturday.