Robin McKinley's Blog, page 206

Opera in July

 

It's too hot.  Although not as hot, I understand, as it's going to get later in the week.  It will probably reach 'insufferable'* on Wednesday.  Why Wednesday? you ask.  Because I'm going to see Norma** on Wednesday.  July is a heavy month for opera:  I'm going to see three.  How . . . profligate.  The last one is our end-of-July-anniversary Glyndebourne blow-out for the third year in a row:  this year we're going to see L'Elisir d'Amore***.  It was that or Rusalka† and I am just not in the moo

Performing, Practicing, and Pink Elephants

Guest blog by blondviolinist

Robin has asked me to write a post about how to deal with stage fright and performance anxiety. If you're wanting "Five Easy Steps to Stress-free Performing!," then I'm afraid this is the wrong post for you. Performing is a learned skill… you have to practice performing before you will be comfortable and play well while performing. I've been playing in public for well over half my life, and still learn more about performing every time I do it.

There are at least two as

Better

 

I went to bed last night still wretched about Mike and got up this morning feeling emotionally hung over.*   At least it rained.   I woke up at one point and listened to the hammering on the roof.  Thursday night rain is especially welcome because it means I don't have to water the garden(s) on piano-lesson-and-Sacred-Home-Tower-Bell-Practise day, which is always quite fraught enough, especially when I'm trying to finish a novel.

            Because of Mike** I didn't get to the piano yesterday.

Misery

 

I wanted to title this something like ‘Bad Dog News’ but I was afraid regular readers might leap to the wrong conclusions.  The hellhounds are fine.*

            But . . . remember Mike?  Adorable cocker spaniel puppy given via deepest conspiracy to my friend Daisy?   A conspiracy initiated a few months after her last critter died (she had two old dogs and an old cat all go within a few weeks of each other) when she said to me with tears in her eyes that she didn’t know how she could go on witho

Pupdate – 5 weeks on

from B-Twin

Pups are doing what is to be expected – GROW!  LOL

(Of course getting them to stand still to take pictures is near impossible!)

And some more video for your amusement…..

Pups running and being generally puppy-like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1jpGFuRgxM

More feeding frenzy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJu6w7P5Uao

The Bar being upheld.

Attentive.....

Some Thoughts on ‘The Nine Tailors’

 

Since I am a literary bell ringer, Dorothy Sayers’ bell-ringing murder mystery, The Nine Tailors, has come up a few times on this blog.  So when I read the following in the ‘letters’ section of The Ringing World last week I thought, ah ha! Blog entry! . . . RW is slowly beginning to develop a web site rather than just an opening page that says ‘hi, we’re the change-ringing weekly paper, you look way too normal, go away’ but they aren’t hanging their letters yet.  First I looked up D G Rowlands’

Treasure Trove

 Guest post by Peter

This is a by-blow of Kiftsgate+, one of those roses that lack the gene that tells them when to stop growing.  I first saw Kiftsgate in the eponymous garden forty-odd years ago, where it was covering three full-grown cedar trees.  We went straight on from there to Treasure’s nursery, and spotting Treasure Trove on offer I bought it on the strength of the label.  I planted it down by the pond at the bottom of the garden of our old house, hoping it would eventually scramble up i

This finishing-a-novel thing

 

I went bell ringing tonight because I am an irresponsible halfwit.  Well, I rang an unexpectedly reputable touch of Grandsire doubles at service ring yesterday morning* and one of the yardsticks both of how bad a mood the ME is in and how thoroughly some learning process has been gouged into my flesh is whether body memory will take over when my brains are running out my ears:  yes my thumbs hit the long-extending-hellhound-lead brakes on first sight of frelling cat or frelling pheasant, before

Midsummer flowers

 

 Yesterday while my Last Friend was still here, Peter had a ginormous bouquet of flowers delivered.  Last Friend and I were at the cottage, and Peter rang me up to yelp that these magnificent flowers had arrived and he had no idea who they were from.  There must be a card, I said.  There is a card, he said, but it has a Cryptic Acronym on it!  It says ‘congratulations on your honour from all your friends at RHNYC’!  It must be ‘Royal Hampshire’ something or other—

            Club, I put in help

Not a Social Creature

 

I’ve finally got rid of all my friends!  Yaaaaay!  No more friends!  Go away!  Leave me alone!* 

            I put the last one on the train back to London this afternoon** between opening the tower for a visiting band of ringers and going back to lock up after they’d left, then raced down to the mews for something resembling lunch and back to the tower to ring this weekend’s frelling wedding.  This weekend’s frelling wedding would have been quite popular with me since the bride went in on time