Gardening, concerts, hashing and other pleasures.

The beginning of the week was quite peaceful.  The weather was a bit all over the place, but otherwise things were quiet. We planted out all the remaining Brussels sprouts plants and I photographed a few roses. We did a bit of cleaning and tidying and made the beds for our hash guests the next weekend.

The Village and New Tricks were the better bits of TV in the earlier parts of the week. I absolutely adore Maxine Peake for both her genius as an actor and her politics. She is giving an Oscar winning performance in this series too. Then on Thursday we went into town and then discovered that Who Do You Think You Are was on after all. I don't know how I missed it. We watched it later on iPlayer. Mary Berry discovered some interesting bits of 19th century history about her forebears.  Chasing Shadows has grown on me, as our sociopath hero started showing some improvement in his relations with colleagues. Two more episodes are coming, although there will have to be a new story, as the original one concluded this week.

The main event of the week was Xander starting walking. He is such a cute, clever and loveable little darling, he always brings joy to my life - even from a distance.

We got this little video from Lucy about the two of them bonding over banacks on their heads. I think they are beginning to develop a friendship, which is very promising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLWh6fRjHyI

On Thursday evening I went to an Anglican evensong where one of my favourite choirs, the Gabrieli Choir was singing.  I must admit, I was not exactly enamoured of having to take part in a church service, but as it was free and the music was lovely, I put up with it.
On Friday we had a  few bits of running around to do: fetch a parcel from the sorting office, change some money, put some money in the bank and visit my hairdresser. In the afternoon we went to see what changes have been made to the Jelen, our favourite local estaurant. They enlarged it, but otherwise most things were the same. Roy walked me to the theatre where I saw an excellent performance of Verdi's Don Carlos. I  saw Bozsa, Kati and Andor, which was nice after the long summer break.

The main artistic event of the week happened on Saturday, when I went to hear the Budapest Festival Orchestra, conducted by Ivan Fischer (see above). They played Brahms's 3rd and 4th Symphonies. It was heavenly, not only because the superb quality of their artistry, but because I was sitting behind the orchestra, which meant I could watch Ivan Fischer's face, body language, infectious enthusiasm and spirit, which certainly could inspire not only the orchestra, but me as well.

And then today I attended the hash, which numbered only 5, but we still had a very good time. Hulk was the live hare, which of course meant his dirty tricks to slow us down. Stiff Nipples and Rabies were running, while Haggis and I were walking.  Needless to say the boys left us behind and we got hopelessly lost. The arrived back to Hulk hours before us and were already knocking back the beers while we were still out on the trail. Still, it only rained a little and I had a nice long chat with Haggis, which was nice. At the end we ended up in Vigadó for a late lunch and some more beers. A little later Roy joined us and we had a really lovely afternoon with lots of laughter, beers and very good food.

We are staying in town until Friday. I have one theatre performance and two concerts to attend, as well as some shopping and a couple of doctor's/homeopath's visits to do. Then we are back to the village where we will be joined by our hashing friends for my naming ceremony. Let's hope the weather is nice and we can hash, hike, eat and drink to our hearts' content.