Turandot, Mini-Diggers and an Anniversary

 

On Wednesday, I went to see a National Theatre showing of Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ at my local festival centre. I’ve only ever seen one opera before - Mozart’s ‘The Magic Flute’ - which I had to study as part of my degree, but I enjoyed it, and recently I’ve had the thought that I would like to see more opera, and ballet come to that. Off I went then, to expand my repertoire of culture. 

There was a big dragon (seriously underplayed, in my opinion) and a pagoda with easy access moving parts, and three characters called Ping, Pang and Pong who flounced around in big frocks and bonkers hats, waving fans and drinking tea. There was an icy princess who made up her own rules, a highly self-opinionated yet slightly gormless ‘hero’, a martyrish maiden and an emperor who spent the entire performance sitting on a massive sofa up in the sky. It was great fun! 

Now, I know ‘Turandot’ is mostly supposed to be a serious exploration of love, tradition and duty but you have to remember I was watching it from the modern-feminist-woman-of-a-certain-age viewpoint. But I could see where it was all coming from regarding its historical and cultural conception. And I very much appreciated the costumes, the choreography and the setting in Sydney Harbour.  I especially liked the ghostly dancing figures. I was relieved I haven’t been put off opera and will book up to see something else soon. 

On Thursday, the gardening people decided to come and dig up the rest of the hedge stumps. Literally five minutes after having a private in-my-own-mind rant about them and their lack of communication over the previous four weeks and resigning myself to looking elsewhere for gardening assistance, they sent a message saying they’d be out on Thursday and soz for the late replies etc etc. A man and a mini-digger duly arrived and the whole job was done and dusted in about an hour and a bit. I can set to replanting the border now. I am thinking a mix of lavender and small roses. 

Yesterday was the 22nd wedding anniversary of me and Lord Malarkey. Twenty two years is represented by copper; I bought him a copper lantern and he bought me a set of copper bee water stations to pop in the garden. Darling Daughter and Son-in-Law came around in the evening bearing a lovely copper gift (more of which in a future blogpost when I’ve done a bit more research) and we shared celebratory pizza ‘n’ strawberry cheesecake. And so we embark on Year Twenty Three (which is silver plate. Apparently…)

I finished reading a book called ‘The Righteous Mind’ by Jonathan Haidt which is a moral philosophy exploration about why good people disagree about politics and religion. It was a fascinating, if challenging, read and has helped me feel a bit more understanding of the human race. I am now half way through reading ‘I eat the stars’ by Sarah Wilson, which explores how to understand and live within a collapsing world. It’s scary, emboldening, hopeful and not as miserable as I anticipated it could be. However, I think I might need to seek respite for my brain in some light-hearted comedy fiction after the last two tomes! 

This afternoon, I shall mostly be doing not very much.