KnitWit

Birthdays, Boats, Candles & Cakes

 

It was my birthday last week and I had a thoroughly lovely time. I tend to like staggering the celebrations and this year was  no exception.  I started on Wednesday evening with dinner at Waccaha after managing to leave my new hat in the pub. (It has since been reclaimed thankfully!)

Celebrations on the day included being treated to a lovely breakfast in Chapters in Blackheath, going by boat (!) from Greenwich to Embankment which is something I have wanted to do for ages. Inside it is a bit like a coach so I insisted we sat outside.

Then onwards to the Natural History Museum to see the Darwin Big Idea exhibition and giggling at John Hegley at Arts Admin. Poetry about guillemots seems very apt on my birthday – I am determined to find a video online to post of it. (My incredibly bad limerick did triumph in the poetry competition) Peppermint tea and hummingbird bakery cakes ended the day nicely.

Still prolonging the birthday joy, I had drinks in the pub on Friday where I was spectacularly late (even by my shoddy timekeeping standards) and continued celebrations on Saturday by going to an Anti-Valentine’s Massacre where my friend Catherine launched her new EP and then to an evening of bawdy songs with Bellowhead. (This including dressing in drag, men in makeup, a burlesque dancer and some of the rudest songs I have ever heard. You can check out photos here to get a favour of the evening.

Back in Oxford on Sunday, I had a lovely lunch at The Black Boy in (old) Headington with my family, which I can thoroughly recommend, lovely food and really nice atmosphere, with beautiful roses, pressies and lovely conversation. Finished up with fruit cake and candles and singing. Perfect birthday long weeked.

Magical times

Last Thursday I dropped by to see Felix at The Magic Hour, the latest Oxford Contemporary Music collaboration with the Botanical Gardens.

The Botanical Gardens is one of my most favourite parts of Oxford but actually since I lived here I've hardly been. I guess that is the problem living somewhere you don't actually make time to do some of the fun more touristy things. The Garden is on the of the oldest of its kind in the UK and is home to around seven thousand different types of plants.

I had been to see Power Plant there a couple of years ago and loved it so was very excited to see what would happen this time. It was great – I really enjoy wondering around the garden at night and it is both magical and quite creepy at the same time. I didn't get there for dusk, it was mainly dark when I arrived. (This was quite problematic for reading the guide and working out which artists made which works). I kept thinking it felt like being caught somewhere between the Secret Garden (albeit with a few more people) and Helen Cresswell's Moondial*.

I loved the feeling of being there and think it's a great way of attracting audiences who might not otherwise go to hear contemporary music. For me it felt like the work engaged a lot more with the garden than in Power Plant and I think it is brilliant that the artists have been working with the garden since March. One piece I particularly enjoyed was called Predator which created sounds using the bat activity already going on in the garden. It was very exciting seeing the bats flitting across the water insect hunting. You can read about his process making it here.

I think special mention should be given to Felix's Shed of Dreams and Joy – it was great and as ever her fantastic attention to detail was in evidence throughout the piece.

You could "Save a sound" in a seed packet like the ones they use in the gardens,

use a tag which was rubber stamped with something rather botanical and collect a badge – I got a cabbage badge which I have been wearing proudly ever since.

A more productive weekend

Thank you for all your lovely comments about the car – it helped lots while I do battle with insurance companies and feel still a bit whiplashed. This weekend was a much better experience.

On Friday I went to the Globe for the first time to see Timon of Athens. The play was really quite strange but I thought the Globe was breathtaking as a performance space and I really enjoyed being able to see theatre for £5 on a friday night. However it did strike me as slightly strange that the production used quite a lot of special effects including use of bungees and dry ice, felt slightly at odds with the space.

Saturday evening was spent at Jamie's Italian, the new Jamie Oliver restaurant in Oxford. It was splendid - lovely food, the house wine was organic in apparently eco-tetrapak (!) and the music was 90s indiemusic - Sneaker Pimps, Primal Scream. J was particularly impressed with the waitresses using PDAs to take the orders like a good geek boy.  We both liked the wall behind our table which was covered in the aged frames - the photo is a bit grainy because J took it on his Iphone and I'm shamelessly plundering it. We then went to the Old Bookbinders to drink less nice wine but it is such a lovely pub and its in a part of town I don't usually drink in.

Sunday afternoon was spent at Katie's teaparty catching up with the lovely knitters and eating good cake.

Felix arrived on monday armed with Yorkshire tea and stories of Italian adventures. We did in the course of the evening manage to put most of my wardrobe into bags for charity shops. Like Felix I have been overhauling my wardrobe over the past year. My office is quite smart and has made me realise how old and battered some of my clothes actually look. I had managed to buy some smarter clothes but failed to actually get rid of items - it is my compulsive hoarder tendencies kicking in again. As we put clothes into bin liners it became apparent I have a lot of clothes for well over ten years, pre-university in some cases, and there are only so many clothes for doing rugged exercise and gardening in (considering I don't have a garden!) so it will be interesting to see how I get on with a much reduced amount of clothes. Some t-shirts became dusters and quite a few jumpers are in a craft pile to make into new things... Watch this space!  So all in all a very good weekend for recharging batteries and getting ready for autumn.