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Aug 2007 |
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August 2007
August was Edinburgh Festival month, and in this very long blog entry I have pasted reviews of some of the performances we went to see during August.
Wed 1 Aug
Mama’s verjaardag!
Thu 2 Aug
?
Fri 3 Aug
After loading up the Vauxhall with the flat-packed Billy bookcases to take to Caz and Andy’s, I headed to the office, as per normal, but instead of heading into the office first I went in search of some decent wrapping paper, which turned out to be harder than I had expected. As I came out of Waverley station I observed firemen and engines assembled on Princes Street, combating a fire which had broken out in one of the older buildings along Princes Street. I stood and watched for a while. A long ladder had been extended, from the top of which a fireman was keeping an eye on the building below, ready to direct the hose. I ended up walking around rather lost, trying various stores before finally finding what I was after at John Lewis, wrapping paper, assorted bits to go with it, and a gift wrapping service, which I had been hoping for! All in all, this took up most of the morning, and I only had time for a brief visit to the office before I had to leave again and catch the train back to North Berwick. Had planned to set off mid-afternoon so that we would reach Hutton Buscel early in the evening, but in the end it was almost five o’clock before we finally set off. The car was heavy with the full load. Ness sat behind me, Parker driving Lady Penelope we joked. It was a long drive and we got to Hutton Buscel around 9pm. No-one had been in touch with Caz and she was understandably a little puzzled as to what was going on. Were people coming over this evening or not? Frankie, Boss, Beccie and John were all there already. The barn had undergone a further phase of transformation, having been plastered and painted partly, shower fitted, etc. Caz and Andy had clearly done a great deal of work over the past weeks to get the place ready, and also in preparing for Nessie’s birthday party tomorrow, and Caz wastired and ready for a holiday (off to Sri Lanka next week). In the barn, party tables had been set up. Andy went out to get fish and chips for everyone, which we ate sat in the barn.
Sat 4 Aug
The morning was spent with everyone doing something to help out with the remaining preparations for the party. The game plan had been to get people assembled at around noon and go out for a walk in the North Yorkshire moors, and then to have a garden party/barbecue in the afternoon. It didn’t quite work out that way though. Bud had injured himself the previous week and a forest walk was therefore ruled out, although a beach walk remained a possibility. People began to arrive, the first ones Mark and Eliza, at two minutes before noon – Mark had clearly made this a point of honour! Later followed by Barry, Ed, Rob, Alison, Mark and Margaret. Sunny day, looking very hopeful for a barbie. The drinks came out, people chatted, it was all just falling into place. Caz and Andy had done so much work whereas all I had had to do was get some invitations out and a few emails. It was a nice get-together for a drinks in the garden. After the first couple of drinks it was clear that any plans for a longer walk would not be happening. Caz took Bud for a walk round the fields, with most of the male half of the party joining in, and most of the female contingent staying behind. We went to have a look at some pigs in a pen somewhere, and returned via the Downe Arms at Wykeham, where Rob and Mark decided to stop off for a pint. Back at Caz and Andy’s we found that the old barbecue had collapsed, or rather, the bottom had literally dropped out of it and an improvised contraption had been fashioned out of a wheelbarrow and a metal grille. It worked with mixed success. We got the tables out of the barn and set up on the patio instead. Ness opened her presents and then we started the meal, with people just going back and forth to the barn to help themselves to the buffet. It turned out to be a very pleasant afternoon. Towards the evening we were beginning to run out of conversation, but luckily Frankie had come prepared and had brought the ingredients for some games: Dingbats (clues to be placed round the house, people paired in teams to answer the clues), and an identity guessing game (everyone has a name stuck on their back and they have to go round asking questions to figure out who they are). It livened the evening up a for a while. It got darker and Andy, in excellent party mood, came up with another game – the elimination game where you have to pick up a cardboard box using only your teeth, without falling over. The box is gradually reduced in size, until all that remains is the flat bottom. Ness stayed in the running almost until the end but Mark and Margaret reigned supreme and managed to get it down to just the flat piece of cardboard. We moved inside the barn and the volume was ratcheted up. Beccie was on form too, and cajoled people into more games. Rob and Alison were the last to leave and we sat around talking for a little longer, clearing up a few bits, before crashing out. I think it was a successful party, and Ness enjoyed it.
Sun 5 Aug
Not surprisingly, some sore heads this morning. Ness was suffering most and after a brief appearance went back to bed or curled up on the settee in the barn. Meanwhile we cleared up the remains of the party, returned tables and chairs to the village hall where they were needed for a next function, and packed up our bags. I had had to ruin the surprise and tell Ness about the mini-break – there was no way I could have organised packing the right bits without Ness finding out (even if I had somehow managed to figure out which bits to pack!) but it helped as Ness, and everyone else, knew that we would have to leave on time to catch our flight from Newcastle. I drove, while Ness sat very subdued in the car, not feeling very well at all. At Newcastle I almost started to throw my toys out of the pram when we couldn’t get decent seats on the plane but it all went well in the end, with a smooth flight to Amsterdam and a short transfer for our flight to Oslo. We reached Oslo late in the evening, it was dark and we were both pretty tired by now and simply made a bee-line for the hotel. I had managed to keep one surprise at least for Ness and the hotel concierge had come up trumps with a lovely and nicely presented big bouquet of forty roses. From our room on the 31st floor we had a great view over the city, and it was beginning to look like a very promising start. Ness was feeling a little better by now, but I was trying to ignore the beginnings of a cold.
Mon 6 Aug
Woke up feeling full of cold, b*mmer. Just what I didn’t want. Tried not to let it get in the way, and after buffet breakfast (herring, geitost, etc.) we walked into the city centre for a sightseeing tour of Oslo. We used the DK Eyewitness guide (not LP or RG now!) to guide us round the city, walking along the main shopping street of Karl Johans Gate, the first part pedestrianised and rather like the Nieuwstraat (Brussels) /Oxford Street (London), but the next part had a nicer feeling to it, with a large square, and grander buildings. Pitstop at the Hard Rock Café for Ness. We had intended to visit the Historisk Museum but found it shut on mondays and instead carried on walking to the parks and grounds of the Royal Palace. We strolled through and around, taking some pictures of the guards, and then continued on to the Rådhus, a large monolithic construction but not without character and appeal of its own, and inside a massive colourful mural in the large main hall, which comprised the best part of the central part of the building. From here we continued to the Aker Brygge area, with its bars and eateries along the waterfront, an excellent example of sympathetic waterfront development. We stopped for a bite of Norwegian sandwiches (prawns, seafood mix, very tasty). Impressions of Oslo/Norway so far... “nice”, “relaxed”, etc. Yes, a couple of sights in terms of buildings but nothing that really stood out – probably the Radhus more than anything – and just the feeling of a safe and civilised place on the whole. The Norwegians were polite and didn’t strike us as people to get excited about anything in particular. We were aware of course that the “real” Norway was the land of the fjords, mountains, snow and ice, outside the city. From Aker Brygge we walked round the waterfront in front of the Radhus and up to the Akershus, the castle/fortress. This was a rather modest red-brick construction, modest in scale as well as architecture, more like an overgrown farmstead or a provincial palace. As with several other things, we were again reminded of the Baltic cities, especially Tallinn. We visited the Akershus, touring through the various rooms. Neither of us had read the history section in our Eyewitness guide and we lacked some of the context, but it was an interesting little castle nonetheless. By now we were beginning to feel our feet a little and we went for a drink at one of the bars on the convivial Christiania Torv, a square with some of Oslo’s oldest buildings, some now housing bars and restaurants. We returned to our hotel, the tall tower of the Radisson SAS Plaza, and as planned went to check out first the spa and then the top-floor bar. The spa was rather a disappointment. Whilst located on the 30somethingth floor, right at the top of the hotel, the “spa” consisted of small separate saunas in the changing rooms, so we deffed those, and the pool was a rather basic affair on the next floor up, a narrow strip of a pool with rather cold water (that was quite nice actually). Yes, there were views, but it just lacked glitz and sophistication. Still, we had our swim and felt better for it. Next we tried the bar on the 34th floor. As we have already found in Oslo, the drinks (and everything else) are very expensive and here we were in possibly one of the most expensive bars in town... ah well, it’s only money, and we both had cocktails and sipped them while sat at the stools along the glass wall from where we had a stunning panoramic view over the city. Oslo is a small city, without any particular landmarks, but what is very noticeable is the proximity of the forests all around the city, which carpet the hills all around with pine trees, and it is as if the forest come tumbling into the outlying districts of the city. Later we went out again, walking back from our hotel, through the central station, past the bus station and back to Christiania Torv where we picked Celsius as the best café and found a nice table set against the wall, from where we could sit next to each other and just watch the world go by. We stayed here for dinner, sharing a plate of tasty mussels (yes, even Ness had mussels for a change!), and a bottle of plonk, followed later by prawns, I think. We got talking about our house and had a bit of an honesty session, admitting to each other that we don’t think Westgate is the long-term place for us. We both have separate reservations. For me it’s the bathroom and lack of separate toilet, for Ness it’s the fact that we still only have a flat rather than a house, and whilst we justify it by saying that “we had to buy something and there was nothing else that came close on the market” we’re also wondering whether we have made a mistake. It may yet turn out to be the right place for us and as Ness keeps saying, we have to live in the place for a while to figure out what we really want from it and what we might want to do to make it right, or alternatively to decide what to do about moving. With the IBM job we now have a much greater degree of freedom, and could potentially decide to move somewhere different altogether, although we have both fallen in love with Scotland and Edinburgh so much now that we would find it very hard to consider anywhere else. Anyway, we pondered it a bit more and then parked that topic for now, and continued our relaxed evening, watching the world go by as it gradually got darker (and no lights were lit, other than the street illumination). We toddled back to our hotel, very satisfied.
Tue 7 Aug
Nessie’s 40th Birthday! It had dawned on me last night that I really should have kept one or two presents for Ness to open today, and a card. I had already shot my bolts so to speak and didn’t have anything further to give to Ness today. On top of it all, my cold had now well and truly turned into full “male bubonic flu”. So rather than Ness getting a surprise champagne breakfast in bed, I was the one who stayed in bed while Ness opened the door when the breakfast was delivered. They had done a nice job, square plates and all, and a nicely cooled bottle of vintage Bollinger, 1999 (La Grande Année). I think Ness was pleased with this touch. We pulled the chairs together and had breakfast in our room, and afterwards jumped back into bed, and watched Blood Diamond on tv (complimentary films, as “vip guests”). Just what we both needed I think, a lazy morning in bed. Showered and dressed we finally made it out of the hotel around noon. It was a warm sunny day, perfect for sightseeing. As planned we headed down to the Akers Brygge area and caught a boat out to the Bygdøy area of Oslo, across the western bay. Tourists and locals were strolling around the Akers Brygge waterfront area, boats coming and going. I joked about it being like the Star Ferry in Hong Kong and in terms of its vintage the boat was probably not too dissimilar. We sat on the wooden benches at the back. At Bygdøy we got off at the first stop, and together with all the other tourists started walking along the well-defined route past the various musea. Lots of greenery and smart wooden houses, mostly white with glossy black rooftiles. Some modern, others traditional. Embassy territory. First stop was the Norsk Folkemuseum, a large (“Europe’s original and largest”) open-air museum with a collection of 150 buildings from all over Norway assembled over the green parkland and grounds. Houses ranged from the expected wooden huts and farm buildings to more elaborate shops and even full town houses in the reconstructed Gamlebyen (old town). Didn’t take us all that long to go round it. Even though we had seen a few of these types of museums elsewhere on our world trip, it was still a very interesting one. Next we carried on to the Vikingskipshuset next door, which housed three Viking vessels (and several tour buses worth of tourists). Seeing them like this, these slender ships, it was possible to imagine the fear that the sight one of these on the horizon must have struck in the inhabitants of early medieval England. From here we carried on walking through Bygdøy up to the other ferry terminal (this part of the peninsula is U-shaped, you walk from one end round to the other). More smart houses and greenery. We first had a bite of lunch, hot dog and burger, from the only option, a rather unappealing terrace cafetaria. Mind you, I was sat facing a blank wall and would have had a better impression if we had sat at one of the other tables. We visited two more musea here, the Frammuseet, dedicated to the polar ship Fram and the expeditions made by Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen to the Arctic and Antarctic, and the Kon-Tiki Museet, all about Thor Heyerdahl’s exploits in his balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki and subsequently in the reed boats Ra and Ra II. The latter two museums reawakened some boyhood memories of how I used to pore over books with stories of discovers and explorers. A lovely afternoon sightseeing, a bit of this and a bit of that, not being in a particular hurry but still having seen lots, and also not feeling we had left lots unseen. We caught the ferry back to Rådhusplassen, same seats outside at the back. Lots of people out and about at Aker Brygge, a real summer atmosphere, relaxed and easy-going. The decking/terraces along and on the water were busy, but we still found it easy to find a nice table and had a few drinks and a portion of fresh prawns, peel yourself, delicious and fun. We spent some time here, later went for a stroll up and down, a Norwegian paseo, and picked a restaurant to go for Nessie’s birthday dinner. We chose well, a smart but informal eatery, with a busy terrace outside. We had to wait for a table and had an aperitif in the nautically themed bar inside. Food was superb, I had Norwegian King Crab, long crab legs full of tasty crab meat, with aioli. Can’t remember what Ness had but it scored a hit too. Across the water we could hear music coming from a marquee, some kind of Jazz festival or something. We enjoyed the rest of the meal and the evening, and it was pretty late by the time we were ready to leave and returned to our hotel. Apart from my stinking cold this morning, it had been a near-perfect day and I hope Ness enjoyed it.
Wed 8 Aug
I woke up with a lingering cold but most of it has now gone. We got ourselves ready, packed, had breakfast (a plate full of herring, geitost, meats, salmon caviar, etc. for me, Ness was more moderate), and before we left the hotel used one of PC’s in the hotel lobby to check in on-line for our flights, which was worthwhile as we got nice seats. Tour groups checking in and out, buses outside. We caught the flytoget to the airport, cruising smoothly through the green and tidy countryside north-east of Oslo. A good part of the train trip was in a tunnel or screened off by concrete panels, which minimised impact on the countryside the train passed through. Lots of wood at the airport. A bit of shopping for Norwegian delicacies, a failed attempt at trying an aquavit (too early – can’t be served before 1pm), and then a smooth flight to Amsterdam. Good views of the Oslofjorden and later of the Danish coastline with its long beaches and wide waterways snaking around the northern half of the country. Coming in to land, my ears didn’t pop and felt blocked, painful. We had time for more shopping and walked away with two See, Buy, Fly bags full of stuff. Next flight, to Newcastle, where we landed mid afternoon. Hadn’t told Ness that I had only taken half a day off today and had thought I could have worked “from home” during the afternoon, but I had not appreciated how long it would still take us to get back. My ears were now even more painful and Ness ended up driving back the whole way, stopping in Berwick on Tweed for a quick stop at Morrisons. We got home at around 7pm.
Thu 9 Aug
Day at the office. Noticeably busier in Edinburgh, tourists and festival-goers. Train back at the end of the day. In the evening we spent time sorting out our stuff and getting the place ready to receive visitors tomorrow. Phil & Deborah with their three kids will come round tomorrow. Ness reheated the tasty leftover curry from yesterday, delicious. I ran backups and we watched A Beautiful Mind on tv before going to bed.
Fri 10 Aug
I worked from home during the morning since we’re expecting visitors this afternoon, Phil and Deborah with their kids, Greg, Louis and Eva. Ness was busy getting the house ready as much as possible for little kids. Early in the afternoon Phil, Deborah and kids arrived. We spent some time chatting and giving them a tour of our new place, and then, kids getting a bit restless, we went out to the beach. As expected, Greg, Louis and Eva were quite a handful and we made slow progress, ice creams from the S. Luca van, and over to the tidal pool at the east bay. We had tickets for the opening concert of the Edinburgh International Festival and had secretly hoped to be able to combine our friends’ visit with the concert but time flew and it was clear that we were going to have to miss the concert (never mind – lots more booked!) We went back home, Phil and Deborah gave the kids their baths and changed them into their pyjamas, and we had the lasagne Ness had prepared for dinner. A nice afternoon, and good to see them again. We crashed out in front of the tv.
Sat 11 Aug
A large part of the day was spent sorting out boxes and stuff, sorting through the various boxes of travel paraphernalia and so on, but in the evening we downed tools and changed into smarter clothes (for us) and drove into Edinburgh to go to a concert we had booked for: the RSNO conducted by Neeme Järvi playing Eller, Sibelius and de Falla. We passed through the busy Grassmarket on the way and parked at Castle Terrace. The Usher Hall was surprisingly un-busy, but we were still very early. We had a G&T at the bar in the Upper Circle. It all just looked so bare and undecorated, and there was only a small trickle of people coming in. Not quite what I had pictured. I know Edinburgh isn’t London, but it did surprise me how unsophisticated the venue was and how undersubscribed the concert was. Still, we had a great view from our seats, even in the upper circle, although they were very cramped. Halfway through the first section the fire alarm went off and the hall had to be evacuated, but fortunately the concert was resumed without any further ado and the rest of the concert proceeded without further hiccups. The Sibelius piece left us rather indifferent, beautiful music but rather forgettable with it. But the de Falla opera music was more avant-garde. Thoroughly enjoyed it. And afterwards we managed to find a great Chinese restaurant nearby, Jasmine, where we had a very tasty meal: steamed fish and a bean curd dish. Lovely evening out.
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