ELVIS V SHAKESPEARE

I just can't make up my mind. We saw The Merchant of Venice performed by the RSC at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford on Wednesday and it was hugely entertaining but in a weird way. Roulette tables, Las Vegas, Elvis, game shows and American accents dominated the three hour play.  Although I know the play inside out I found that after half-an-hour, I had no idea what was happening. So I decided to "go with the flow" and just sit, watch and enjoy. In the main, Shakespeare's beautiful language was completely lost (although the script was word-for-word Shakespeare's play) in the American drawl, glitz, singing and dancing which was a real shame. However towards the end we were treated to a truly touching scene when Shylock (Partick Stewart) demanded his pound of flesh and acting I will always remember as Antonio quivered and shook - hands tied above his head wearing an orange Guantanamo jumpsuit, waiting for Shylock to stick the knife in. It was certainly a new twist on an old theme but I'll have to revisit the play in book form to remind myself of what I missed.

R&R?

Not sure about rest and recuperation. We've just got back from a lovely two-week cruise, all round the Med. Everything was going swimmingly and in the diary I keep for my mother, I'd just written: "The holiday has done us good. We feel great." That was a BIG mistake because the very next day (final day of the cruise and the packing day) we hit what the captain described as "a big depression and a huge swell" in the Bay of Biscay. Neither of us suffer from sea sickness (obviously, or we'd be very silly to book cruises) but that did for us. I spent the day between the cabin bed and the bathroom. Every time I tried to get out of bed to pack I was thrown across the room, and head-swimming, had to fall back in. In the end my husband did my packing as well as his own. Once out of the Bay of Biscay we both improved, but only enough to have melon slices brought by room service for our evening meal. Driving home we felt shattered, looked rotten and wondered whether we'd ever book another cruise - EVER.
Things didn't improve the following morning, when, feeling much better, I was up at 5am to attack the washing and ironing. I slipped on the top stair, bounced down four steps bruising my back and spraining my wrist and fingers and while I was at it I threw a cup of coffee in the air splashing the wall, our new carpet and ruining my clean dressing gown. As is my custom, I rang Mum at 8am to ask how she was. She'd fallen. Hurting her back, wrist and fingers.

What a swell party - the evening before the big depression!

Seeing Oscar again did a lot to restore our spirits and while we've been away he's learnt to say "please may I...." instead of "Oscar wants...."  which is all well and good but more often than not the "please may I..." was uttered when whatever activity it was referring to was already underway! Still, it sounds very, very polite.

We brought him back a Portugal football shirt bearing Ronaldo's name so now my husband is going to teach him how to dive.

And Hugo has been doing lots of smiling



HAPPINESS!

TABLES ARE TURNED

Something very disconcerting happened yesterday. We were all put firmly in our places by a two-and-a-half year old. Over lunch Oscar spotted that Grandad had a sliced up apple on the same plate as his sandwiches. "Grandad has pudding on his lunch plate. Oscar not allowed to do that," said Oscar. I told him that I was so old that there was no-one to tell me what I was allowed to do and that if I wanted a raspberry with a fish I would have one. "That's very cheeky" said Oscar looking me straight in the eye.

Then we went to Great Grandma's house. Great Grandma let slip that she didn't like sour oranges. "Maybe when you're bigger," said the wise one.

THE GARDEN

I sit out on the patio for hours on end when it's sunny, surveying the plants and flowers so today I took some pictures as a record of what's out in mid-June.

Fortunately our son took some photographs of the lovely birthday cakes made for us by a neighbour. I'd been cursing because we cut into one of them at the party on Saturday before I'd had the opportunity to take some myself.

But the highlight of the week is Hugo's first smile

THE BARBEQUE

Ever since we booked our 60th/65th barbeque for June 11th we'd been fretting about the weather. How would we cope with 70 muddy shoes on our new creamy-coloured carpet if it rained. All week it poured down and then two hours before the bbq team came to set up, the clouds parted and lo and behold, there was the sun. It kept shining in a pale blue sky for the rest of the day. The air temperature may have felt more like we're used to in February, but that was a small price to pay.

As people filed in they were saying "What a lovely picture of you both". I looked around the hall but couldn't make out what they were talking about. "outside on the garage" they said. Had they had a few before setting off? I went outside to humour them and there, on the garage door, was a huge banner......

And apart from being very proud parents/grandparents every second of every day, our hearts (as our neighbour put it) were prouding over! And if I'm honest, a big part of me was saying "YES!" when I noticed that there were no apostrophes to be seen!

Hugo was much admired

and managed to sleep through most of the racket.

We cut the beautiful cakes made by a very talented neighbour

And at the end of the day Oscar and Grandad had a lie down on the bouncy castle

TAKE THAT

Although I'd always had myself down as an optimist, I think that deep down I'm a bit of a pessimist. For yesterday's Take That concert I expected to get lost on the way to Manchester City's stadium; I thought I'd never find a parking space; I took a blanket, cagoul, umbrella and spare shoes in case it was cold/wet; I packed binoculars because I thought we'd never see anything and I was absolutely certain that the nose-to-tail journey home would take at least four hours.
In the event we drove straight there, parked without a hitch, sat in the baking sunshine with a great view of the stage and then roared away from the car park and were home by midnight. Oh, and the show was great too. The Pet Shop Boys were better than I ever remember them; Robbie got a 45 minute slot all to himself (a bit overindulgent I thought) and Take That put on a spectacular show. My friend and I weren't the oldest there by any means but we must have looked our age as we tucked into Fry's Turkish Delight and bottled water while all around us were waving bottles of wine and pints of beer.