It's hard to keep up with this blog when life around us is disappearing into a packing case. I expect to see Mike climb into one shortly, wave at me and pull the lid over his head! Then I shall really know we are on our way.
In the meantime, here are some edited highlights from our
Farewell for Now Tour.
- A day in London with tea at the Wolseley and brilliant seats (thanks Naomi, Martin and Esther for this birthday present) at the Apollo to see the amazing Kathleen Turner and the amazing but unknown to me Bill Irwin in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. What a performance! I felt emotionally exhausted after it so it's hard to imagine how the actors manage it. Until you have seen Kathleen Turner you have not seen stage presence.
- Sunday lunches at the Bucklemaker with Rob and Lyn and Maureen and John. We hope to catch up with them all again in Spain but were pleased to share with them one of Birmingham's hidden treasures. It's in Mary Ann Street at the corner of St Paul's Square in the Jewellery Quarter and the food is great.!
- A trip to Formby for a very nice meal with Mike's parents, which doubled as a birthday present for Mike's Dad. On the way we took a detour to the Tate Liverpool. For me it is just about the right size for a gallery and usually has something interesting as well as part of the permanent Tate collection (and-oh dear-I confess-a very good cafe!). The last time we were there we saw an exhibition of Latin American Art. This time it was an exhibition of work by a minor but interesting Austrian artist, Marie-Louise von Motesczky who fled Austria in 1938 and spent the rest of her life in England. Her work is very uneven (you may know her portrait of Iris Murdoch or that of Elias Canetti, which is in the National Portrait Gallery) but I particularly liked her paintings of her self at various stages of her life and also of her mother. Mum was quite a character apparently and took to driving herself at speed and with some risk to passing pedestrians through Hampstead and over the Heath in her motorised wheelchair (Naomi and Esther you have been warned!) The paintings made me realise how infrequently we see paintings of old women. Think about it.
- Following lunch in Liverpool we went to Crosby Beach to see the Anthony Gormley installation, Another Place. It is, I think, impossible to stand beside one of the iron figures without looking out to sea. What's it about? The Slave Trade, maybe, or the Liverpool diaspora? Whatever, it is interesting and powerfully poignant to see the Other marked as absence. It goes to New York in November so see it while you can.
We have trips to Brighton and the London Marathon (Go, Esther!) and lunch with Sara amongst the treats to come. So there may be more to come before the computer is wrested from my hands and packed!
