We’ve just had another bout of culture in London, first of all Simon Boccanegra at the Royal Opera House which was a triumph, absolutely wonderful with the baritone Thomas Hampson who was Boccanegra and Ferruccio Fulanetto as Fiesco, two old men centre stage. Chas and I found it thrilling. We had borrowed a friend’s flat that is just about opposite the stage door,how convenient is that? On Wednesday we went to the Saatchi gallery off Sloane Square to see the Paper exhibition, that was pretty amazing too with some astonishing pieces. Loads of schoolchildren there, mostly teenage girls, getting very excited about it all. Nice to see them responding with such bounce to the exhibition. Only moderately noisy, we listened to their teachers giving therm stern lectures about WHISPERING ONLY. Didn’t work.
Chas has the London buses down to a fine art and manged to get us to Paddington an entire hour early. No choice but to snuck into the Hilton, air conditioned – fantastic, for a spot of lunch. The train was a mere 38 minutes late as there was trouble at a level crossing and were on a relief track. Still going but slowly and then we had an emergency stop so presumably somebody had pulled the cord. We were happily air conditioned but some of the coaches did not so much handing out of free water. On the way up to London the train was 56 minutes late. Joshua was hoping we’d get to the 60 minutes and be able to get the money back. No such luck we went like the clappers from Reading.
Boiling hot here, not that our alpacas seem to mind. They sit under the hedge when it is cool and about mid day venture into the sun to start eating. Mad dogs and English alpacas stay out in the mid day sun! No more cria either yet – 26 on the ground so far, 15 girls and 11 boys.
