Boston

And Feb ain’t started slow …

My goodness – we’re not yet halfway through the month and there’s all this to write about!

Following the rehearsal I attended last month at Acland Burghley School for the OAE’s planned concert featuring Mozart’s clarinet concerto, February started with the actual performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was fascinating to see how the subtle changes that had been suggested during the rehearsals had made their way firmly into the final version – except that no version is ever final as the room, the audience and the moment make every performance unique. The interplay between Kati Debretzeni as leader and Katherine ‘Waffy’ Spencer on her beloved basset clarinet ‘Grace’ was moulded into an outstanding piece of music. The concert opened with an overture by Juan Crisostomo Arriaga – often dubbed the Spanish Mozart for his precocity and the fact that he and WAM were both born on 27 January, albeit 50 years apart. This was written when Arriaga was 14 and who knows where he might be in the pantheon if he’d lived beyond the age of 20. At least there’s a theatre named after him in his home town of Bilbao where we saw a not very good zarzuela production in 2008. Each half of the QEH concert concluded with a mad encore devised by Waffy of arias from Die Enführung aus dem Serail with ‘Grace’ as Konstanze and bassoons as the males, Belmonte and the Pasha, with Acland Burghley students displaying large card captions to tell the story. The OAE as well as being great musically are also great fun (see below).

One of the things that endears me to this band – apart from their musical excellence – is that at the end of every OAE concert the audience are handed a ‘Thanks for coming card’ from a different member of the orchestra. It’s a really pleasing gesture that makes you feel properly involved in the evening’s entertainment. Tonight’s card of course was from Grace herself.

Next up was a visit to the Young Vic as a proxy for patron Frances who was in Hull for a football match. I’ve pretty much given up on long distance away games, especially midweek. This was an insight session into Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass which previews from 20 February so the cast are half way through rehearsals. The director Jordan Fein joined us with cast members Eli Gelb, Juliet Cowan, Nigel Whitmey and Alex Waldmann. The play covers the literally paralysing effect on the main character of the news of the infamous massacre of Jews on Kristallnacht in 1938. It was interesting to hear about the directorial and design decisions and to discuss the relevance of the play today with genocides taking place in several parts of the world. At these events it’s always interesting to see all the research material provided in the room for the cast to be fully informed of the subject matter. In this case the walls were covered with lots of photos of Brooklyn in the 30s with newspaper headlines and cuttings about Kristallnacht. All this and a glass of wine and a chance to spend an hour chatting to the team – cast and development executives. In a fun insight into the actor’s life, Alex Waldman said that after being in rehearsal all day with Americans and doing an American accent he often got told to drop it by his kids when he got home.

Jordan Fein courtesy Young Vic Theatre
Steve Gregson

The next day saw me head off to the British Museum to see the Samurai exhibition which had just opened this week. It’s a comprehensive review of all aspects of the samurai era from 700 to their dissolution in the 1870s. And it’s not all about war and weaponry although there are some magnificent examples of armour, swords and bows. There are displays on art and culture, domestic life and, a surprise for many, me included, the important role of women samurai. The spread of samurai and shogun myth and history into modern films, anime and artworks is also featured. I went in at 2.30 expecting to spend an hour or so and was kicked out when the museum closed at 5pm. Time very well spent among elegantly displayed objects with excellent explanations and a lot of learning about the samurai.

As it was one of the few days so far this year in which it didn’t rain (yet, don’t speak too soon)- and the National Gallery has no scaffolding at the moment so I snapped this on the way in from Charing Cross station. Given the surprise rain remission I decided to walk to the Jugged Hare pub near the Barbican where our first week of each month City Orns group of Watford FC fans was to meet to discuss our managerless team and a whole range of other unrelated topics. It was only a couple of miles and took me through Red Lion Square, along Holborn, through Smithfield and past St Bartholomew the Great before the final stretch through the Barbican tunnel. Pub, food and company were well worth the walk. But I did get wet on the way home.

Thursday saw me again at the Southbank Centre for an experimental evening called the Classical Mixtape Live. All six resident orchestras were presenting short concerts over the course of two and a half hours. First up was the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the Royal Festival Hall who played the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth – possibly the best known opening of any musical work – and then a suite from Howard Shore’s music for the Lord of the Rings. It was hosted by an Irish presenter Vogue Williams who gushed and stuttered from her notes up by the organ desk. Not quite sure why. She opined that the players must be exhausted after playing like that – for 7 minutes – perhaps ignorant of the length of many symphonies and concerts, let alone opera.Then came the fun part. Four orchestras were repeating the same 20 minute set in four locations around the centre. It could have been good except that someone didn’t really study the logistics of getting 2,700 people from the RFH into the four other venues despite inviting the Green Side and the Blue Side to head to different locations. So there was more queueing than listening. I only got to two of the four.

In the Clore Ballroom off the main foyer members of the Chineke! Orchestra were perched on podiums around which we all milled. It was a bit like a promenade performance at the Bridge Theatre without the stewards to guide us. Now Chineke! is admirable in being a largely BAME band giving opportunities to musicians who might not have found their way to a classical orchestra. They looked a bit nervous and the conductor probably struggled to see everyone given the set up – very dramatic lighting! They played Montgomery Variations by Margaret Bonds but it was difficult to get a sense of the piece while being on the move. In the Undercroft, a storeroom under the QEH, the London Sinfonietta played Steve Reich. Unfortunately the space is so small that there was a one out one in policy and I didn’t make it to the head of the queue. Nor did I ever get to the end of the lengthy line trying to get into the Purcell Room to hear the Aurora Orchestra performing music from Mahler’s time in the Alps.

However the delight of the night was the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer presenting a programme of Bavarian Oompah music including the Tristch Tratsch Polka and a selection from The Sound of Music. The Guardian gave the whole evening a two-star rating but noted that the OAE team were “having a whale of a time using beer glasses as percussion and proving they are most definitely game for a laugh.” They were led by Adrian Bending who noted, rather cheekily, in his intro that if people wanted to hear the fifth symphony as Beethoven might have heard it himself, they should come to the QEH on Sunday to hear the orchestra’s historically informed performance. Seeing them in lederhosen, dirndl skirts and with Adrian using tuned beer glasses as percusssion and Waffy Spencer singing ‘Do Re Mi’ it was something to behold. You can take a look at them here:

Finally we all reconvened in the RFH for the Philharmonia to take us into space with Mars and Jupiter from Holst’s The Planets and some of John Williams’ music for Star Wars. It was an interesting evening somewhat marred by the logistics but I hope they do it again with a bit more planning. It was good to see four of the six orchestras in a different light.

The next evening brought an altogether different experience. My granddaughter has a prominent gender-switched role as Arvide Abernethy in Guys and Dolls, the annual musical production at Langley Park Boys School where she is in the sixth form. I’m not a huge fan of musicals but had to admire the incredible professionalism of this young cast. Great set and costumes, singers all mic-ed up and fully commited to both lusty and subtle performances. At several points there were over 100 performers on the stage a testament to the depth of music and drama talent across the entire school. It is billed as the ‘whole school musical’, and what with all the people involved behind the scenes, it really was. The band, the lighting, sound and performances were of astonishing quality. As my son said after seeing it next day, it makes you rethink what is meant by ‘school play’ these days.

Saturdays seem to bring drama around Watford FC. I watched a narrow defeat at Southampton on TV and then learned a little later that the club has replaced Javi Gracia who resigned last week with a completely unknown manager. We’ll see. So on Sunday I was pleased to be back on more secure territory. The Hungarian conductor Adam Fischer is a long time and frequent collaborator with the OAE and being able to go to both the rehearsal and the performance of Beethoven symphonies 4 and 5 was a real privilege. I wondered how different the conversations with Fischer would be compared to the self-directed rehearsal for the Mozart last month – in truth not very. There was still lots of consultation with members of the orchestra, comments discussed and annotations made on their scores for dynamics, expression and so on. The two symphonies are very different with the fourth being much less familiar. It was a delight to see them shaped by a maestro with a top orchestra and then enjoy the end result a little later.

Player list and the view from the stalls

Between the rehearsal and the concert was a talk with Adrian Bending, Phil Dale (not in lederhosen today) and Christopher Rawley They talked about the differences in self-directed and conducter-ledconcerts and agree that Adam Fischer is someone who excites them with his interpretations which often catch them by surprise. They clearly have the greatest respect and affection for him. The session also featured a wonderful contrabassoon and three trombones about which Christopher and Phil talked. The contrabassoon was made by a maker well-known to Beethoven and might have been used in the early performances of the fifth and ninth symphonies. There is a campaign to keep this instrument which bears the number 001 in the country as it is currently up for sale. Christopher demonstrated the deep notes this piece of wood can deliver and Phil expressed his delight at Beethoven scoring for three trombones in the fifth symphony – a pattern followed by many other composers keeping trombonists gainfully employed.

Pre-concert talk with Adrian, contrabassoon, Christopher and Phil

On Monday I had a lovely Zoom call with Daisy Scott in Boston, Mass to discuss theatre, music, retirement, families and lots more – but not world affairs as there is not much to say except mutual despair. It is a real pleasure to be in regular touch with our Boston family.

Tuesday evening featured a trip to Watford for a thank you party from the council for the work several of us have been doing with the relocation and redisplay of Watford Museum. It was a nice gesture to thanks us volunteers and we all look forward to the opening of the museum next year after a major building refurbishment. The group I was with had focused on the football club so it was good to see the work of other teams looking at grassroots sport, the diverse community and entertainment and to meet up with old and new friends. It rained in Watford too! Heavily, but one of our team Alan kindly gave me a lift back to the station.

In Bangladesh in 2009, Manzur E Mawla was co-presenter with Eeshita Azad of the pilot television programmes I made for the BBC World Service aimed at encouraging young Bangladeshis to learn English as a Foreign Language. He later relocated to the UK and we have been in touch with him and his family on a number of occasions. He emailed this week to say he was in a play at the Drayton Arms Theatre and would I like to go. Well, interest piqued, what else could I do?

It’s a venue I’ve not been to before – a small 50-seater above a lovely pub. The play was called Modern Romance and was a series of twelve scenes – six pre-filmed and projected, six acted live – about the various whacky ways people get together these days. Scatalogical, filled with innuendo – how do you make paper clips and staples sexy ?- it was funny and revealing. My friend Manzur did a two-man scene with Jay Ramji as a gay Under 21 football couple one Arsenal (guess!) one Fulham who among other escapades embrace at a goal being scored while playing against each other to the consternation of coaches. It was written by Giles Fernando and directed by Penny Gkritzapi who I had a pleasant chat to in the bar afterwards and spent time with Manzur and other cast members. Manzur had done some acting back in Bangladesh before we worked together and had started acting classes again here only recently. It transpired that this was his UK stage debut, and very well he did, having joined the cast at very short notice. A totally unexpected fun evening added to my calendar by a chance email.

The live action cast with Manzur and Jay third and fourth from left.

Last outing for this post is to see Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House. Another soggy trip into town and no drinks beforehand as it’s a bladder-challenging two hours and twenty minutes with no interval. Susie Stranders’ insight talk last month was very helpful in making both the story and the musical motifs clear so I could look out for particular moments in the piece. The choral singing was incredibly powerful and included a children’s chorus which Susie had prepared – great job! I took my seat being slightly panicked about being a long way from the aisle should nature call. Then it was suddenly time for the final black out and curtain calls. How on earth to two and a half hours pass so quickly? Answer: engrossing story from Pushkin, marvellously varied score with simple tunes and powerful orchestration, brilliantly sung, accompanied by an orchestra on top form and a superb overall production directed by Richard Jones. A brilliant night at the opera.

Mark Wigglesworth invites us to applaud the orchestra after a stunning performance led by Bryn Terfel as Godunov and a cast of hundreds.

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The Valley (!) of the Temples and sea to sea

After a pleasant breakfast on a sunny terrace at the BnB with views up to the top of the old town and out to sea, I set off for Selinunte, the amazing archeological site just ten minutes from the centre of Agrigento. I noted as I went to the car, that inverted umbrella displays were not the sole prerogative of Valdepeñas where I’d first seen streets full of them a few years back.

As you approach the main entrance this magnificent ruin dominates the hill – yes hill – in front of you.

*The Temple of Juno Lacinia built between 460 and 430 BCE*

I wanted to stop the car to shoot it from a distance but the stream of visitors’ vehicles would not permit that. Just believe me it’s a breathtaking moment, like first seeing downtown Boston from the I-93 or the City of London from the M11. There was chaos at Gate V so I carried on to a gate at the other end of the site where there was no access, for no specified reason. I was told to return to Gate V. There was less chaos by now and I was able to park under a shady olive tree, buy my ticket and trudge up the hill. It is steep and it’s definitely not a valley. There are lots of useful information boards in Italian, English and French and the site goes on for a long distance from this eastern end along a ridge towards the sea. It is quite stunning.

This first temple of Juno is obviously a ruin and as I walk along the hill/ridge I pass burial chambers and evidence of multi-cultural appropriation. The Romans desecrated the Greek buildings and remade them. The Arabs had a go too and finally the Christians took over and the original worship of Gods various and Nature were subsumed by the dominant faith. Original fortifications became burial sites since they thought they were safe from invasion. I was reminded of the triple-whammy of Empuries in Spain where the Carthaginian original settlement was successively taken over by Greeks and Romans all with their own ideas of what’s to do with the place.

Then as you walk musing about all this along you come upon this:

*The almost complete Temple of Concord from 440-430 BCE.*

I really needed hiking poles (not available) to scale the outcrop to get this shot – but I was very careful, I promise. (For new readers I have a recent history of falls resulting in stitches to the head.) It is a stunning piece of craftsmanship and design and crowns the site with its awesome presence. Even I’d be inclined to pray. There are lots of other ruins, sculptures and relics scattered over the hill but there’s also a garden and you know how i like a garden. It had oleanders, rosemary, lavender and herbs I wasn’t sure about but a lovely fragrant and cooling period on the hillside at 32 degrees.

*Oleander, olives and prickly pear – very Mediterranean!*

Around this point I decided I’d gone far enough and found this excellent shady arbour for my return. The only problem was that I was accosted by a lizard and history tells what trouble that can get you into. (Again for those who weren’t there, an inquisitive lizard in Ibiza led to a group of us entering a team of plastic lizards in a local 5-a-side football tournament. Full story is in YBR 39 available from https://thewatfordtreasury.com/ or I can send the text of the article as a pdf to anyone who cares.) Happy memories of absent friends.

On my way back I passed an enclosure celebrating the return of the mountain goat to the – signboard quote – mountainside. I guess the threat of sacrifice has passed and they can safely graze. There was a cafe nearby so a late morning coffee set me up for a cross-Sicily drive. I hadn’t covered the entire site but had spent a full two and a half hours of marvelling at the ‘Valley’ of the Temples.

My next four days were to be spent in Siracusa so I needed to traverse Sicily from the Mediterranean Sea on the west coat to the Ionian Sea on the east. With a co-navigator I might have drifted about the centre from town to town, but as a lone traveller, I decided to take the A19 motorway that cuts straight through the middle. It was a scenic journey nonetheless, with the lush citrus groves near the coast, giving way to olives and almonds and then to a rugged landscape of harvested cornfields, rock outcrops and an overall brown-ness. It was very hot today but we were clearly gaining height as warnings about winter tyres being obligatory were joined by snowflake signposts and skidding dangers when icy. Hard to imagine that today. But like roads everywhere there were many stretches with road woks reducing the dual carriageway to two-way operation. What I did note was that in every lay-by there was scattered litter – some loose, some in plastic bags. From my limited experience I would say that Sicily is a mess when it comes to both clearing up rubbish – and I regret to say dog shit – which is everywhere.

Another aspect of Sicily that’s rubbish from my sample of one is the food on offer in service areas – I stopped at one for a late lunch and fuel. Everything was in bread including a soft bread bun that contained breadcrumbed chicken fillets! No salads just ciabatta, panini, focaccia and buns. I finally settled for a lemon Fanta and a bag of crisps. And I have to say that the offer was familiar from a number of the numerous ‘street food’ outlets in Palermo and Agrigento.

For once I found the BnB very easily but had to wait for someone to come and let me in. He was pleasant, efficient and explained that the breakfast part was served in the Hotel Mediterraneo two minutes walk away. He also carried my suitcase up these and into my very pleasant apartment which has this open plan living kitchen, dining area and a bedroom and bathroom and a balcony with clothes drier. Good choice I think.

Parking is free in nearby streets – narrow and mostly one way – I had to move my car to let someone else pass while waiting for the guy to arrive. So I went and parked, returned to put the phone that’s done sterling SatNav duty and charging block on to charge, unpack and then set out to explore the immediate neighbourhood. Luckily just round the corner is a bar with a much-needed post-driving beer. I start walking towards the sea and passed a garden that made me stop and think because of its very explicit signage. I’m used to Jewish quarters in lots of Spanish cities and had read that the Giudecca is one of the areas to explore on Ortygia, the island that forms a large part of Siracusa.

I make it to the twin bridges across to Ortygia but had planned that for tomorrow so I do a restaurant recce, buy some basic supplies for ‘home’ drop them off and then go to eat Siracusa-style tuna, cooked with onions peppers and tomatoes, helped along with an Etna red, half with the meal, half carried through the streets to enjoy while unwinding with music and a book. Buonanotte.

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Culture crash

Well I usually only blog when I’m travelling and this was going to be about a planned trip to The Hepworth Wakefield, Ian Prowse’s Mersey Hyms gig at Appletreewick in the Dales and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where there’s an exhibit of works by Yukihiro Akama – one of which I was given as a birthday present by Dee in 2015 according to my meticulous (nerdy) records of art we own .

What is brilliant is that they are all carved from a single piece of native English wood (oak in this case) and signed underneath. The chance to see a major exhibition of his work in Yorkshire where he’s lived since 2011 after being trained and working as an architect in Japan, combined with these other cultural events and staying in Bradford with our friend Graham was a great excuse to head north.

The week started well with a visit from our friend Daisy Scott from Boston. We first met and worked together in 1994 on an English language project for the publisher Longman, so a thirty-year friendship called for a celebration. But then disaster struck. When deciding on a title for this piece a number of puns occurred: Cultural Awokening; The Tripping Point; A Bridge to Fear; Anatomee of a Fall and so on since the week was curtailed by me catching my large left foot on a paving stone on the Hungerford Footbridge across the Thames, getting a serious gash in my forehead – again! – and taking Daisy for a new but non-cultural experience – a visit to St Thomas’ A&E (Emergency Room for her). I later emerged looking like this:

By this time Daisy had left after looking after me extremely kindly. Let me add some context to all this. On Sunday we had a Sunday lunch in the Queen’s Arms in Kensington, probably annoying the patient staff by taking far too long with catch up chat to order any food. But we did eat well and then went to see the Yinka Shonibare exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery. I’d known his work from other galleries and the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square but Daisy knew nothing of him at all. We were both completely in awe of his creative imagination and power and the technical command of the technicians in his atelier to put such an amazing show together. Check it out from the link above and if you can get there – GO!

We had arranged by email to do a theaterathon (AmEng spelling works better) on Wednesday before Daisy flew back to Boston on Thursday. It was to start with lunch at the Union Club where Dee and I took Daisy many years ago but which is always a delight. We met there, ate well and started our thespy adventures by walking to the Theatre Royal Haymarket where Daisy in the States had managed to get two tickets for the utterly sold-out Portrait of Dorian Gray with Sarah Snook of Succession fame, She had warned me that we were in the gallery and needed to climb 65 steps to get there – a good test for the hip. Because we were going to be so high up I’d brought opera glasses – we had his and hers from the Royal Opera house in red velvet bags and I gave Dee’s to Daisy as a gift which she received with some emotion – they were great friends too,

In the event, the stairs proved doable as people were moving quite slowly and the opera glasses redundant as the whole perfoprmance is a mixture of theatre and live television with images displayed on a number of large screens around the auditorium. The sheer brilliance of Snook was matched by the choreographed balletic movements of the camera technicians, make-up artists, prop, wig and costume handlers who shared the stage with the actor who played 26 characters without breaking step. I was relieved I wasn’t vision mixing the feeds from on stage cameras with pre-recorded clips in a seamless two hours that flew by. The story might have got lost in the pizzazz but it didn’t. The production and her performance were truly phenomenal and it was very gratifying to see her call all the techies on to share the curtain call. We descended the steps light as air and proceeded to make our way to part two of our excursion buzzing with excitement at what we’d just seen and marvelling at how it had been achieved.

We had ample time to stroll across Trafalgar Square, through Charing Cross Station and use the eastern side of the Hungerford Foot Bridge to head for a cuppa and then the National Theatre for The Underdog, the Other, Other Bronte. And that’s where it all went wrong. The aforemention trip occurred – no alcohol involved yet as we didn’t want to fall asleep in the plays – and the day descended into (literally) a bloody mess.

Daisy was an absolute star, failing to panic, prodiucing tissues and keeping me talking to check I wasn’r concussed. We were soon joined by a group of passersby who gave my faith in humankindness a massive boost. Another Daisy – tall and curly haired rather than short and with cropped hair – rapidly called 999 and was giving them information about me and the accident when a women in a striking red dress bent down beside me and said “I’m a doctor. I’m from Belfast, I’m here for a conference. Let me have a look at you.” and then: “That’ll need stitches.” Daisy S was now the possessor of a pharmacy worth of wet wipes, tissues, plasters all handed over by concerned tourists and locals. I had by now assumed a sitting rather than a sprawling pose and was helped to my feet by two gentlemen each with a arm under my shoulders. We thanked everybody most warmly and assured them that we would be fine getting to A&E. So many kind, concerned and helpful people! My big worry was that I might have smashed my new hip but I was able to walk quite freely off the bridge down the steps past the Festival Hall and find a taxi to take us to St Thomas’ Hospital. The driver demurred at first: ” There were others looking for me … ” – then saw my face and said “Get in!”

There was a queue of about fifteen people waiting in and outside the A&E entrance and I pushed my way to the triage desk with apologetic hand signals and, I’m pleased to say, encouragement from those in line. We waited a few moments, gave my personal details and described the accident and were then directed to the Urgent Care Centre where Annabelle cleaned up the wound, let me wash my bloody hands and arms in the sink, put a temporary dressing on the gash and sent me to wait for treatment. One of our plans for our early arrival at the NT was for Daisy to find a quiet spot and good wifi to have a video call to her husband Jerry back in Boston as they’d been missing each others’ calls. There was a conveniently vacant children’s area where Daisy managed to connect and also brought the phone so Jerry could admire my wound and say Hi. As time went by I despatched Daisy to the National so that one of us a least saw the play. She later reported that we’d seen the better play in the afternoon. I might still catch it one day although I have a lot of outings in the coming weeks

When you are in it the NHS is just so excellent. I think I was probably waiting for about 90 minutes before Amy called me in and was such a calm, efficient and friendly nurse pratitioner who cleaned me up fully, gave me a full concussion test, told me I had a build up of ear wax while checking my vital signs and then put in the six neat stitches you saw at the top of the blog. We had such a relaxing conversation about all sorts of things and I just pray – and will vote in such a way – that the NHS which can give me a new hip and make me feel safe and better after a stupid, self-inflicted accident is rescued from the predators.

Boston + July 2014, Retro-blogs

Tioga Road and the Northern Sierra

We decided not to go back into the valley next day but to drive the Tioga Pass eastwards through the sierra. It is an amazing road but not for the fainthearted. It is very mountainous with twisting roads, vertical drops of 2000 feet with no Armco or stone barriers – just my kind of drive except for two twenty minute hold ups for road works which made the already narrow road single track and short bursts of alternate flow didn’t seem to be on the agenda. I think the 4×4 just in front of us were contemplating getting out their portable BBQ at one point! Olmsted point

Half dome from Olmsted

As we travelled on passing Tioga Lake, Tuolumne Meadows and Olmsted Point the out-turn that gives a great view of the Half Dome from the east we were very pleased with our decision. As we paused there we thought of our trip to Walden Pond with Pat and Joe. Joe is an expert on and admirer of Olmsted who as well as co-designing Central Park in New York and the “Emerald Necklace” of green spaces round Boston was one of the architects of the national parks movement. Route 120 which is the Tioga Pass Road is the highest paved road in the US apparently and is closed from November to May each year so we felt privileged to enjoy this true wilderness, much as we had in Shikoku and Hokkaido last year. To be so far from any signs of habitation, enjoying fabulous views and the sounds of wind in the forest, birds overhead in beautiful sunny conditions was just great.

We exited the road at Lee Vining on the shores of the weird Mono Lake which appears to have a significant number of clones of Lot’s Wife. It is a saline lake and the accumulation of salt rises up in tall pillars a bit like outdoor stalagmites. We had a lunch stop at the gas station and rest stop which was fine and took the decision to turn left and go north on the interstate 395 and then head west and back to San Francisco on the 108 through the northern sierra as an alternative to retracing our steps via Merced.

Good decision or bad decision? Probably the proverbial curate’s egg. As we swung off the sun-drenched interstate and started the climb towards the mountains we noticed the temperature drop (despite A/C in the car) quite dramatically, wondered why the blue sky was now jet black and were soon in the middle of the mother of all thunderstorms.

Downpour — This was literally half an hour after the picture above and half a mile away

It only lasted about twenty minutes but was really scary. No other vehicles in sight, a twisty mountain road narrower than the Tioga Pass Road of the morning and torrential rain with sky-splitting forks of lightning – even I had to admit these weren’t the happiest moments of driving in my life. However we soon made our way to a high pass which acted as a sort of celestial watershed returning us to the sunny blue side of the mountain and leaving all that black wet stuff behind.

The drive was if anything more spectacular. Massive forests including the Stanislaus State Forest with isolated shacks, sudden flower strewn meadows, streams and lakes, the occasional camp and adventure centre and certainly no road works and the weather stayed good throughout the rest of the route apart from a quick shower as we entered Stanislaus. Route 4 crosses the Sierra Nevada through Ebbett’s Pass which as you can see is quite high up. This road is again usually closed from November to May because of snow. All the words that can be used to describe landscapes of this magnificence have become clichéd. So I’ll just say that we both descended from the sierra feeling refreshed, rejuvenated by the experience and extremely glad we turned left not right.

The SatNav decided on a rather unusual route back to San Francisco which involved a tour through the suburbs of Modesto before getting us back on the 385 and into San Francisco – an early evening journey we weren’t looking forward to as we had decided to change hotels just for this one last night and go from Japan Town to Union Square right in the heart of the city.

As it happened it wasn’t too bad and we found our hotel, parked the car in a parking garage just round the corner and checked in in time to listen to the last knockings of a jazz gig (who finishes jazz at nine pm?) and eat at the highly rated hotel restaurant, the Burritt Room. It was pretty good too even if the service le a little to be desired from a rather bossy maitresse d’.

Boston + July 2014

Sunday with the Sox, sauntering at Walden, surprise visit from Maine

Blog lag has set in in a big way. Driving, a concert, eating, drinking and chatting to folk have all interrupted my ability to compose but I’m now on a plane to Las Vegas from San Francisco and have a little time at my disposal. All too little as it turned out.I’m finally posting it back at Las Vegas airport after visiting the Grand Canyon and proving a not very good gambler in Las Vegas.

Back in Boston, Sunday dawned warm and bright and after a light breakfast at the apartment we set off for a stroll along the Charles River Esplanade – we’d filmed near the Hatch Shell and nearer the Common but had never walked the western end. It’s a little less congested with the bikers, bladers and runners who occupy the stretch nearer in and made for a pleasant walk or as we were later to discover – a saunter. We soon arrived at Kenmore Square, a convenient location for a quick beer before the ball game. We looked around a bit and then decided on a return to the Eastern Standard where we’d had a great lunch on Thursday.

We had a beer and a bloody Mary of high quality Dee reports. The beer inside Fenway Park is truly awful so getting a couple in beforehand is a wise move. We got talking, as you do, to a chef from South Boston who was telling us how much “southie” has changed and what a great place it now is. He did event and personal dinner party catering and part-time cheffing in the convention centre. Nothing has changed in 20 years on the employment front – everybody in America still seems to have several jobs – at least his were all in the area he was passionate about – cooking.

Synchronized pitch raking is always a spectacle and finally Big Papi David Ortiz connected with one.

We had harboured hopes that our presence at the home of baseball would propel the Sox from bottom of the American League back in to World Series contention. Nah! It was an attritional game until the sixth when finally some bats hit the ball. However we were already behind by then and although taking the lead were pegged back in the eighth and with a scoreless ninth we were into two extra innings with the Orioles hitting an answered run in the eleventh. So we had value for money in terms of time spent but not in the result. Ah well there’s always next year for the Sox to fly high again.

We had arranged to meet our friends Joe and Pat Weiler on Monday to go to Walden Pond to see Joe’s exhibition of photographs Thoreau’s Legacy at the gallery there and then go for a walk to the site of his (Thoreau’s) cabin. We are great admirers of Joe’s work and have several at home and the exhibition was superb. It blended Joe’s artistic vision with his and Thoreau’s concern for nature and conservation in a most thought provoking and dramatic way. We were low on useful dollar bills so Joe bought us some postcards and pencils for our grandchildren on the basis that they write him the postcards and send them back.

The walk round Walden Pond was excellent and led us to appreciate Thoreau’s concept of sauntering rather than rushing by so as to observe all that is there to see. There’s even, we discovered, a National Sauntering Day on 19 June which we shall be observing in future. The pond is beautiful and there were lots of families enjoying its beaches. We didn’t enter the water but sauntered through the woods chatting about all sorts of issues of mutual interest in a truly delightful morning. Joe and Pat then drove us into Concord where we had arranged to meet Trish Seeney who had been our make-up artist on our first two shoots 20 and 19 years ago.

Trish has had a good career after effectively making her debut in the role of make-up, hair and wardrobe with us. She’s lived and worked in LA for lengthy periods but is delighted that the film industry is sufficiently strong in the Boston area to allow her to move back east again. The Colonial Inn in Concord is a great place for lunch or dinner or just a drink. It’s a rambling edifice with little rooms dotted about and a super open air terrace where we enjoyed a couple of hours. It also brought back happy memories of a visit with Dee’s mum and dad when they came to Boston in 1996.

We said our farewells to Trish and sauntered about the lovely town of Concord taking in some antique shops – thank goodness for weight restrictions! – art galleries and some excellent ice-cream. Our cheapo American phone buzzed with a sound we hadn’t heard before. It was a tornado warning over the phone! We walked a little more briskly toward the railway station but got waylaid by the Concord Public Library where Thoreau’s surveying equipment is on display. Along with some excellent archive photographs and a lovely building, it was well worth the delay. We hadn’t often travelled by commuter rail but had a fun journey into Boston’s North Station amazed by the performance of the guard who seemed to issue and collect excessive pieces of paper throughout the journey – although it must be said some regulars did have Oyster Card equivalent so he didn’t have to perform for them.

Fetching up at North Station prompted a nostalgic visit to Fours Bar a place we had frequented often and filmed in twice. It’s a great old-style Boston Sports Bar and retains its atmosphere and an excellent tradition of knowledgeable, friendly bartenders. The threatened tornado which had spared us in Concord suddenly struck and we were forced to have another before it stopped and we could walk to the T to travel back home.

Tuesday was a total surprise in that Natalie Rose Liberace who had starred in our third year drama in 1996 decided to travel down from Portland, Maine to spend time with us. True friendship well repaid with a lunch at the Salty Pig just up Dartmouth and well recommended in the Improper Bostonian. It was great to hear her news – she has put acting on hold for the time being and is working at the Maine State Museum organising the many thousands of items and their storage, as well as working at LL Bean. We lunched outside until the sun became too intense and then moved inside to continue enjoying her company and their great selection of food and craft beers. We then walked with her back towards South Station through familiar sights and significant changes in the ten years since we were last here. After “don’t look back” farewells we then sauntered across Boston Common and the Public Gardens bringing back many memories of times spent and shoots wrapped in these iconic locations.

We managed a few moments on the roof deck – our first since the fireworks – and then went out for a quick snack after packing and then the prospect of a 05:20 shuttle to Logan from Copley to catch our flight to LA. Once again our Charlie tickets saw us good for the fare and proved a very wise purchase as we’d had a week of transport all over the MBTA area for $19 each.