March Miscellany

By now I was beginning to get back to normal and wondered if an icon would help my site and here it is just 512 pixels square.  It is one of a short series of images I took of a Peregrine Falcon that was being displayed at Capel Manor.  I was trying out a telephoto lens. hence the black background.

The 12th we went to see Carmen at the Royal Opera House and what a disappointment.  I was expecting, colour, passion, warmth, exuberance.  It was all grey, black and white and Carmen appeared in a grey gorilla suit!  It was dreary and we were glad to leave at the interval even though the tickets had cost an arm and a leg.

 

A March success story was the project to expose the original floor of the theatre Foyer  in the Dugdale Centre.  Paul Everitt had asked if I could suggest a quick way to remove adhesive residues left when the carpet tiles were lifted.  Fortunately I was able to help using Chela’s product Eraze HD and the beautiful metal tiles were brought back to life.  What a difference!  The whole area was opened up, looks lighter, modern, edgy.  A museum shop selling goods made in Enfield will soon be installed.

 

 

We went to a wonderful exhibition of Victorian photographs at the National Portrait Gallery.  The photos were contact printed onto sensitised paper from glass negatives.  There is a short video showing how this was done.  I can be but filled with admiration at the technical as well as artistic skills of those who produced such beautiful, evocative images.  This is a fun picture of me posing behind a pop-up Victorian photo frame.  I am doing my best to look full of deep and wonderful thoughts.

 

 

 

We had lunch in a Malaysian Café, C&R, in Rupert Court and it was lovely.  I had the Singapore Laska featured in the review (link above) and it was delicious.  I like chrysanthemum tea and had a mug of it.

Visiting China town is always fun  and I was able to buy a tub of Pu-Er tea

 

though Valerie steered me away from the delicious Dorian fruit; they have a stimulating fragrance and heavenly taste!  I had been searching for this tea and is most delicious, even though it is probably made by the modern accelerated fermentation process.  The traditional method has the tea fermenting in a cave for 10 or 12 years.  Now that I have the taste I must seek out a traditional product.

 

Valerie wanted to check that the headstone of her great aunt Fanny Darville, née Danvers, was OK.  Last time we visited it had fallen over.  Valerie jumped up and down on it after we had re-set it.  We found it upright and solid, no movement, which was good and Valerie planted a primrose which looked very pretty against the grey and lichen tombstone.  The Danvers’s line goes back to the Regicide John Danvers who was one of the signatories of Charles I death warrant.  Fortunately John died before Charles’s II thugs tracked him down.  His co-signatories suffered horrible deaths.  The grave is in St Nicholas Church, Great Kimble and the cemetery is  lovely.

Work was being done to renovate various paths as you can see.  The yews are just magnificent and the bench and swing next to the large yew in the background above, made great pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally a walk up Bush Hill and along the Victorian path and down to Enfield Town Park, (please excuse the paucity of information on the linked website.  Best I could find).  The long narrow and steep final stretch of the path meets a little iron bridge over the New River where we fed the ducks and coots and magpies.  We enjoy this.