Vikram Seth comes to Oxford

Every year as part of the Literature festival a 'chancellors' Lecture takes place, someone is invited by the chancellor of the univesity to sit and chat with him. This year it was the turn of Vikram Seth. It is no secret in our house that I think Vikram Seth a VERY fine writer (An Equal Music being one of my favourite books ever, if you haven't read it and you are a musician put down your computer/laptop and track it down now, in fact even if you aren't a musician, it is brilliant what are you waiting for!!), So without delay Maddie and myself booked our tickets to see him speak.

We headed off to the beautiful Sheldonian and before too long the man of the moment came out. We thought he would mostly be talking about his new book, This Rivered Earth, a collection of  four libretti written to accompany music by Alec Roth. But actually the chancellor seemed to be a long time fan and questions about A Suitable Boy (and the hotly anticipated follow up A Suitable Girl), An Equal Music and Two Lives were mixed in with enquiries about the latest work. At the end of the session there was a chance to ask questions, Maddie already had a copy of the book and wondered how to read it, whether to read the verse first, listen to the music or try and do both together so she asked. Vikram said he would be tempted to read the verse and let it create its own rhythm with you and then listen to the music. So now we know! There was also the opportunity to get books signed. Sadly I had forgotten to pick up my copy of An Equal Music (sob) but Maddie had brought along her copy of This Rivered Earth so we got to meet the man himself.

Whilst waiting in the queue (mostly made up of excitable, slightly older woman) a lady came round asking us to put on a post it what we wanted written in our books. I think we were a little disappointed as you know being a writer you would have thought some suitable gems to write in books was kind of part of the job description. At first we hit a blank but then came up with 'To music, love and wine' (there were quite a few references in the talk about how the grapes of wrath, and red wine in particular had inspired many great Seth moments, and to be fair it probably helped quite substantially with our respective degrees). Suddenly we were at the front of the queue, all witticism evaded us as we stood there grinning like Cheshire cats.

Vikram remembered Maddie had asked a question about the poetry and had a few follow up words about that, then read the post it (which got a wry smile) and started signing. At which point Maddie said, we both loved An Equal Music, and he thanked us and asked if we were musicians, Maddie said I was but her parents are really musical, he smilled and it was over. We walked out into the Oxfordshire sunshine in a kind of daze. They say you should never meet your idols, but Vikram Seth was amazing, I could have listened to him talk about his work all night. What a guy! I have photos and Maddie her signed copy to remeber this perfect moment by!

creating

(First photo Sophie and the amazing cake she made for sports relief, isn't it pretty???). Life in the house is suprisingly busy of late, I've got a comission for 100m of bunting for a friends wedding (they had bunting on the invitations so we are trying to match that, the main colours are candy pink, a mintish green and a sort of fawn/cream. When I first got the colour scheme I was immediately reminded of neopolitan ice cream but the bride to be wants all the different materials to have a vintage/pattern theme). So with the brief firmly in place (and written down so I didn't get carried away) we set off for Mason's (I took Jam with me as he is really good at matching colours, not many people know that!). It took a while but we have now selected three different materials for the flags (we also managed to get 2 rolls of bias binding but that's only 50m so the other two are on order), we also bought a rolly cutter as I didn't fancy cutting all those flags out by hand! While I was crocheting the other night (more on that shortly) Jam cut all the material so now I just have the task of hemming it and measuring/attaching to the bias binding (this is only going to be single sided bunting, as its going on the sides of a barn). I'm thinking this might be best all done at once over a weekend. Sadly (or not) that won't be this weekend as my friends Zoe and Steve are coming to visit and we are all heading off to a gin and literature (Zoe picked it, honestly) talk at Oxford Literary Festival, hopefully preceeded by a lovely lunch.

There are two other works in progress at the moment, one which deserves a post of its own (and is nowhere near finished so I think I'll hold off blogging for the mo, although to give you a clue its chicken themed) and the other is this blanket.

My violin tutor has just become a dad for the first time and a week ago was searching for possible names for his new baby girl. Knowing his wife is a native Quebecian, I suggested Aimee (with accents) which has french roots and means 'beloved' which I though was lovely, and the more british Clara (I didn't know the meaning, I just liked the name, but apprently it means bright/famous and has latin origins). I added a note at the end that they were just the names I liked and I'm sure they would receive many other suggestions. To my delight I received an email back this week saying they had chosen Emmaline as a first name but Clara as a middle name! So I thought in the absence of cuddling her I'd make her a blanket. I bought the wool (originally I wanted purple or a yellow, but there were no colours in this super soft yarn that I liked). I know blue, cream and brown are maybe though of as boys colours because of the blue but I'm sure Emmaline can carry it off. I'm still a bit undecided about the pattern though, originally I had my heart set on this wave pattern but now 1 repeat in its starting to curl like crazy (I don't know if that's my fault for crocheting too tight or if there just isn't enough yarn there to weigh it down yet). I'm tempted to rip it back and just do a straight blanket (there being time pressures as well). What do you think?     

Lea's hen do

So tonight we gathered to have the official send off (from single life) to my friend Lea. The wedding isn't until late April but Lea very sensibly decided to have the drinking lots and dancing part a whiole before. The girls went to a burleque dance workshop during the afternoon (sadly I couldn't join them as I already had plans with Jam's family) before heading to sci fi cafe Atomic Pizza in the evening (I've never been in there before but it was awesome, loads of action figures round the walls and a great menu (all the pizzas were named after cartoon characters I was torn between Dangermouse (4 cheese) and Paddington (cheese and onion marmalade) but in the end Paddington won out. I also  got to try my first ever corn dog, it was delicious and as hoped no dogs were involved. A great night!

Sophie's Birthday cakes

This year my work team gained a new member, I was more involved that usual interviewing and training our new recuit. But fantastically she is awesome and a keen baker. So for her birthday I decided to bake for her.

 I went for death by chocolate (pictured being held by the birthday girl). Sophie had also had a bake (she is experimenting with different flavourings/colours as we have an inter-work cake tournament happening in a couple of weeks. She came up with several varients on the Blackberry, Pomegranite & Raspberry theme and cupcakes was the name of the game.

They were delicious and they looked so awesome (the blackberry definitely added to the colour as well as the flavour and some red dye added some wow factor as well. (here I one cut open how lush is that?)

Good work Sophie, Happy Birthday to you!

Hamlet at Blackwell's bookshop

Last year on one of my first dates with Jam, I got taken to see Fautus at Blackwells Bookshop. It was incredible, the production itself was fresh and had loads of detail put into it by some very clever use of props and limited actors (and the setting of the bookshop, seeing a literary work amongst the collection of all those millions of writers thoughts was magical).

Imagine how excited I was when I found out the aforementioned Blackwells were putting on Hamlet this year? (if it were a noise it would be something like awwwwoolllllhhheeeessggghaaaaa!) We booked our tickets. The performance we caught was on a Wednesday, only 3 days after the prodution had opened. As instructed in our booking email we took random objects (me tiger the tiger and Jam a pair of 3D glasses we bought to see the film Hugo).

 With 2 mins to go the main actors chose a 'champion' from the audience to play paper/scissors/stone on their behalf, thus democratically deciding the roles (at this point I had aleady given extra marks for being able to remeber more than 1 part of a Shakespeare play when all I can remeber from my studies are a couple of solioquies... oh and Hamlet is cast as a girl, hurrah) .

As the play is about to start we are told the actors will point at our 'props' when they want them. Old Hamlet claims a sweeping brush (which is great as you can hear him coming before you see him), while Claudius favours a skeleton stick (and proceeds to carry about regally for the rest of the play). Hamlet takes a shine to some plastic beads and at very odd moments more cleaning gear, a full size cardboard cutout of an actress and several members of the audience are used as props by other cast members.

(Like the first production I saw the actors make great use of the surrounding area jumping off bookcases and constantly breaking the 4rd wall by coming in and amongst the audience, Ophelia takes a shine to Jam and gets him to clap along to her song as we all join in). The plot and the play gain pace, Ophelia dies and its the interval. Tiger and I go for a browse upstairs while Jam peruses the science books (another reason why this an awesome venue, where else would you get the chance to peruse books?

This is some interval entertainment!). 10 seconds before the second half begins tiger has been spotted, an actor grabs him and disappears into the gloom, we wait to see if he receives his curtain call... Soon enough (or rather too soon) the final act is upon us, Hamlet’s duel with Laertes, Hamlet selects his weapon, IT'S TIGER!

 Laertes his (a chicken tea cozy?) and they dual, switching weapons halfway through as tiger claim the hearts of millions (well kind of) and Hamlet is defeated. The curtain falls (well it would except this is a bookshop so the fairy dust is put away, the lights go up on what has now ben restored to an empty stage surrounded by bookstacks). We reclaim tiger and head out to the streets of Oxford. This production was I think its fair to say another triumph for its hosts Blackwells/Creation theatre. A great award cup must also go to the Factory who were responsible for this innovative production. Hamlet was never one of my favourites at university,  the main character being far from my taste I found his musing boring rather than deep. Its fair to say that this production breathes new life and imagination into Hamlet's bruised carcass, so catch it while you can! Tickets are available here.
 N.B all the photos from the production were taken before it started I am not one of those annoying people who takes photos during performances & you shouldn't be either!