Day 303 - Messiah

A day for some catching up, and tidying up before the Christmas rush. At least that was the plan...  By the time I had been into the Club to change a notice over, had spoken to a few people there and diverted by someone' house to assist with their PC problems, it was lunch-time before I knew it.

The afternoon was spent writing the final Christmas cards and working on the Christmas Letter - on-line version. Yes, I am afraid that we are one of those annoying families that has for the past 20 years ago sent out missives containing all the news of our great holidays and marvelling at the prowess of our stellar children.

At least nobody has to read them and I promise you that nothing we have sent out bears any resemblance to the stories in "My Hamster Loves Puccini" and similar works.  And I genuinely do enjoy keeping up with friends' lives through this medium though they can be a bit redundant in the world of social media in which we now live (including this Blog!)

At 4:30 pm we headed off to london: I wa driving up friends Colin and Su and we had a pre-theatre dinner reservatin at 6 pm and did not want to get snarled up in what was clearly going to be apalling traffic on this last pre-Christmas Friday.  Not at all!  We sped up arriving in arond 45 mins, far too early for the restaurant to admist us (they wee still trying to turf out late lunch guests!). We had a drink and then enjoyed a rushed 2-course meal at Lanceston Place.  It must be a god restaurant though next time we go, I shall allow more time and I shall also scrutinise the bill more carefully: I was almost out of the place when I realised that we had been majorly over-charged. Poor show, but they did correct it with some grace.

Thence to the Albert Hall for a performance of Handel's messiah: a real treat with a huge choir and some competent soloists. I was a bit déçu that they had cut out about 20% of the admittedly less well-known pieces but at 2 and a half hours that was probably the right length for a Friday evening. What a great location is the Albert Hall, with super sound and a wonderful atmosphere: we should return soonest!