up north

Apologies for missing yesterday's blog, but we were fully occupied, driving up to Manchester to see a close friend perform her clarinet concerto. It proved a long, miserable journey, under leaden skies and heavy rain throughout. But we made it without incident and in good enough time to find a curry place before the concert started. In the event this proved not to be too difficult, as the venue lay close to the famous "Curry Mile", home to a thousand and one more or less exotic food outlets. As we were on foot and the rain was still driving heavily on the Manchester streets, we chose pretty much the first one we came to, which wasn't too bad, thankfully.

Then off the the RNCM (Royal Northern College of Music) for Hannah's big night: performing Scott McCallister's "X". It is a strange, quirky tribute (the notes said) to the grunge music movement of Seattle. Her performance? She was wonderful! Now I'm no great authority on music, but even I could see the piece was extremely difficult technically, and that as far as I am concerned, her interpretation was quite marvellous. Afterwards, still in the afterglow of the hormone surge needed to bring her through her performance, it was clear she had had utter confidence in herself, and the fact she had performed faultlessly clearly came as no surprise to her.

Oh, for that level of confidence in just about ANYTHING I attempt to do in my life...

This morning, after a fair night's sleep in the nearby hotel Ibis, we visited the Whitworth art gallery (good collection of Turner watercolours though not well presented enough) and even had a quick round of the Manchester museum, complete with its "vivarium": a fascinating collection of (living) poisonous frogs, from the famous "poison dart" frogs of the Amazon rain forest to other huge things that just lay there like a lump of poo, waiting for some hapless arthropod to wander past before snapping them up with their huge, venomous fangs. Nasty.

And now, home once more after a relatively easy drive home (why is the return leg always somehow easier?) we await our visitor for the weekend, one of my oldest friends who now lives irritatingly, 60 miles away. Damn his eyes.