A very warm update

If you thought that semi-retirement involved late breakfasts, delicious lunches, siestas, shopping and dinner, you were right. That seems to be the schedule for the moment as we recuperate in Mumbai. We've taken July off while we get used to being back in India and let me tell you, it needs some adjusting.

Life in the UK changes the way you see things. Even after a few years out, it is hard to reconcile travelling by crowded public transport, walking on a mockery of footpaths (paved beautifully, but you need a stepladder to climb onto some of the new ones) and close your eyes to the filth and squalor on both sides of the road as you pass by.

The good news is that we are being fed, watered and taken care of. We're still waiting for the monsoons to hit us, but I guess we should be grateful (in some perverse way) for the lack of rain so we can walk around occasionally. The paucity of rain means a water shortage and it's back to bucket baths at scheduled times!

The writing, in the meantime, progresses. I'm technically on a break until August (when I start freelancing full-time), but I've just had an acceptance from a UK magazine for a reprint of an article. I also spotted a bridal mag on the stands here with my article in it - such a great feeling!

While we're having a holiday, we've been to see Mandira Bedi & Samir Soni perform in 'Anything but Love' (***/5) at Bandra's St.Andrews and saw Hancock (*** for the special effects) last night.

And oh yes, our shipment arrives sometime in August. It will be good to be reunited with our worldly possessions.

Swan Lake on Ice

On the bright side, Mr R and I saw a FANTASTIC performance of Swan Lake on Ice. Ooooh! It was magic!

If I thought Swan Lake - the ballet- was beautiful, then this performance was absolutely breath-taking! You can tell I loved it because I've run out of adjectives to describe it.

Performed by the Imperial Ice Stars , the cast features international world champions and it shows in their performance. Somersaults, stilts, acrobatics that would put circus performers to shame - what courage to be able to do all that on ice!

This is a performance that moved me (almost) to tears - the solos were painfully beautiful. Our local theatre with its fantastic stage and sound was transformed into a magnificient ice-rink. The lighting was brilliant and it matched every mood perfectly. And the sets and costumes were impeccable.

You can see a sneak preview here (video) (And it's EXACTLY how it looks on the video!)

The dancers got a standing ovation at the end and it was well deserved. Go watch it if you have a chance.

Murder and Mayhem in the living room (Not ours!)

Last night we went to see 'Dial M for murder' being staged at our local theatre. This theatrical version of the Hitchcock movie was mostly fun to watch - I was trying to stay ahead of the story, having a vague sense of the plot having seen the movie ages ago and also 'A Perfect Murder' , a 1998 remake starring Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow. But it was only a faint recollection.I could see Douglas and Paltrow in my minds eye pretending to be lovey-dovey when he's really plotting against her. I remembered the issue of the 'keys' was significant in this whole mess, but then at some point I gave up and sat back to enjoy the play. The characters were played by television actors and atleast one (Joy Brook playing 'Sheila' also stars in 'Peak Practice' a medical drama based in the Peak District up North) was a familiar face. I was quite tired by the end of it though, and the suddenly cold auditorium/ drop in temperature due to rain, didn't help keep me awake. I must have dozed off occasionally and I hope no one noticed!! Mr.R stayed awake throughout the show,though and enjoyed it thoroughly.

A quick dinner at the Noodle Bar and we came back home for a well deserved weekend break ahead.

The tragedies are funnier...

Monday Blues were banished this week with us watching a performance of The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged), performed by the THE REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY. The show had come to town and being one of London's longest running shows, we wanted to see if it lived up to its reputation. And boy, did it! This was easily one of the funniest shows I've ever seen!

The RSC condensed the works of the Bard into a laugh-a-riot that had many audience members wiping away tears. Extremely witty and well acted, the three-man comedy troupe wrap up the Bard's outsized oeuvre in 97 roller-coaster, rib-tickling minutes. After warming up with a nothing-is-sacred Romeo and Juliet, they're off, dispensing with the comedies in one fell swoop (because the tragedies are funnier, they say). You decide after you see Othello as a rap song, Titus Andronicus as a cooking program, and the show's finale - Hamlet - told with the help of audience members and lascivious sock puppets.

Extremely funny, this show is highly recommended for people who know don't know much of Shakespeare (or who know a lot) and can laugh with joy at one of the greatest writers of the English language.

Waltzes on a winters day.

0930 on a Friday morning. Winter is determined not to yield to spring without a fight. The night's snowfall is just starting to thaw; white fluffy bits of frost stuck on never complaining grass, brambly branches and roof shingles.

Mr.R and I are in the middle of moving frenzy (ok, not a frenzy yet, it's more of a little distraction in the middle of everything else). We've called movers, started on vague packing of personal items, planning to do this and that and managing to do sightseeing and having fun at the same time. Last evening, we made plans to see an evening of waltzes at Royal Tunbridge Wells, a quaint little town about 30 minutes by car. The concert was at 7.30 and we thought that if we left at 4 or so, we could do a little walking about and see the place as well. Turned out that by the time we reached there, it started snowing quite a bit and it was getting difficult to walk about. It was already dark by 5.30 and the shops were closed (a stark contrast to India where the shops seem to be open forever) . The only recourse seemed to be to pop into Wagamama and have an early Japanese dinner.

The concert itself (called the Johann Strauss gala) was such fun. Waltzes are a great way of introducing people to classical music. This one was even more fun because the Strauss waltzes were accompanied by fully costumed dancers in period costumes - tailcoats, crinoline skirts, bows and frills. It was fun watching them glide across the stage, elegantly moving their ballet-trained feet to the sound of the orchestra. It was like going back to another era.

Typically, Mr.R and I were the only Asians in the theater and one of the few people under forty. It didn't bother us, though I'm sure we got more than a passing glance from the old-timers. We had a great time and being brown doesn't get in the way of appreciating 18th century Viennese music.

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Mr.R just remarked on how the news headlines change so drastically each day here. The row over the royal wedding seems to have faded over till something new happens. The Queen will not attend the civil ceremony but will host the reception. The Mayor of London will not apologize for his verbal attack on a journalist. The hunters and the hounds have moved on, waiting for the cameras to fade away before a full fledged attack on more foxes is launched. A hospital bug is killing thousands of people in the UK. Snow stalls life across the country. Schools close as the ice piles up. Gwyneth Paltrow and her rocker boyfriend separate just 3 months after they've had their first child together. Life goes on.

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What's a long-distance husband called?
Tele-pati.

(one of Mr.R's early morning silly jokes.)

The weekend report.

It's Monday morning once again and I'm not at work. The only reason I know its Monday morning is because Mr. R has gone off to work. It could easily have been Tuesday or Saturday. I've lost track of the days - and that's how a vacation should be.

Mr R and I have had a good weekend. Friday evening we went to see an open air performance of Romeo and Juliet at the monastery nearby. To add a modern touch, Juliet was a girl of Indian origin, they had 'chamma-chamma' and 'Dola re' (from devdas) playing as part of the entertainment for the party where Romeo and Juliet first meet (and the brochure said "classical Indian music"). Mr.R and I didn't know WHERE to look, but the rest of the audience seemed to enjoy it. Crazy really. Juliet wore kurta's throughout the play and some other male characters wore Indian dress too.... It wasn't a 'great' performance, a little OTT sometimes and they failed to take advantage of the setting. The ambience was terrific though and many people came along with their kids, blankets and wine glasses and generally had a good evening.

On Saturday we took my first trip into London. London's really like any other place - could be Bombay for all you know, just more white faces around (and a little cleaner, of course :) We went on a guided walk when we got there - they have these "London Walks" scheduled in advanced, everyday for a particular place. This Saturday it was the Kensington walk which took us thru the district of Kensington with its gardens, streets where well known people once lived (incl Churchill, TS Eliot etc etc) - all these houses have little blue plaques that tell you that someone of note once lived here, which I think was a nice idea. The houses are now private residences. Anyway, the walk took about 2 hrs and ended in the Ken. Palace grounds. After the walk, we walked to Royal Albert Hall to see if we could get seats for that evening's BBC Prom concert. It was all sold out, so we've booked in advance for the 30th. While walking around Trafalgar Square, we saw a candle-light concert being advertised in a church called St.Martins of the fields (so many churches have concerts, it's amazing!). We had dinner and went for that and I can honestly say it was an experience of a lifetime! This was my first 'live' concert, not counting the little one at the local church on Thursday and it was amazing, really. We got seats on the first floor balcony just above the musicians and it was a treat to watch the different instruments coming to life at various points in the concert. Things really fell into place suddenly and it was delightful. The musicians were good too - and if Mr.R thought so, then they must have been better than I thought. Absolutely lovely and I'm not making this up!!! A great way to introduce a beginner to the joys of classical music and I'm glad Mr.R is letting me enjoy this at my own pace.

Sunday morning we took a boat cruise to Allington Lock where the Museum of Kent Life is situated. This is a HUGE open air museum on the farm life of Kent in the centuries gone by. An interesting concept - maybe I can replicate it in Mangalore someday, when farming has gone out of style and you MW's can bring your grandchildren to show them what a real cow looks like :) They had chicken, cows, horses, donkeys, pigs, rabbits for people to see. Can you imagine, people come in droves with their kids, or just adults too, to enjoy unadulterated "countryside" life! There are 21 different places on the farm, each with detailed history - like the barn would have details of the instruments used, the farmers house had each room done up as it would have been in that period, if in the 50s then complete with radio broadcast and music of that time playing, clothes of that era lying around for visitors to try on for fun. The place is done up with 'period' details for every exhibit. Well maintained and researched, though Mr.R wasn't too pleased with the grammar and punctuation on some of the exhibits. Check out their sitehttp://www.museum-kentlife.co.uk/ for more.