Busy baking

I’ve been in the baking mood lately with so many rehearsals to attend so I’ve been making a fair few Banana Breads from this excellent and foolproof recipe from BBC Foods here.

I thoroughly agree with this excellent Julia Child’s quote, and the delightful print design by Peter Loves Jane, find details and more of their work here.

This just makes me want to knit something…

This seems to be a test shot for model Alena Dedova and I can’t find who to credit for the gorgeous jumper and photograph, if you know please comment!

 

Clybourne Park – Putney Arts Theatre

I’ve been crazy busy lately with a new show at Putney Arts Theatre that opened last night. It’s Clybourne Park, a fantastic play by Bruce Norris performed by the very talented Putney Theatre Company, and costumed by me! It’s been a hard but rewarding show to work on, and it’s all come together really well, the cast are fantastic, the director has done a great job and the set is marvellous! If you get a chance this week, go and see it, tickets are £10 (£7 for concessions) and it runs until Saturday night. Details and how to book here.

Some cooking, some kittens, and some ballet…

It’s been a busy week or so lately, among other things I spent this weekend helping my very good friend who had been staying with me has move into her new flat.

In other news…KITTENS:

My cat Thisbe had 5 kittens last week, this is them at 2 days old I think. They’ve grown so much already! We waited a few days before touching them to let Thisbe bond with them and relax, but now they’re a little older we’ve been very gently petting them. I can’t wait for them to open their eyes and start walking!

In unrelated (semi-)news, I bought a slow cooker recently and on Friday I tried out my first recipe. I used the marvellous Can You Stay For Dinner’s Mexican Pulled Pork Tacos one, found here and it was delicious, ridiculously easy and I will definitely be making it again (and hopefully taking some pictures)!

The final thing to mention today, is that I saw the last night of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at the Royal Opera House on Saturday. It was an excellent performance, Lauren Cuthbertson was unfortunately out with an injury, but Sarah Lamb was both adorable and funny as Alice. Edward Watson was as always excellent as the White Rabbit, while Zenaida Yanowsky’s hilarious Queen of Hearts gets funnier every year. Steven McRae tapped marvellously, and then did a sneaky encore, in fact everyone’s curtain calls were brilliantly in character. Spotted a hilarious Bennet Gartside as a resigned card as well, and lovely Leanne Cope as one of Alice’s sisters.

Right, am off to see Othello at the National Theatre in a minute, so over and out everyone! Hope you’re having a good Tuesday!

Revealing the Invisible – open now!

My good friend Katie has been very busy lately bringing together some marvellous artists for an exhibition exploring living with chronic illness. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to help out a bit with the exhibition and I’m glad to say it has now opened in Margate and will be showing until the 17th April. Do go and see it if you have the opportunity, lots of people have put lots of work into it and hope to raise awareness of the invisible side to chronic illness.

Find more details on:

 

The Revealing the Invisible website here

The gallery website here

The Facebook page here

How could anyone be sad with kittens?

Our cat is pregnant and expecting any day so I hope to look like this very soon! Image found here.

We’ll be hunting for responsible homes for them soon (once we know how many there are), and then getting our cat neutered (like we really should have done before this happened!) But before all that I can’t wait to play with the kittens, you just can’t help but love them!

Easter egg madness and Johnny Clegg

I hope everyone has had a marvellous Easter weekend, we hosted a lunch on Easter Sunday for a big group of people and made lots of food. The highlight was the Easter Egg Hunt though, where some of our (adult) friends became very competitive and went tearing round the house hunting for all the eggs laughing hysterically!

The week before I went with my sisters and mother to see the amazing Johnny Clegg at the Royal Albert Hall. When my older sister was living in South Africa she discovered and fell in love with his music, and he’s since become a car cd staple with us all pretending we can speak Zulu and singing along to our favourites. Because Johnny Clegg is exceedingly cool, here he his singing with the amazing Mandela in a song about Mandela’s imprisonment:

I would really recommend listening to more of his music, particularly the Best of Johnny Clegg and Suvaka CD which is just choc full of amazingness, and especially my favourite song Dela (roughly translates as ‘content’) and which some people may remember from the George of The Jungle film (I make no apologies for having watched that in my youth!):

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland hits the cinemas!

Cinemas around the country and around the world are showing the Royal Opera House’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland this Thursday at 7:15pm, find out more details of where it’s on and who’s dancing here.

It’s a great show, I saw it when it first premiered a few years ago and again yesterday and I’m seeing it in a few weeks as well with a different cast. Here’s the trailer:

“The best moments in reading…”

I loved The History Boys when it first opened at The National Theatre, and this quiet moment in the play when Hector is speaking to Posner is one of my favourite parts:

Alan Bennett really is a genius, and I love the Hardy poem from the same scene:

Drummer Hodge – Thomas Hardy

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined – just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew –
Fresh from his Wessex home –
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellation reign
His stars eternally

We’re all just people.

This is so completely obvious, simple and true:

I wish more people would embrace this statement. The quote is by Cheris Kramarae and the print is designed and sold by Michelle Scott, find it on Etsy here.