Ballet and Books (mainly)

So the Bourne Romeo and Juliet was amazing, and as emotional and powerful as we had been told it would be. I was in awe of the young dancers for their stamina and their agility, it was simply breathtaking. Not a conventional production of course; I may not know much about ballet but I do know that you don't go to see Bourne for tutus and tiaras, but a stunning re-telling of the story.

 

It was Saturday Slaughters today aka the crime fiction book club at the library. This month's book was Black Wolf by G D Absom. It is set in contemporary St Petersburg and was wearingly, persistently depressing. The plot was clunky, there were inconsistencies with the treatment of Russian names and the resolution of the plot had very little to do with at least 80% of what had gone before. The upsides were that the protagonist was a woman and quite well drawn, and that you could really feel the cold of a Petersburg winter. It was the second of a projected series; I won't be going back to catch up with Book One. The next SS book is by Ian Rankin, and my heart sort of sank when he said that because I have never really 'got' Rankin, but who knows, this may be the one where the light dawns. 

When returning Black Wolf I took the opportunity to also return Giles Kristian's Lancelot.  I hadn't finished it, despite renewing it three times, so I decided to read the writing on the wall which said basically that I didn't care about the book and I would never finish it so I was better off with its space than its company. 

Before heading into town for that we went down to The Hope for a fundraising soup and sandwich lunch at the Old People's Community Centre. They usually do a strawberry tea in the summer and I was only saying to the OH a few weeks ago that they mustn't have held it this year, and then I saw the sign for this; I suppose they were wanting to ring the changes a bit. Anyway the soup was delicious as were the home bakes, and we bought some raffle tickets, of course, so we might even win a prize. More soup tomorrow as the winter season of monthly soup lunches at the Cathedral starts up again then.  

In other news, if there is a more difficult instrument to hold still in order to play than the lute I'd like to know what it is.