So - the Infamous Accdent

 Without going into too much detail, on the Tuesday morning I found myself with one leg in a moving rowing boat and one leg on a lake shore and in those circumstances something had to give and what gave was my right knee. I felt it twist, then a very very sharp pain, then I ended up on my knees in the water, desperately trying to crawl out. 

We went off to the local A and E  straight away and basically that was the day gone, as things moved very slowly; triage, doctor, X-ray, doctor again, nurse and can I just point out all this time I was in the very wet clothes that had resulted from my fall into the water? It's a wonder I didn't catch my death, as the phrase goes.   

They gave me a painkiller that was literally bigger than a bullet, a knee brace and a pair of crutches; the latter two I was told to return when we left the area which was due to be Friday morning so I didn't have them for long. I cannot fault the care, it was just very slow, and the department was really not busy. 

I made the, possibly foolish, decision that I could cope with going to the opera that evening; maybe I had forgotten some of the details of moving around inside a medieval castle. It was OK-ish until about half way out, when presumably the painkiller had finally worn off; but I was rescued  by being offered a wheelchair. There are only two available so I had to wait for a while, but really I was lucky to get one. 

The opera was Nabucco, which we had never seen and which we discovered has a totally bonkers and quite unfathomable plot. Had we had time beforehand we might well have looked at a synopsis, but we didn't and found ourselves quite baffled at times. Possibly the bafflement was increased by the production/translation which made the captive Israelites eco-warriors concerned with keeping trees alive and the invading Assyrians 'technocrats'. I understand why people want to make opera relatable and relevant, but in some cases that works and in others it doesn't. That aside, the orchestra and singers were fabulous and we really enjoyed it. 

It's not the easiest of places to take  good photos but here are a couple to give a flavour;

this was the basic set which did duty as the Temple in Jerusalem in Act 1 and the ziggaurats of  Babylon the rest of the time. 

And here's a curtain call 

That's the woman who sang the 'second' female role; she was brilliant. 

I will say here that I didn't make the opera the next day; the OH went without me at my insistence. It was Don Giovanni, and the only feedback I got was that it was 'a very dark production'. Make of that what you will. Happily I did get to see the final one on our last evening, of which more later....