Finishing up the Advents

I thought I should probably just post pictures of the last few days of the advent calendars, before we're into the New Year and it all seems a bit late. 

The Arran Aromatics one 

I was very pleased with my AA advent which contained not only a bottle each of eau de toilette and an eau de parfum, but no fewer than three candles, as well as a selection of shower gel, shampoo, body lotion and conditioner in six different fragrances. It was a delight.

The final days of the yarn advent looked like this 

and as you can see the OH had added in the optional full skein and mini for Christmas Eve, both of which I intend to incorporate into the advent project. I was really pleased with this too; Beth at Beehive Yarns does some wonderful colours. I was rather shocked to receive e-mails/hear on podcasts  from at least two dyers I follow that their 2023 Advents are either on sale, or going on sale in the next week. Various phrases came to mind, of which 'jumping the gun' was the most polite. 

I will see you on the other side of the New Year divide.

Holiday Reading

 

Here's my pile of books for holiday reading. Since I don't work, holiday reading is a bit of a misnomer, but basically it's stuff to read between Christmas and the time when normal life resumes after New Year. Since several of the books above came from the library I'm taking that as the day the library re-opens, which is January 9th. Not that I'm going to punish myself if they're not all finished by then. 

So, from the bottom to the top we have 

Two art books from the library - one about Egon Schiele and the other about  The Glasgow Girls

Two books I asked for for Christmas - Natalie Haynes' new novel about Medusa called Stone Blind and the Alan Rickman diaries.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell recommended to me over and over again by lots of people, so time to read it. 

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal A couple of friends said I might enjoy this in view of our recent visit to Vienna so I'm going to give it a try. 

Three Hercule Poirot novels written at the request of the Christie Estate by Sophie Hannah.I won these as a prize in my Ravelry swap group - I was only expecting one, so was a little overwhelmed to receive all three. 

I have managed two and a half of these since Christmas Eve, and I shall be reporting back on them all in due course. 

Vienna - The Art

And I can say with 100% enthusiasm and hand on heart that the art in Vienna was fabulous. We went to the Kunstshitorisches Museum for the old masters and the Belvedere for the more modern stuff (and then discovered that they also had a medieval gallery which was totally my happy place) and if I ever did go back to Vienna I think I'd spend all my time in the art galleries and the cafes.

Sadly he Kunsthstorisches Museum does not allow you to take photographs of their pictures, but you can take photographs of  the building.

Here's the outside - very imperial ....

...as is the inside, and the staircase proved to be vertigo inducing, but very grand 

The things that most caught my eye here were the C15 and C16 portraits by German artists. They didn't have quite the skill of the Flemish artists for painting cloth, but my word they could do faces and jewellery. I think portraits are my favourite form of art really. Obviously I couldn't take pictures of them, but I have some postcards that I might try to photograph and put up here another day. 

Many years ago when we visited Madrid we went to The Prado, and I developed a catchphrase that went 'Came for the Goya, stayed for the Velasquez' and a similar thing happened in The Belvedere, went for the Klimt, stayed for the Schiele. That's a bit reductive as the Klimts were of course gorgeous and there were some other fabulous pictures. There's a Finnish artist I admire greatly and they had one of the nicest picture of his I've ever seen which you can find an image of here , linked to avoid any copyright issues, although it doesn't do the colours justice. A lovey little Monet, some Munchs and a not very exciting Van Gogh. Since you could take pictures at The Belvedere here are a couple of the Klimts that they have 

had to take this one at an angle as you couldn't get near it for tourists taking pictures (Ha!)

on the other hand nobody was taking a picture of this one which I loved. I particularly liked the thing she has in her hair as it was such an obvious reference  to the hairstyles of the Spanish Royal Family portraits that Velasquez did, one of which we had seen the day before at the KHM.  

There were a couple of rooms of Expressionist pictures which I found really confrontational in some ways but at the same time they were mostly so beautiful that you couldn't help but just stand and gaze at them in awe. There was what I currently think of as an uncharacteristic Klimt 

and this one by Egon Schiele

There were several pictures by Schiele and I said to the OH  at the time 'This was one very disturbed individual'. But of that, more anon. ...

The Fourth Advent

 I made reference to this earlier, but didn't post much about it as it was a bit different to my others.  I'm in a swap group in Ravelry which concentrates largely on recycling and making, rather than buying stuff for swapping, and there's a very small budget for their monthly swaps. I have found it challenging, but fun in the few months since I  joined. 

For Advent this year they ran a Secret Santa type swap where we all sent our giftee 4 parcels, one to be opened on each Saturday in Advent within an overall budget or the four of £20. When mine came they looked like this when they came out of the box 

So that was four new project bags right there, before I opened anything! 

And as  opened them I found the following 

week 1 

week 2

week 3 

and week 4 

It was a really lovely and quite exciting experience and I'm hoping they do it again next year.  

Happy Christmas!

 

My Christmas post images are normally snaffled from somewhere on the web, but this years is a photo of my own from a few days ago.

I'm signing off from the blog now until 'The Other Side'  of Christmas, when I'll be back with tying up the advents, displaying some Christmas kitting I did which couldn't feature on here beforehand because - surprises, trying to finish the story of our visit to Vienna, perhaps some ranting (or who knows? raving) about Christmas telly - in other words, the usual mix. 

Meanwhile to everyone who visits me here, I wish you a very happy Christmas. 

Advents week 3

 

Arran Aromatics. I'm impressed that there's yet another candle.

 

 Beehive Yarns advent. Just three more to go and I have to say I have loved this. Although I have some skeins that I prefer to others there hasn't been one I haven't loved and I'm really looking forward to knitting it up. I have recently changed my mind about what I'm going to use it for and I'm excited about starting it, when various other bits and pieces are off the needles. 

Son No 2 came safely home yesterday so I'm off now to rope him into some baking and wrapping. There may be photos of the baking in due course. 

Vienna The Operas 2 - Andrea Chenier.

So I was looking forward to this one very much, mainly because I had never seen it before. There was an additional draw, which we hadn't known about when we booked the holiday, that Jonas Kaufmann had been cast in the title role. I wouldn't have booked on the strength of that alone, but it was a bit of a bonus. 

It was performed on our third evening in Vienna, and I had started to wonder why people had been constantly checking somewhere to 'see if Kaufmann was still supposed to be singing' practically since we arrived. I found out in the late morning of the day of the performance when someone told me in doleful accents that 'Kaufmann has cancelled after all'. I gather he is notorious for cancelling performances at the last minute which I think is not a good look, but obviously as long as he can  get away with it he will continue to do it.

Some people in the group were very downcast at the news but we weren't because  as I say his appearance would have been a bonus, but wasn't  our reason for being there. Good tenors may be rare, but when you've heard some of the best live, ticking off another, and extremely temperamental one, doesn't really loom large on the priority list. So we were prepared for the pre-performance announcement that Kauffman would not be appearing. What we were not prepared for was learning that, not only had Kauffman cancelled, but the cover was ill as well, and the only reason they were able to put on a performance at all was by getting the tenor from the previous evening's Tosca to sing the role from the side of the stage while some poor sap from the stage management team walked through it on stage. 

Since  had not take to the tenor on the previous evening this prospect did not fill me with unadulterated joy. nor was the stage management person a good actor, or indeed a good fit for the costume. There were some very very odd moments. 

But - but but but - all was not lost. The tenor was much better as Andrea Chenier than he was as Cavaradossi. The women were all really good, the production was a bit OTT but fine, the plot was bonkers but you know ... it's opera, and the music was lovely. I really enjoyed it. I'd have enjoyed it more if they had managed to persuade the tenor to actually act the part, but at three hours notice I suspect he felt he was giving his all agreeing to sing it, especially after Tosca the previous evening. Cavaradossi is, after all, a big sing. And at the end of the day, Herr Kaufman  was not missed. Well, not by me.