Stormy Weather

[Serial_Apologist]

a refund from January is on its way!

When mine arrived and I paid it in at my local bank branch, the staff member asked me, "Work for the Inland Revenue, do you?"

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...don't we all!

[salymap]

Blue sky and little white clouds. Sunshine. long may it last. Weather has been dire for days here.

[antongould]

I knew it would come if you waited salymap all you need is patience - very promising here too - enjoy Ma vlast

[salymap]

Thanks Anton, I did enjoy Ma Vlast. I've two good complete recordings but thought the BBCSO did very well in an exhausting to play work. I've always loved it though. Did you see the Halle on TV? They had a woman tympanist years ago and seem to have kept up the tradition. Didn't think their playing was up to the Barbirolli years though, sadly.

Rain 'promised' for 7pm, to keep on topic, not that anyone does.

[Mahlerei]

My nephew has emailed from Boston, where it's a blistering 36 degrees. Ouch.

[marthe]

My nephew has emailed from Boston, where it's a blistering 36 degrees. Ouch.

"Ouch" down here in Newport (75 miles south of Boston) where it's been in the 90s F today. I remember my first summer living in an apartment in Boston (1970) when the temps got up into the 90s F. I was happy to go to work at the Prudential Building where it was so cool inside, because of the AC, that I had to keep a cardigan in my desk drawer in case I got cold! At the end of the day, I'd walk out of the nice, cool office and into a wall of heat! Our flat was not air conditioned and we would keep our windows wide open so that we could catch a breeze...and the Red Sox baseball games from nearby Fenway Park! Despite the heat, life in the big city was fun and exciting at age 19! We were walking distance from the Hatch Memorial Shell near the Charles River where we could go to Boston Pops concerts. Ah, summer in the city!

[marthe]

Thanks Anton, I did enjoy Ma Vlast. I've two good complete recordings but thought the BBCSO did very well in an exhausting to play work. I've always loved it though. Did you see the Halle on TV? They had a woman tympanist years ago and seem to have kept up the tradition. Didn't think their playing was up to the Barbirolli years though, sadly.

Rain 'promised' for 7pm, to keep on topic, not that anyone does.

Saly, I also enjoyed the performance of Ma Vlast. I first heard this back in the 1970s on a DGG (?) recording with Kubelik conducting the Boston SO (?). I can't remember the details, but do remember the sound of this particular recording which defined this work for me when I was at an impressionable age. Prior to hearing the whole piece, my father would play selections from it: the well-known "Vlatava" and "From Bohemia's Meadows and Forests" sections. Ma Vlast always provided me with a "sound track" for parts of Willa Cather's novel My Antonia which deals with the experience of being an immigrant, particularly a Bohemian immigrant, and longing for one's homeland. Dad was Belgian not Bohemian, but experienced that same longing nonetheless.

[salymap]

Morning marthe [or whatever it is to you]

I have happy memories of Belgium and Belgian friends. Many families escaped the Nazis from the Ostende area and finished up in Petts Wood, Kent near me. At about 10 years old I stayed with an aunt in Petts Wood
and met many members of the Hagers family from Ostende who were billeted nearby. There was a very good artist, a musician and a girl of my age amongst them. To avoid boring you, we met up after the war, I visiting them and vice versa. They took me to Bruges and Brussels, I took Helene to London. She died in her 50s and I have lost touch but shall never forget my first taste of 'real' coffee, Jacques' powerful cigars at breakfast time and their kindness to the 'English Miss' as her mother called me.

I forgot to say that in 1951 Helene and I visited the Belgian butcher in Old Compton Street,london, who was one of the people who rescued the family when the Nazis came.

[marthe]

Morning (or afternoon for you) saly! What an interesting story about your Belgian friends. my grandfather, who had many English friends, always said that without England, there would not have been Belgium. He was speaking in terms of history and politics but there have been many affinities between the two countries. I'm just now reading Charlotte Bronte's Villette, a novel based on her experience as a teacher in Brussels. My grandmother actually had a an English governess who was a friend of Edith Cavell. Laura Tuxford (my grandmother's governess) and Edith Cavell were fellow governesses in Brussels during the 1890s. During WW II, some of my father's cousins joined the RAF after King Leopold III capitulated to the Germans.

Weather is extremely hot here. 106 F at the airport in Providence, RI; 109 F at Logan Airport in Boston; 115 F at Philadelphia airport. These are the "feel-like" temps. The actual temps were in the high 90s. Too hot for anything but off to work I go nonetheless! Even our famous sea breeze is just a hot wind right now.

[Mahlerei]

Spent Easter in Bruges a few years ago anD it's a magical city. From our hotel room in the eaves we could open our window, look across the tiled roofs and hear the church bells ring. A very compact place as well, which makes exploration easy. They also have a very modern concert hall, which I had a look at one morning. No music though.

[salymap]

Spent Easter in Bruges a few years ago anD it's a magical city. From our hotel room in the eaves we could open our window, look across the tiled roofs and hear the church bells ring. A very comPact place as well, which makes exploration easy. They also have a very modern concert hall, which I had a look at one morning. No music though.

When the Hagers took me to Brussels I wanted to see the inside of the concert hall. However we were not allowed even a peep inside as, guess who, Sir Adrian Boult and the BBCSO were rehearsing.

[BBMmk2]

Goosh!1 Salymap!! That what an oppurtunity!! What a shame!

I think we going to be getting more sunny intervals today!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

sunny but a bit nippy in the shade still ...blue skies would be most welcome at Lords the Indian bowlers would prefer a cloudy day for the swing ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Just a couple of Degrees C up on yesterday - which was more like early October than July! I have me doubts as to London temps reaching 24 C today; it would be nice, though: two friends of mine are perfforming at a local pub with a front courtyard this afternoon - one a singer, the other a very good keyboards player; they open the big windows and project the sound outside; warm days make it great to sit outside with an after lunch brandy and while away the vibes.

S-A