(no subject)

On Friday, Nattie and I had planned to go to a Prom with her friends in SchollSoc. However, since she still has a few pieces of her degree missing, she was back in San Diego for another semester. I intended to go alone to meet her friends and hopefully hear some good music, having bought the tickets in advance.

I arrived a little late at the restaurant where most of the group was having dinner beforehand, to find someone hiding under the table in front of the seat I was offered. I was too disoriented, and too overwhelmed by the large number of new people I was being introduced to, to realise that this was Nattie, until she showed her face! Despite several hints she had dropped over the past week, her presence came as a complete surprise (as it was meant to be). (In case you don't know, Nattie's mother works for American Airlines and can sometimes be persuaded to arrange nearly free air travel for her in spare seats; hence weekend visits aren't wholly impractical.)

Prom number 55 did indeed involve good music and good singing. Nattie, being jet-lagged and having limited appreciation for orchestral music, slept between singing parts. (My turn to say Philistine, I think.) SchollSoc made quite a presence in 3 boxes, and was apparently mentioned in the radio commentary before the performance. Following the performance, attempts were made to find Andreas Scholl and to obtain autographs from and photographs of/with him. Herr Scholl appears to have given us the slip, and so the group settled for photographs without him (photo link added 2 December).

Nattie and I stayed in Seven Sisters that night at the home of one of the other members, Nichola, along with a fourth member, Charlotte. Charlotte is in a choir which was singing evensong at Bath Abbey on Saturday, and which found that morning that it had a soprano crisis. So, without much hesitation, Nattie agreed to make up the numbers, and we went to Bath for the afternoon (evensong started at 15:30, not in the evening). This involved a couple of tube journeys to Paddington, a 90-minute train journey to Bath Spa station, and a short walk to the abbey. Neither Nattie nor I had been to Bath before, and we both liked the place. During the brief rehearsal I got a pasty to eat, then sat outside the abbey and read (my current book is Cryptonomicon). The service was musically enjoyable, though as a non-believer I didn't care much for what was said. Following the service, Charlotte and I introduced Nattie to the joy of cream teas in a cafe along with the other choristers. There are photos (added 2 December).

Nattie and I got back to Nichola's home in Seven Sisters that evening, and stayed around there. I hoped to be able to introduce Nattie to my aunt and uncle who live not that far away, but it turned out that we would need to use tube and bus to get there and would arrive at a quite unsocial hour, so we decided not to. I did, however, have a good conversation with my uncle on the phone. Nattie and I bought and nuked some Tesco curries for dinner, and then the three of us messed about with Nichola's computer for a while.

On Sunday, Nattie and I got up far too early (6:30-ish) to go to Heathrow. We sat through a long tube journey to the far side of London, feeling sleepy and rather hungry. In the all-too-familiar surroundings of Heathrow, we fairly quickly got through Nattie's check-in, some breakfast with caffeinated beverages, and the necessary purchase of trashy magazines for Nattie to read. Far too soon, it was time to kiss goodbye again. (UK airports only allow those with boarding passes through security checkpoints, at least in international terminals, whereas US airports don't have such restrictions.)

I'm not sure I entirely believe that that happened. Flying visits are terribly disorienting and confusing.

There are other more recent things I should post, but I'll put those in a separate entry.