Yesterday:Something very exciting happened yesterday - Chesca has moved in for a couple a weeks! So now we are 5 👩👨👦👧👩🐰Chesca is studying 🎒 at the moment, so I spent yesterday testing her on her Arabic vocab - quite tricky for both of us.Bumble 🐰 also decided he wanted to learn Arabic, his method was slightly different - munching on the book 📘. I mean he might well be fluent now, who knows. He's a very secretive bunny 🐰.I also attended the Ballet 💃yesterday which was a delight! My friend Laura who has a very serious job indeed (something to do with accounting 📑, she has told me multiple times but I am still not really any the wiser) wasn't able to get out of work in time to attend the performance and she very kindly, indeed, gave me her ticket. It was fabulous - a really excellent choice Alex 😊. We saw Le Corsaire at the London Coliseum a swashbuckling 🌊tale based on Lord Byron's poem Le Corsair (I thought important to add the original title without the 'e' 😉). It was in three acts, and told the story of a pirate 🚣who journeys across the sea to recuse the girl 👸 he is in love ❤️with from a harem. At least that is what the website tells me happened - there were certainly a number of pirates 👱👱, beautiful girls in a harem 👸 👸and a charming, rather large, sultan 👵 (who I suspect was supposed to be a bit creepy, but I think had a jovial twinkle in his eye.)I loved the beginning of the third act - which appeared to be 'the sultans dream 💤' - many girls in wonderful pale pink tutus, others in pale green danced 👯 about the stage, some holding flowers 💐 - in a sort of 'ideal' garden 🌳. It was a rather beautiful sight. The end was quite unusual for ballet, a shipwreck 🚣 which reminded me of Theodore Gericault's 'The Raft of Medusa', all sea water and bodies everywhere.Anyway - I love ballet 💃, I love the way you can get lost in the movement of the dancers and the music, and it doesn't matter too much what is going on. I once went to the 'opera' 😮 in Budapest with some friends when we were inter railing 🚉. We waited and waited for them to sing - but they just never did, and I am secretly pleased that we ended up at the ballet 💃 by mistake. I find opera 😮 tricky - they repeat themselves so much, and I can't help looking at the subtitles which is such a bore. It also goes on forever - and I never quite trust young people 👶who 'just love' the opera 😮. I mean do you really? Or do you just think you should... I reckon it's an acquired taste. (By the way, anyone who I have been to the opera 😮 with, I haven't been conning you, I have hopefully been increasing my appreciation for it..... it really can be splendid.)Today:Today I met up with Gabby, who has a super job at the British Museum 🏤. I cycled 🚴 over to meet her for lunch - it was bitterly cold ❄️ today - I do not recommend cycling 🚴 in loafers 👠 in this weather, my toes had almost frozen off ⛄️ by the time I got there. Gabby had an hour for lunch so we popped along to Clive's Midtown Diner, on Museum Street for a burger 🍔. It was fun to catch up, and we had some good burgers and I indulged in a cola float 🍹. We did consider wine as it's Friday - but I kind of just wanted a cola float ☺️🍹.After some excellent BM tips from Gabby, I waded my way through the endless school children and went to see the Egypt exhibition 🌞, the Rosetta Stone🗿, and popped in to see the crocodile mummy 🐊 (both kinds - it had mummified babies 🐲🐲 too - they are called hatchlings). The part I enjoyed the most was a nosy around The Waddesdon Bequest which was so intriguing. There were all sorts of wonderful 'things' 🔑⏳🏆. I love things - Baron Ferdinand Rothchild had a whole room dedicated to them at his home Waddesdon Manor. I didn't agree with them all, there were some very odd objects indeed - but also some really fascinating ones, and I am going to write ✏️ about this more soon. I really liked this quote from the Baron 'My dearly beloved relations continue purchasing artistic wonders. Oddly enough they never admire each other's purchases, and while extolling their own discrimination, ridicule the follies committed by others.' 😉Catch up soon.Alice xxx
