Music Monday: 90s Floorfillers

The past weekend kicked my butt big time. Between the switch to summer time and the husband’s birthday (with its collateral boatload of kitchen work), I’m fairly wiped out. On the other hand, the weather is unusually sunny and balmy, which prompts towards going out and getting active. No wonder I feel like digging out some Eurotrance that made me – and most of Europe – pound the dancefloors, back in my clubbing days.

Wordless Wednesday: Spring has sprung

Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Arthurian legend art

'The Accolade', by Edmund Blair Leighton

'Elaine, or the Lily Maid of Astolat', by Sophie Anderson (1870)

'The Death of Arthur', by James Archer (1823)

'The Beguiling of Merlin', by Edward Burne-Jones

'La Belle Dame Sans Merci', by Sir Frank Dicksee

'I am half-sick of shadows, said the Lady of Shalott', by William Waterhouse

'Sir Galahad', by Arthur Hughes

'Morgan le Fay', by John Spencer-Stanhope

Wordless Wednesday: Gale Force

Music Monday: Children in Need

I love Children in Need. It can be a bit of a to-do (when I have to send my toddler to preschool wearing something spotty, and there’s nothing suitable to be had for love or money), and the sob stories become more and more distressing each year, as my involvement in motherhood deepens (how do you let children, in your own affluent Western country, sink to such misery?), but the show and its aftermath always restore my faith in humankind. This year, the event has raised £26 million, £8 million more than last year, at a time when recession is still biting. I will not despair.

I’m supposed to be too old for boy bands, but One Direction are just too cute and too much fun. (Video’s a bit out of sync, but I’m not nitpicking.)

I don’t care for Gok Wan’s stylistic prowess (I’m still a Trinny & Susannah girl), but he certainly seems to know his stuff when it comes to musical theatre. This performance got even my classically trained husband’s seal of approval, and that’s something.

Wake Your Mind Up #10

Discover where you live. Most of us follow the same routes to work, school, shops, and don’t pay attention to the streets that aren’t on our route. Spend an hour walking or cycling round your area (even if you think it’s a dull suburb, you’ll find a spectacular front garden somewhere along the way).

I’ve been living in the UK for over four years now, and only recently have I started to feel confident enough to vary my routes around places. I’m hopeless at orienteering, so I used to retrace my steps quite precisely to make sure I wouldn’t get lost.

Interestingly, I learned my way around town, where I go a few times a month, much easier than around my own housing estate. Being a creature of the city myself, I found something reassuringly familiar in the straight streets, and even though I haven’t ventured much beyond the high street and its offshoots (the trade centre), I have a clear enough view of the urban settlement. The hills make for sucky visibility, but urban landmarks are urban landmarks.

On the contrary, our estate, with its curvy lanes, cul-de-sacs and general sprawl, is still largely uncharted territory for me. Spousal unit and I occasionally go for long walks about the neighbourhood, after dinner, when there’s hardly anyone outside, and wander around this mews and that close, and I never seem to be able to remember if I’d been that way before. It’s a consolation that some impasses, little places tucked away out of sight unless you go looking for them, are unfamiliar even to him, after 20 years in the area.

Our bit of the estate is not renowned for its front gardens, but I’m rather proud of our street: it’s crescent-shaped, with two exits, and the roundabout way is partly lined with trees and brambles gone wild enough to create the illusion of a patch of forest, even though they’re only about 5 metres deep and on the other side there’s Class A road traffic.

One of these days I have to pack the picnic blanket and go plop down and do some reading on every patch of public green I find.

Isle of Avalon – Appendix

Reading matter
The Library of Avalon is a unique foundation: an esoteric library that is also a charitable foundation, completely dependent on volunteers for its workforce and on donations for its stock and running costs. A public reading-room is provided for the use of non-members, with full reference access to the displayed collections. The Library’s collections include, among about 10,000 books on display and several thousand more currently in storage, elements of the libraries of the Research into Lost Knowledge Organisation (RILKO) and the Wessex Research Group. Visit http://libraryofavalon.org.uk/ for more information.