Liverpool Library Lives

How refreshing to be excited by a library...at least architecturally when all around me are closing. Liverpool Central Library has been transformed. Let's hope the Council can afford to continue to stock it. How fabulous to have a roof garden from which to view the Liverpool skyline and a dome  to look up to that took my breath away.

The dome of the new library

Older folks enjoying themselves - how dare they!

Lots of trips out this last week. C, H and I went to Rode Hall to view the lovely snowdrops. It's an old hall with beautiful grounds, a café and a walled garden. The kind of place that retired people with lots of time go to look round.

We got out of the car, walked down to the gardens and my 6 year old daughter piped up "They are all old people, Mummy." And there were quite a few older folks come to see the delightful snowdrops and have a coffee in the café but quite a few of the younger types too. But for the first five minutes H was quite fascinated and a little self-conscious about the prevalence of older folks, stating her dismay in quite a loud voice. Her brother on the other hand couldn't have cared less as he flung himself down the grassy manicured sloping lawns and I mean flung himself. H soon forgot about the 'older folks' and joined in too.

Wood 2

It's been half term which means a trip out to The Wood. We collected my friend and her daughter - more manpower and a playing mate for the children and met my brother and his partner at the wood. This was my third trip but no more walking through the wood and admiring it but working this time. We cleared undergrowth away from some new oak and silver birch saplings. Quite hazardous at times with branches poking in eyes and brambles drawing blood.

The children found a likely place for a den and constructed a bridge across a damp patch. C fell in the bog but was undaunted.

However, we will have to get our act together for next time. In previous journeys we have treated ourselves to lunch at a deli in the local town but this time we plumped for a campfire and a stew: cheaper and more in the spirit of wood dwelling. But we weren't very organised. What's the expression....too many cooks.... we discovered that we had no kettle in which to boil water for our morning coffee nor cups from which to drink the reviving brew. But we channelled Ray Mears and boiled water in a wok and drank French style from bowls. First hurdle crossed.

Still there was the stew to look forward to except we soon discovered we had no spoons with which to devour the stew. Well actually we had one spoon and although we are all friends together we did think it might take rather too long for seven of us to eat our delicious fish stew with one spoon no matter how bonding it might be. So one of us was dispatched to the local town and charity shop to procure 7 forks for the grand sum of 10p each. Henceforth they will be known as The Woodcraft Forks ( a gentle pun on Woodcraft Folk which my brother's daughters and his partner's son used to go to when they were children). The stew was delicious and consumed with extra appreciation with our charity forks although Ray might be a tad disappointed that we didn't hewn our own spoons from the twigs surrounding us.

Just as the rain started we packed up, all satisfied of a great day spent in The Wood.

Wildlife spotted: buzzard and evidence of badgers

Why I like modern dance

I like modern dance. My friend, Dermot, likes modern dance. Therefore, we go see modern dance. We have no dance background. We can't tell a cambre from a riff. I had to look those up by the way and I still don't understand. We are in many ways a modern dance company's favourite customer : we have no hitherto connections with the genre and yet we pay our money and watch the spectacle.

To my amateur eyes modern dance is where all the rules can be broken. A choreographer has carte blanche to interpret the music or the theme as she sees fit through dance movements. To me when it is done well I am challenged, I am surprised, I am amazed.

I want the movement to make me think. I want to wonder if the music, the set, the costumes, the movement are telling me something. I don't necessarily want a story. I want an interpretation of a sound, of an emotion. I want to live in the moment. I don't want clichés. I don't want literal. I don't want to be patronised. The choreography has to be very very special.

I love it for the sheer admiration I have for the dancers. How can they do it all so effortlessly and with such grace. I like it that the dancers don't seem to be homogenised. They all have athletic bodies but they are all slightly different. It's probably just my perception but they have personalities even when giving themselves over to the dance.

We have been to quite a few productions over the years. Anything goes really. I am open to being challenged in numerous ways but I do have two golden rules which a choreographer would do well to adhere to. The dance would have to be very superlative to win me over if it included the following misdemeanours. The dancers should never speak or sing. They should talk to me through the dance. The choreographer is being lazy if she resorts to speech. I prefer it if there is a no story. I would say it's very difficult for the choreographer to avoid falling into clichés if she is telling a chronological story. There is always a moment when they fall into a literal interpretation of an emotion or action. I don't want to see kisses to show me love. Show and surprise me in other ways.

Gosh I know nothing about dance and yet modern dance moves me to have big opinions - I love that.

Snowdrifts

I can see now why it's called a snowdrop......or perhaps the last of a snowdrift?

The rubber wars

A war has broken out where I live. Each woman for herself. Each out to prove she can be the biggest, most bouncy, the most elasticated. It's the war of the elastic rubber band balls.

As you know I am a compulsive picker-upper of rubber bands. I wind each band found onto my rubber band ball which is getting bigger and bigger but not at the exponential rate that I think it should be. Am I imagining it but are the surrounding streets just a little tidier and bereft of the little elastic twangy things.



Is this a rubber band I see before me?

Ha ha...first of all my friend, J, reveals herself. We are out walking and she stoops down before I have the chance to pick up a band. She takes it for herself. She takes it for her own rubber band ball. Apparently she and her daughter are active rubber band picker-uppers now.

Then I go see my friend, N, last night and she reveals her huge rubber band ball to which she and her friend are adding daily as they do their constitutional.

It's a thing of honour now to clean up the streets and to create the biggest monster of a rubber band ball. Whose will bounce the highest? Whose will get so large the bands will ping off?

Actually it's great that it's caught on, admittedly just between the three of us but we are doing our bit. I urge you to start your own rubber band balls but be careful it can get obsessive.

I think I'll call us the Robyn Hoods - after all we are a merry 'rubber' band of women! Oh I hear you groan - other suggestions welcome.

Mud mud inglorious mud

Mud mud glorious mud
There's nothing quite like it for .....being a real pain when you are out walking!

Here is my friend, J, on one of our walks. I asked her to stay still as I got my camera out to show the evidence of our muddy walks. Of course she slowly kept sinking and I kept fumbling with my camera phone and eventually after taking the shot, I just had to leave her there as she was stuck.....she's probably disappeared by now!