Living for the weekend...

I've had such a busy few weeks.  I've been to the theatre four times, attended a talk about J. M. W . Turner's links with the Richmond area, been to see an exhibition at the Museum of Richmond about the borough of Richmond in various art forms, attended the district centenary party with one of my brownies and cheered at The Royal Parks Half Marathon.  Phew!  That is a lot of activity for someone as inherently idle as me!

This weekend has been much quieter.  I was excited to discover while channel flicking on Friday that the BBC was showing full coverage of the World Gymnastics Championships all weekend.  I managed to catch the end of the womens all around on Friday night and then watched most of the individual apparatus finals during Saturday and Sunday.  It's a really exciting time in the world of gymnastics right now as most teams are working on their teams for the 2012 olympics.  Many of the gymnasts performing were very young and hadn't performed much at top level before.  I was thrilled to hear that Daniel Keatings had won the silver medal in the mens all around competition as it was the first ever all around medal for a British competitor.  Times certainly are changing in the world of gymnastics.  Chinese gymnasts are still dominant on many apparatus but a far wider range of countries are now represented in finals.  The fabulous Beth Tweddle won gold on the floor for team GB, performing with flair under huge pressure from the home crowd.  If you'd told me fifteen years ago that a Brit would win gold and an Australian would win silver in a world floor final I would have laughed.  In the past, all the events were dominated by Russia, Romania, China and the USA.  The USA won gold and silver in the womens all around and a veteran Romanian man won two indiviual golds but Russia had a terrible time.  Although I'm glad that other countries are doing well I'd be sad to see the 'old guard' fade from the international scene completely. 

The plays I've been to see recently have been a bit of a mixed bag.  Last week we saw Roger McGough's new translation of 'The Hypochondriac' by Moliere.  I'm not really sure how I feel about Moliere.  The only other play I've seen of his was Tartuffe and I hated it.  I'm unsure of the reason why I dislike his plays.  It could be that the productions I've seen weren't very good, or it could be that elements were lost in translation, or it could be that I just don't like them.  I guess I should try and see the Misanthrope and see what I think of that.  I've also seen an amateur production of 'We Happy Few' which was OK.  I liked the idea but it all got a bit grim in the second half.  Generally the two halves felt unbalanced.  On Saturday we went to see 'The Grass is Greener' at Richmond Theatre.  Apparently it's famous because it was made into a film starring Cary Grant and Robert Mitchum.  All in all it was a nice little play.  It was short, it didn't contain anything controversial and it was quite amusing.  Not sure it was worth £22 (plus £1 restoration subsidy) though.  Finally, what feels like ages ago, we went to see an amateur production of Alan Bennett's 'Habeus Corpus' which I quite enjoyed.  We're going to see an amateur production of 'Patience' on Thursday and then that's it for the theatre for a while as all the theatres will be clogged up with pantomimes.  I think I'll be glad of a break.

Otherwise, all is well.  I took half a day off on Friday to sort out some admin stuff with the bank.  I'm being super responsible and starting a regular over-payment of my mortgage now my fixed rate has ended and the interest rate has dropped.  Hopefully, it'll mean that I might pay it off before I'm fifty!

Now looking forward to my holiday next week and then it'll be time to start Christmas shopping.  Time flies!