Pat O’Connel – derrickjknight

Waking Up To Leatherhead

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Yesterday afternoon Jackie drove us to

Leatherhead Travelodge where we joined Helen and Bill, Shelly and Ron in order to watch the performance of

directed by the sisters’ cousin Pat O’Connell.

First, we watched the second half of the Six Nations rugby match between Scotland and Wales.

Next, we dined with the addition of Pat, Christine,and their daughter Olivia, at Piazza Firenze. This was quite the best of the three such establishments we have tried in Leatherhead. Red and white house wines were quaffed, the drivers in the company taking advantage of the fact they they were not having to drive home. My main course was sea bass and prawns served with green beans and boiled potatoes. For dessert I chose crepe Vesuvio, while Jackie selected lava cake, which seemed appropriate. My enjoyable dish consisted of vanilla ice cream wrapped in a pancake with a raspberry sauce poured over it. What added to the fun was that this was served on a flat piece of slate. Perhaps the idea was to keep me on my toes in order to keep the melting ice cream from flowing off onto the table.

There followed a spirited, amusing, and entertaining production with some good jokes, skilful individual performance, and well directed choreography. After this, we spent a delightful time of conversation and reminiscence in the theatre bar, before repairing to our respective hotel rooms.

The was the view from our fourth floor room.

With the sun making sporadic efforts to put in an appearance I wandered about outside the hotel. Leatherhead has received considerable expansion since my childhood in the ’40s and ’50s. One result is the High Street paving that is shared by both vehicles and pedestrians. These two shots looking up the street were taken through parts of a sculpture featuring aspects of the ancient town, such as the river and railway lines.

Like many of the more recent additions, the setting for this artwork is suffering. Slates are falling off, and graffiti has been applied.

The pavement at the base of the ornamental tree featured in the first two views of the sculpture is surrounded by a mixture of birdshit, chewing gum, and dog ends; people are meant to sit on the cylindrical structures arranged behind the tree and within the enclosure surrounding the elements of it.

A metre or so away a cycle rack bears evidence of a stolen machine.

We all breakfasted in the Edmund Tylney, a Wetherspoons pub opposite last evening’s restaurant. Edmund, a Leatherhead man, was Master of the Revels to Queen Elizabeth I, so he would probably be quite pleased to have a hostelry named after him.

Back at home, the Six Nations rugby match was between England and Italy.

This evening we dined on eggs, bacon, and toast followed by steamed syrup pudding nd ice cream.

Trawling

Yesterday afternoon Jackie drove us to Leatherhead for what has become an annual family trip to see a Pat O’Connell Gilbert and Sullivan production. This year it was ‘The Gondoliers’. Jackie’s cousin Pat is a freelance director. The Godalming Operatic Society are clearly satisfied with his work because they keep asking him back. As usual, we were entertained by a polished performance from this amateur group. There are some real stars there; good voices, with stage presence. The costumes were splendid. The sometimes elaborate choreography worked well, and the customary introduction of up-to-date jokes rewarded close attention.

As usual we ate first in the Italian restaurant nearby. The G.o.S. G. & S. members traditionally dine there. Our table included Pat, Christine, Shelly and Ron, Helen and Bill, and Jackie and me. Pat and Christine’s daughter Olivia, who normally attends, was herself performing at the Manchester University Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s presentation of ‘The Grand Duke’. Her father quipped that she either had had to be a singer or she didn’t eat.

The restaurant had a pulsating atmosphere; the service was friendly and efficient; my minestrone soup was delicious, and originally presented in a bowl made of pizza bread; my sirloin steak was succulent and cooked to perfection; my vegetables were overcooked; my chips were limp; the house red wine was very good. Maybe I should have chosen a totally Italian meal. Last year a problem was caused by the waitress having forgotten Shelly’s meal. This year Shelly wasn’t provided with a wineglass, although she was to share the bottle of white wine. We considered that a small measure of progress.

Leatherhead’s Travel Lodge, just around the corner from the theatre, is basic but comfortable and reasonably priced. We had a good night’s sleep there, then the eight of us assembled in the foyer and repaired to Annie’s cafe for the traditional breakfast. On the way up to the little cafe that looks very like an old-fashioned tea parlour, with small lace-covered tables, a man we recognised from last year stood in the centre of the road and told us that there was a car coming, but we would be okay.

This gentleman we now know as Michael entered the cafe whilst we were there, stayed until just before we departed, and left having exchanged banter with another isolated customer. On our previous visit Michael had stood in the centre of the room and engaged us all, severally and individually, in conversation. It was only when we were leaving that we had realised he was blind. The two other individual customers today, one with a guide dog, were also unable to see. One woman in particular, who did not wear the dark glasses sported by the dog owner, looked very careworn and troubed as she entered, pushing her basket through the doorway. In her later conversation with Michael, in which I joined, she proved herself to be lively and witty. These customers were all well known to the waitress. I speculated that there must be some sort of care facility for blind people nearby.

After breakfast we all went our separate ways, in our case home to Minstead.

This afternoon Elizabeth came, as arranged, to make a selection from my blog photographs, for potential use on her website. If you knew my sister you would know that something would delay her arrival. This time it was the fortnightly antiques fair at Minstead Hall. It would have been impossible for her to pass it unentered. She arrived with a broad smile on her face clutching a balalaika she had just purchased. Well, you never know when one might come in useful. And she thought it looked beautiful, which it does. Not only that, but she might learn to play it.

After tea and scrumptious carrot cake she had bought from the village shop, we got down to the business of trawling through hundreds of pictures. She made quite a collection. Added to those of her own she is considering, that should normally ensure another twelve months deliberation before the final choice is made. Unfortunately she only has twenty four hours.

Of her choice she has picked out three for specific mention. The convulvulus, taken at Morden last summer, has appealed to Elizabeth because she has fond childhood memories of picking the blooms and squeezing the bottoms so they popped out. These grew profusely along the railway path (see 11th May last year) alongside Stanton Road.

We searched a long time for ‘New Forest pines’. I was puzzled because I hadn’t noticed any. This was a picture Elizabeth had chosen from a recent search through my posts. That was how she had deciphered her own note. She was unable to read it clearly and passed it to me for my opinion. ‘Pines’ became ‘ponies’, and the photo was found. I had realised that the problem had been compounded by my not having included ‘New Forest’ in my title.

Despite the last picture having been clearly labelled ‘Dawn across the lawn’, Elizabeth’s notes had referred to ‘sunset’. That was another that proved difficult to identify. Eventually the error dawned on us and we were able to find the relevant illustration.

While we were engaged in this exercise, Jackie produced one of her excellent soups, followed by delicious roast pork with perfect crackling, and a choice between bread and butter pudding and rhubarb crumble. The chef drank Hoegaarden and Elizabeth and I shared a 2011 reserve Cotes du Rhone.

Having watched the beginning with us, Elizabeth left Jackie and me to finish episode 6 of ‘Call the Midwife’.

Worms

Jackie and I began the day on grandparent duties (see post of 28th. August), so Sam and Holly could have a lie-in. They had, after all, kept him quiet since 5 a.m. Elizabeth soon joined us for great aunt duties, whereupon Adam’s Transformer robot made way for robots in an i-pad game Malachi had shown her how to download. Jackie and I had given my grandson chocolate coated crunchy pieces and pink and white ice cream. Since he considered this wasn’t really breakfast he had cereal with his parents a bit later.

Not being very interested in helping us move the compost heap into the bins, Malachi went on a squirrel hunt with his Mum. The little family set off for London just before lunch.

Elizabeth and I then went foraging in the garage loft for off-cuts of wood with which to supplement the garden materials to complete the compost bins. Mum came to lunch and assisted in measuring the placement of stakes in the construction with dexterous application of her walking stick. Jackie had bought the stakes in Haskins garden centre.

Whilst watching our robin diving into the recently exposed juicy bits of the older compost, and scuttling off with spoils, I was reminded of our Newark plumber. This chirpy little fellow was a keen fisherman. An excellent craftsman who was both skilled and reliable, he had, some years before, recovered from prostate cancer. Very proud of this, he once insisted on undoing his trousers, reaching inside, and pulling out his colostomy bag to show Jessica and me. He believed our compost bins contained the best bait worms in the town, and regularly raided them to keep himself supplied for his trips to the river.

In the late afternoon Jackie drove me to Shelly and Ron’s where we also met Helen and Bill. Their home in Walkford is reached by a pleasant journey through The New Forest. We were treated to high tea of tasty sandwiches prepared by Shelly; an excellent spicy fruit cake baked by Helen; and strawberries with clotted cream. Helen told us about the German dough with which she had made the cake. Apparently it reproduces itself so that you can make cake after cake from the same original material. It operates much in the same way as a ginger beer factory. Helen described her race to get ahead of the dough before the cakes completely took over the freezer.

After this we watched a DVD of the South Anglia Savoy Players production of Ruddigore, which won the Buxton International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival competition this year. We were all agreed that it was no surprise that this flawlessly polished performance was the winner. It was hard to believe this was an amateur performance. Our particular interest was that among the cast were Jackie’s cousin Pat O’Connell and his daughter Olivia. It seemed to us that, for his comic turn, Pat received the greatest applause at the end. There were some splendid voices among the cast. I had experienced Pat’s work in directing the Godalming Operatic Society, but had not seen him on stage before.

Finally, I am indebted to Elizabeth for identifying yesterday’s butterfly as a comma.