It was a wonderful week in Brittany. We had 14 good singers from London rehearsing music I had chosen from Byrd to Blue Moon. After the rehearsal for our concert last Friday, I heard that Tamsin, my eldest daughter had given birth to my first grandchild - a boy named Louis Jay. Everyone in the choir had been very involved in what was going on so it gave us good reason to sink a few bottles of champagne after the very fine concert. After returning to Plymouth on the boat, I was able to get a lift up to London and visit Louis yesterday. What a thrill to hold a 3 day old baby - it's been a long time. Afterwards, Kaya and I took the opportunity to do some shopping, most importantly for new walking shoes - pair number 7. I got the train from Paddington to Barnstaple where John Pedlar met me to drive back to Ilfracombe by which time it was nearly 11 pm. John was 4 years my elder at school and is nearing the end of his active career as an Anglican priest as vicar of Bedford. We made a lot of music together at school through our common interest in singing. He was involved in founding the very excellent Exon Singers which still exist and which I sang with for some memorable summers way back. We had much to talk about which made it a late night and a late start today. No matter, I only had to walk 10 miles to Woolacombe and get a bus back for another night in John's empty three storey townhouse which he never uses. The walk was easy compared with the Exmoor stretch. The sun shone throughout the day and there was no wind. There were very clear views of Swansea and the Gower Penninsula and then Lundy Island. Two canoeists were just setting off to paddle the 18 miles from the delightful Lee Beach to Lundy which they reckoned to do in 4 hours. It was 3pm and the tide was just turning which apparently was the best time for them to start. I met a walker who was going the other way. trying to find a gentleman with a beard who he was shadowing in his car as he walked from John O'Groats to Lands End. There were a lot of people out walking mostly with few clothes on, the weather being so hot. Woolacombe was familiar to me with its golden sands which I shall walk tomorrow at the start of a 15 mile walk to Barnstaple. Having a house to myself, I got food from the Co-op and had an evening in Ilfracombe. A wonderful day enjoying a wonderful stretch of coastline.
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- 2009-06-03 @ 17:02:53
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- 2009-06-03 @ 19:47:57
Tom, there is no finer experience on this earth than hurling yourself down the dunes of Woolacombe bay... drop the rucksack and brolly at the top, take a big run up and fling yourself skyward and take some air. No worry on the knees for your landing will be soft and golden. couple of forward rolls won't go amiss before you reach da beach. Now where's brolly?
Hi Tom - I'm glad you saw Baby Louis and are back in your stride in glorious countyside.
As promised, re Philip Glass, here is what Wikipedia says about Akhnaten's figure, which is apparently always depicted in Egyptian art oddly as with saging breasts, a long head and big hips... : "However, Dominic Montserrat in Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt argues that "there is now a broad consensus among Egyptologists that the exaggerated forms of Akhenaten's physical portrayal...are not to be read literally"[39] ... the body-shape relates to some form of religious symbolism. Because the god Aten was referred to as "the mother and father of all humankind" it has been suggested that Akhenaten was made to look androgynous in artwork as a symbol of the androgyny of the god. This required "a symbolic gathering of all the attributes of the creator god into the physical body of the king himself", which will "display on earth the Aten's multiple life-giving functions".[39] Akhenaten did refer to himself as "The Unique One of Re," and he may have used his control of artistic expression to distance himself from the common people, though such a radical departure from the idealised traditional representation of the image of the Pharaoh would be truly extraordinary."
He was the consort of Nefertite, the great beauty, and had several children - Tutenkhamen among them, so was a functional man! His successors reversed his religious attempt to create a monotheistic cult of the sun...