So what do I know…?!

In a perfect example of why committing your thoughts to print can be somewhat hazardous, after my two posts yesterday the universe clearly decided to prove me wrong – today the weather is a whole season warmer (mild and damp, feels like London in July), and Tom went out last night and bought three extra fish and two more snails for his tank, bringing the total headcount to seven and three respectively.

However, in the spirit of making the most of it all, I shall enjoy not being cold outside today, and this gives me a perfect excuse for more pictures too – here is Brian in his favourite spot, and one of his new friends, Bob:

 

Dust

I haven’t been to see much art recently, which is an omission I really ought to rectify. To my credit, I did try to visit the Folger Shakespeare Library on a recent trip to Washington DC, but their gallery was closed as they were installing a visiting exhibition from Oxford, so other than a quick look at the Ashbourne portrait (not actually of Shakespeare) and an intriguing painting of Queen Elizabeth I holding a colander it was a bit of a bust on the culture front. However, I did manage a quick trip to MoMA a few weeks ago, but not to see any art – I went to listen to an audio tour about dust.

Monday miscellany

Another of my occasional “what have we been up to lately” posts…

With the end of summer fast approaching we finally made it to an open-air performance, and I managed to visit an exhibition I’ve been meaning to see at the Met for months, just days before it closed. We spent the Labor Day weekend visiting a friend in Chicago, and the 9/11 anniversary weekend singing two different requiems at St Bart’s.

Cultural Fridays

So we’ve been doing rather well on the cultural front lately.

Superb skiing

As mountain memories are fading into the past, I remembered that I hadn’t actually written anything about our ski holiday yet – an omission I am delighted to rectify.

  

Hawaii day 3

Day three began with a visit to Pu’ukohole Heiau. This temple was built in 1790 by King Kamehameha, the monarch who unified the Hawaiian islands. All heiau are still considered sacred sites so visitors are not permitted to enter, with the kapu (forbidden, or taboo) area marked with crossed sticks.

Hawaii day 2

Setting out into torrential rain once again, we drove north to the Waipio valley outlook. A fortunate break in the clouds enabled us to look down into the valley – the road down is famously steep, and tourists are discouraged from going any further.

Hawaii highlights

Our latest trip took us almost as far away from New York as we could be whilst still remaining in the United States – the Big Island of Hawaii. As with our previous trips, I’ve made some day-by-day notes (online soon..!), and the full photo album is online at this link, but I wanted to share a few general thoughts and pictures here. (And yes, given that we flew out on Thanksgiving – November 26th – I am somewhat behind in posting this, but better late than never, I hope!)

Four Corners roadtrip – day 1

The plan for our latest trip morphed from a pleasant diversion on the way to a conference in Las Vegas into a 1000 mile circular roadtrip through New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. Each day brought all kinds of new and interesting things to see, I ended up writing a blog post each day so we didn’t forget anything, and of course we took far too many photographs of it all. This is day 1 of 7, so consider yourself duly warned…!

Thrice happy

One of my favourite summer activities is going to the Globe Theatre and, despite this being our third summer in New York, this will be the first year I haven’t managed to see any of their plays since 2002. However, New York isn’t exactly devoid of Shakespeare, and the summer here offers many different opportunities to view his plays both indoors and out. In our usual slightly haphazard fashion we managed to see three in the same week, so here follows a digested view of what we thought about them all…