Schnyder

Near a fortnight ago now to hear some Schubert from the new-to-us Schnyder Trio at the Wigmore Hall. At least, I do not remember the name and there is no trace of them in the archive. Notiwithstanding, they are now in their tenth year.

An arrangement of the song D965 and the trio D929.

The new frame house in Meadway was very nearly finished. I had been wondering whether they were planning to start a new fashion in garden sheds - perhaps there has been a piece about them in one of the weekend supplements - but it rather looks as if I was wrong. Although one might not think that a fancy fork lift truck was quite the thing to move it. In the event, it looked as if the fork lift moved the shed to the front of the drive, exit fork lift on a small low loader and a few days after that exit shed.

On station approach. I had not realised such things existed until very recently. I wonder how bad your behaviour has to be before you get locked out of your own house?

Victoria Station was closed as far as Epsom was concerned and our Waterloo train only had four coaches, so it was crowded.

Then the underground was infested with closures and partial closures, so that was pretty crowded too.

But Oxford Circus was quiet enough at pavement level, as was All Bar One. The snap being of BH marching past the bench at the north western corner of Cavendish Square where were often used to take our sandwiches before an evening performance, evening enough that the square proper was closed.

The flowers in the more or less full hall were green, yellow and white, much lighter and jollier than the ones that we had had on Good Friday, which was proper.

Concert very good, with the second piece seeming to contain lots of familiar bits, without the piece as a whole being familiar to us. I rather liked what seemed to be a lot of repetition, but perhaps that is what a proper music person would call heavy use of the first subject. I found a lot of it rather emotional.

Out to take lunch in the cafeteria near the top of John Lewis, a lunch including a tin of red wine, bottles having been discontinued. Perhaps not surprising given that very few people, if any, apart from me, were taking it. Once again surprised at what looked like a very small tin holding 250ml of quite respectable red. See reference 3 for the first occasion. But I was very disappointed with the egg roll, taken to pad out the main course. Roll soft, ensemble rather stale and soggy on the mouth.

Out to wander down Bond Street to take a look at preparations around the Palace. Some rather striking displays in Bond Street, including the one snapped above. While quite a few of the other involved stuff in the foreground and big screen telly in the background, presumably playing some suitable promotional video. Striking when novel, and presumably cheaper than building a real window display. One fancy car, bright green, not particularly large. Possibly a footballer rather than a drug dealer.

Passed the within sight of the Goat, the establishment we used to use in the margins of meetings at the Royal Institution. Across Piccadilly to walk down Gentlemen's Walk, that is to say the wide path running down the east end of Green Park. Not labelled on gmaps.

Mixed messages outside what we took to be the town house of the family that gave us Diana, Princess of Wales.

A new to us flowering shrub, seemingly running to both yellow and white flowers. Male and female? Google Image suggests that it is the Japanese bitter orange, to be found at reference 4. Not quite the same as Green Park, but very similar and I dare say there are varieties of bitter orange. Otherwise the trifoliate orange, Citrus trifoliata or Poncirus trifoliata. Of interest, inter alia, from a taxonomic point of view. We shall have to go back in the summer and see what it looks like then.

We were reminded of how ugly the Victoria monument is. Buck House would look much better without it.

Some kind of security headquarters for the big day?

I didn't remember these gates, slightly posher than the models one gets elsewhere in London. But BH says that she remembers them from last time, whenever that might have been.

I thought to sit on one of these while BH was in the royal souvenir shop. Unfortunately it was not as sturdy as it looked and I ended up on the deck - from where I was rescued by a middle aged Italian tourist who rushed over to sort me out. Shaken but not damaged and I found a concrete block to sit on instead - from where I was able to admire a couple of girls decked out with what looked like large rabbits' ears. No idea what they were up to, or where they could have been headed. Bit too informal to have been attendants at a casino.

I forget now how we got home. Probably either tube or bus to Vauxhall and then tube from there. We might have elected for the bus so as to avoid the long walk to get to the Victoria Line platform.

[The Teremana portfolio includes three expressions: blanco, reposado, and añejo. The ultra-premium Tequila brand was launched by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in 2020]

Probably the occasion on which I picked up three numbers of 'The Spirits Business', some sort of glossy trade magazine at the Raynes Park platform library, to be found at reference 5. One devoted to Tequila, seemingly a big drink these days, having overtaken vodka. I learn it is very cool for Californian luvvies to have their own brand. The other two numbers carrying more of a mix, of more interest to the professional than to the amateur. And not a girlie picture anywhere, so I suppose that is now against the rules. Plus a copy of a Home Office Research Study - the 2003 Citizenship Survey. Rather old fashioned in appearance, a lot of it, worthy but dull. The whole lot has now been recycled, having more than enough reading material already to hand.

Home to find that, at long last, the tits had been busy, taking a serious interest in the bird feeder. Having done more or less nothing during the winter proper.

PS: checking, it turn out that I at least had heard the second piece before, as noticed at reference 2, at the newly refurbished Elizabeth Hall, back in 2018. Making much the same comment then about familiarity as this time around.

References

Reference 1: https://www.oliverschnydertrio.ch/en.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2018/12/trio-sora-with-feet.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/06/up-hill.html. Not the same brand of tinned wine.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifoliate_orange.

Reference 5: https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/.