Wigmore late

I thought that, have paused evening outings at the time of the plague, it was time to give it another go. Maybe we could still cope, with the concert which caught my eye being a Schubert song recital - including the 'Auf dem Wasser zu singen' (D774) for which I had a thing for - if not a yen (on which see the post before last). For which song see reference 1.

Started the day with a short circuit, starting with odd pinnate.

This outside the old telephone in East Street.

The lead bud of a sucker, rather than the lead bud of a compound leaf. Impressed by the size of the bulge at the stem end of a compound leaf - which presumably includes half the detachment zone - aka  abscission zone - needed for leaf fall. With the figure below lifted from reference 7.

While see reference 5 for shots of leaders of compound leaves. More consideration and proper thought in due course.

Then the fungus at the bottom of the beech tree at the top of Stones Road is at it again, after being cut back last year. I can't find any notice of the tree surgeons who came with their cherry picker to cut the tree back a bit, but I do remember them explaining that the cherry picker made for easy work and saved a lot of health & safety drill around rope work. There is, however, reference 2.

Parked outside the offices of one of our local care providers in Blenheim Road. Presumably offering a bit of on-site training. The sort of van you could park up outside a care home for the benefit of their staff. See some flashy pictures at reference 3. But does the training take place in the van or do they hump all the kit out?

Serious preparation took the form of printing 'Wasser' in parallel, in large on landscape A4, the idea being that I could read it with my long range glasses, without audibly flapping paper. Then a a snooze in the afternoon, then prepping RingGo for our new car. And paying to park at Ewell West up front.

When we got to Ewell West, we found that the bushes at the town end of the town platform were full of invisible twittering: I assumed sparrows, but a buff with an app on his telephone was able to assure me that they were starlings, European starlings to be precise, so perhaps an app from the US. While I had thought that starlings herded in the tops of trees, like crows. There was also a sense that the twittering stopping when he pointed his telephone at it: perhaps it was emitting some starling audible electro-magnetic waves?

Interesting time had in the train, which consisted of gazing intently at the bright flickering sunlight coming through the windows of the train, with my eyes shut that is. The right eye seemed to be stronger than the left. Sun on the right. Not much in the way of binocular vision. Red and yellow dominant, but by no means exclusive, with plenty of blue and green too, albeit in smaller patches. Complex patterns with a hint of radial symmetry. Something to be tried again.

The Cock & Lion was busy when we passed at around 18:30, with lots of heavy dressing, male and female, on the pavement outside. Some white ties.

Onto Olle & Steen, a little tired at this time of day and where we moved from sugary bun to fatty toastie, this on account of the change of time of day. Maybe we really are getting into junk food. It did well enough at the time though.

Couple of expensive cars in Wigmore Street. A Porsche Carrera (1 BAT) and a Lamborghini Huracan (P2 VKH).

It turned out to be a very good concert, with plenty of power from the performers, but also a proper amount of restraint. Not a florid display of same. 

Piano page turner not quite invisible enough, and he did not understand that gazing at the audience was not really the thing, even if he could manage to turn pages at the same time. Actually, not turning as far as I could make out, more moving a sheet from the right hand pile to the left hand pile. I suppose that this was less intrusive for the pianist than turning real pages, or at least for this one. The lady sang from memory. I associated to previous thoughts about performers losing their place in this sort of situation, perhaps slipping into the wrong concert. Something which came up more recently in the repertory of  'The Dresser', for which see reference 4.

We followed our usual practise in that I watched the musicians and did not attempt to follow the words, while BH did the reverse. But I did glance at my A4 before the off. And once again, 'Wasser' did not achieve the impact it did in the privacy of my study back home, where I did use the words. Good, but in a different way. All very odd.

I also failed to recognise the tune subsequently used in the 'Death and the maiden' quartet. Again odd considering that I used to know the quartet quite well.

A chap in front of me appeared to be taking a serious interest in it all, but he was also into his telephone, to the point of photographing the musicians while there was singing. For which I poked him in the back, rather harder than I intended, and he rushed out at the end and reported me to management; apparently he was very upset. Management somehow picked me up on the way out and I was awarded a ticking off. Not sure how serious they were about it, but I did promise not to poke telephone offenders in the future.

An advertisement for another show we will be missing. The things the staid old Wallace gets up to these days!

On the tube platform, we had a noisy cross dresser, out with a party on a beano. He made a lot of noise and we tried, but not hard enough, to get into a different carriage.

On the train, I wondered about our naval aunt who was big into her local G&S opera group, big enough to be taking voice lessons. I wondered whether she had many opportunities to hear professional singers - and whether she would have taken them if she had had. She might have been too interested in her own voice to take much interest in those of others. Which I could understand.

While opposite us we had a young lady showing a good deal of leg, but who seemed to spend a good part of the journey with her head down, head and face wrapped in a white scarf. Not obviously upset, so a bit of a puzzle. And another young person, writing away into his or her notebook; a young person who put pen - more probably a ballpoint - to paper. I was impressed by the speed and neatness of the writing, which I could never have matched. What with one thing and another, a busy train with lots going on.

At the end of the day, we felt that our evening out had been a success. But it remains to be seen whether or how often it will be repeated!

PS 1: the landscape A4 in question.

PS 2: I notice in passing the increasing number of cyclists, mainly but not exclusively teenage boys, who are cycling on the pavements around our High Street and Market Place. Often disturbingly fast. When I have a stick or a trolley, I sometimes stop one, but it is a drop in the ocean. There are just too many of them - with some of the blame being all the pavements which are dual use now around the outskirts of town centre.

PS 3: while, regarding reference 3, I read this morning, in a piece in the Epsom Comet, about a company into computer aided mental health therapy, XR Therapeutics at reference 6. Is there any connection, perhaps in the software used to generate the training/therapy materials?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=wasser.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/10/trolley-734.html.

Reference 3: https://www.training2care.com/#. 'Training 2 CARE and Experience Training have a mission to provide the most cost effective, practical and powerful training that embeds good practice and changes lives'.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/the-dresser.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/09/trolleys-998-999-and-1000.html.

Reference 6: https://www.xrtherapeutics.co.uk/.

Reference 7: Trees: Their natural history - Peter A. Thomas - 2014.