Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2009

1-16 May 2009 is the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. There's lots of really interesting performances going on, these are the ones I've got my eye on at the moment...

Glisssssssendo - 1 May on Millenium Plain, 5.15pm and 10.15pm (FREE!)

Dressed in cone-shaped gowns and hats spouting flames and performing on an assortment of brass, percussion and plucked instruments, the members of Fanfare Le S.N.O.B move swiftly and silently, morphing as if by magic into transfixing choreographed routines. These magnificent musicians/comedians are by turns heroic, glorious and hilarious, pushing the limits of a mere fanfare to create, in their own words, generous and humorous shows.

Bombs per Minute or Tres Mechant -2 May at Earlham Park (FREE)

A clock ticks. Bells begin to toll. Fireworks start to errupt into the night sky in a continuous, almost hypnotic flow. The tempo quickens and a torrent of light and sound is unleashed – a furious but beautiful explosion of energy that will set your pulses racing...

Phillip Glass - Etudes and Other Solo Works for Piano - 15 May at the Theatre Royal - I really wanted to see this but all the cheap tickets have gone already!

The Garden Party - free performances in Chapelfield Gardens during the middle weekend including...

Levity III - Adults £4, children £3 - this will be open throughout the festival

A kaleidoscope of liquid light, gentle surround-sound and psychedelic colour. Levity III is a 10,000-square foot inflatable, walk-through sculpture inspired by Islamic architecture and the beauty of natural geometry. It’s also a fantastic chill-out zone, so come on in and lose yourself in multicoloured bliss!

There's much more going on, have a look at the website. A lot of performances have tickets for £5 for under 26s if you book in advance.

Prettier in pink 2 (before and after)

Ben did the sourcing, cycling it home, the screwing and gluing, we both did the sanding and painting and I did the upholstering. A perfect weekend couply project!

Prettier in pink (before and after)

Lent update

I very nearly caved yesterday - I still haven't got into a Spring routine yet and finding it hard to shake Winter-esque tiredness in the mornings. In my sleepy state I forgot Ben's key had broken in the lock the day before so managed to lock him in the house. Felt very stupid and miserable when he called me up at lunchtime, late for work because he couldn't get out of the house and I couldn't rescue him in time. Felt rotten by the end of the day, left work early and browsed the shops, but forced myself to leave before finding anything I liked. Bad day!

My work gives out 'VIP' awards if you get enough nominations and I was presented one last week in the shape of £30 of Next vouchers!!!!! Determined not to spend them til 13 April. 20 days to go...

Decorative Arts

There's a fabulous new permanent exhibition at the Castle Museum in Norwich called Decorative Arts. Lots of interior design inspiration! There's a great fashion section with fabulous examples from the Carrow Road textile archive - this isn't easily accesible to the public (I think you have to book an appointment) so it's great to see some items on display. They will be rotated every so often.

The exhibition is also made up of items that families in Norfolk have collected over the last few centuries. There are beautifully made pieces from all around the world including exquisite embroidered sleeves from China, Art Deco and Nouveau jewellery and many beautiful knick knacks like the girl below. It's a fascinating glimpse into the the work of some very talented people.


You can get in to the Castle for £1 if you go for the last opening hour any day or between 12-1pm on weekdays during term time. I find an hour is perfect to take in one or two sections before I start needing a cup of tea. Make the most of it!

Play

For Lent Ben has given up being stupid and is trying to be more cultured (this includes not reading The Sun!) It was one of our goals for our second year of marriage to share some form of learning together. We thought originally we might tackle an interesting book together but after our trip to the jazz bar in Bath it's turned into seeking out things like music and plays.

From this season's Playhouse programme we thought the play Dai (Enough) looked like the most interesting. It was given rave reviews at the 2007 Fringe festival so we thought we'd go for it.

Set in a Tel Aviv cafe, it portrayed several different characters talking about their lives and views on the Israel/Palestine war in the moments before a suicide bomber blew up the cafe. It was acted and written by Iris Bahr who was amazing - to be on the stage for nearly 2 hours must have been an exhausting experience for her and it was a brilliant performance. There are some clips on her website here.

I hate lent in a childish way :(

This morning I had a clothes crisis. It happens every so often... I experience a feeling of complete and utter despair about my wardrobe and hate my curves and have a little strop in front of my mirror. All this takes about an hour which means my flex time suffers and this morning I woke Ben up prancing on squeaky floorboards between the wardrobe and mirror.

Normally a morning like this would bring on a guilty shopping spree at lunch but as it's a week before pay day and I'm doing this STUPID lent thing I couldn't spend a thing. Plus the winter to summer season change is the one I find most exciting and want to embrace as soon as possible. It feels wrong wearing winter dresses!

I guess this is all part of going cold turkey from a bad habit - it's just my inner child needing to have a strop until I get over it and feel mentally ready to complete the rest of lent with a smile. As my dad would say, it's character building (GRR) and maybe this will have more of a spiritual impact than I first thought.

Talk of the lillies in the field and starving Africa will have to come later. I feel so immature!

Credit Crunch Part 2

It's affecting us all which makes everyone want to talk about it, especially when the share price at work fluctuates so much every day and people are becoming fractions of civil servants. Which means people strike up conversations with me about the economy or buying shares or whether we'll have jobs next month, and I just want to say: learn my limits!! I don't understand such things and my poor brain is scrambled enough as it is, especially living with Ben's lenten abstinance from everything thick.

But I still don't like kittens because they make my throat sieze up, so don't talk to me about them either!

Weekend Experiment, or Credit Crunch Part 1

This week I bought a medium sized chicken for exactly £3.

On Friday I made a simple roast dinner for 2 - extra ingredients were half a brocolli and roast potatoes cooked in goose fat (YUM). Bit of an odd time to have a roast but it meant having time to use the rest of the chicken for my weekend experiment.

On Saturday I made a chicken pie for 4 - extra ingredients mushrooms, white sauce, shortcrust pastry and the other half of the brocolli and a carrot on the side.

On Sunday I made chicken stock with the carcass - extra ingredients garlic, a carrot and a few peppercorns.

Today with the stock and leftover meat I'm making chicken soup, probably 6 portions - extra ingredients butter, carrots, handful of rice, bread rolls to serve.

Half of the stock will make vegetable soup next weekend if I can work out a way to freeze it????

That's 12 meals out of £3 of meat and £7.14 of extra ingredients (according to Tesco.com, although much of it I had in the cupboards already)...

= average 84.5 pence per meal.

This housekeeping lark is starting to make sense, thank goodness poor hubby isn't fed up with chicken yet. Credit crunch? What credit crunch?!

Holy whispers

Ben gave me this Chant CD for Christmas - I love presents like albums or books that take a while to unwrap. The music is sung by the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz. Cistercians have a reputation of being silent and making good beer. Their music is very calming, nice for background while savouring the last moments of a weekend.

Lent and life update

It's the end of the 8th day of lent. I felt my first pang of serious temptation to go shopping today. Luckily I've been too preoccupied lately to have any time for shops. Only 38 days to go.

I've discovered Thai Wellbeing in the city, the big purple gym and beauty place opposite Debenhams. They run classes which normally I find at gyms are really full, out of my way and intimidating places to be. But this place is very friendly (and purple!) and on my way home. I went to a 20 minute abs session yesterday which only had 3 other girls attending. I'm aching now but looking forward to go back next week.

Other things keeping me busy have been finishing my third interior design module. I'm working on my fourth now which is all about floor plans and space. This is the first module where the assignment feels true to life - I've been given the floor plan of house with the client's brief and need to come up with a solution.

I've also landed my first proofreading job - a whole novel! And had a request to help the author and his wife with their house decorating project in the next couple of months. Exciting times - my CV is going to look even more awesome by the summer!

Eat the seasons

I came across this website on my travels somewhere, I can't quite remember where to. But find it I did and I thought you might like a look, especially if you like your food fresh and green.