The old year passeth and giveth place to new.
4:55 p.m.
The next day was another eating extravaganza. After talking about it for ages, we finally had friends of ours over for dinner: a computer-science professor (who had had Little Princess in a couple of classes), his girlfriend the mathematician (whose daughter took violin lessons from our daughter), and her two daughters (age 10 and 12) whom I greeted at the door as Thing No. 1 and Thing No. 2. The professor is Greek and brought a huge Greek salad. I baked store-bought spanikopita and opened tins of dolmades, which were all delicious, but I made potato latkes and sautéed broccoli. Our Greek guest spontaneously made some tsatsiki from yogurt, garlic and cucumber, and for dessert we had lemon mousse (which I made). Everyone ate heartily. The latkes and mousse were devoured completely.
On Tuesday my children and husband attended a mini-recital in the studio of the French horn player’s accompanist, where he, she and I performed some of the music on our recital next February. It went well for me, but the two instrumentalists made lots of booboos. Everyone was very complimentary, nonetheless, and wine and munchies were served afterward.
The pianist’s studio is in an old building that backs onto the gorge in Sh’brooke, and through the windows we had a great view of the rushing waters of the river as they go through the sluice gate, one of the reason why the textile mills were located here in days of yore. One of her guests used to conduct the symphonic choir and asked me if I would be interested in being involved in a small opera company that he is thinking of forming. I said of course I would be.
That evening and yesterday, Little Princess and I assembled a paper model of a merlin, something Hubby had given me years ago and which had lain dormant on the piano until she decided to go at it with scissors and glue. It was a horrendous task. We both cut and glued, but she had the more onerous task of interpreting the instructions, which had been translated into incomprehensible English from German. Here are some photos of our finished product.
Here’s the pendant Hubby gave me:
And finally, here’s Buddy Boy’s back as we walk in the woods on our Christmas day stroll.
Little Princess left today for the nation’s capital where she will spend New Year’s Eve with friends before returning to her home in the city of my birth. It was very sad to say goodbye after having her here for a week and-a-half. Buddy Boy doesn’t return to the city of my birth until Sunday, and it’ll be hard to say goodbye to him as well.
My new year’s resolution is to get back to updating regularly. I expect to break it often.
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