- After the gloriously busy first week of half term, the second was quieter and spent largely preparing for a surgery I had three weeks ago; it got rescheduled meaning I missed Andrei Bondarenko’s recital at the Lieder Festival.
- I did catch Roderick Williams singing Die Schöne Müllerin in Saint John the Evangelist, which is one of my favourite churches in Oxford, and it was enchanting.
- Dame Sarah Connolly sang Mahler, Korngold and Zemlinsky, also (finally!) in the SJE. Fangirling pretty hard – I was so excited about the encore that I forgot to take a curtain call picture, so here’s a selfie instead *ducks and covers*
- A dear friend of mine became the chaplain of Worchester College at the start of this academic year, and few of us went to visit the glorious, gilded box that is their chapel; the following morning I went under general anesthesia and lost my gallbladder, and am all the better for it.
- And it was all quiet after that. Five days after the operation I was determined to leave the house, and visited the Aldershot Military Museum, spending a long time sitting outside the barn that once belonged to General Montgomery, watching the leaves fall.
Shakespeare for absolute beginners 