Busy week in summary

Book club on Tuesday - excellent.

King's Speech in the cinema on Wednesday - excellent.

Night in front of the tv on Thursday - much appreciated as work was also busy last week

Concert on Friday - very good, better than expected. It was the Welsh National Opera orchestra doing Bartok Piano Concerto no 3, Bach Brandenburg no 3, Beethoven Symphony no 7 and a piece by Kurtag (can't remember the name). The problem with the WNO orchestra is that they are used to playing second fiddle (pardon the pun) to the singers, and not taking centre stage so the quality can be variable. However their new conductor is good, and it was an interesting programme which was generally well done. The Kurtag had the piano and the timps centre stage, and all the rest of the orchestra spread round the hall, which was interesting, though we weren't sitting in the best place. Marred by someone's mobile phone going off during the pause between two movements - very quiet bit. The conductor waited until it had been turned off before he set off again!

Saturday - nice coffee in Cowbridge followed by chilly watching of Nic having a jumping lesson, we were filming so she could watch Five's jumping afterwards. Kate came later and we all went off to watch Black Swan in the cinema. I was very disappointed with it, I was bored and kept wanting the suspense to get going. I thought it was poorly plotted, poorly acted and found Natalie Portman's character completely unconvincing - no ballerina who could dance the Swan Queen could possibly be such a wet wimpy object. However after Kate, Brian and I sat round and had a really nice chat. Lovely.

Sunday was more restful, and today was back to work.