Maggi and I met Bernard at Pinner Station. He had already had a coffee when we arrived. We headed into town. I had to convince him to go to Covent Garden via Kings Cross and not to go his favourite route, via Green Park.
We made slow progress with Maggi’s bad knee and Bernard’s just generally slow mobility and arrived around 12 o’clock. We tucked ourselves in a corner and I ordered 2 coffees for Bernard and myself and a glass of white wine for Maggi.
Here we ate the sandwiches I had bought at Marks & Spencer earlier in the day. Apparently the sandwiches at the Royal Opera House are really expensive, it goes with the costs of the drinks.
We found our seats but there is very little leg room and it quickly became obvious that Maggi wouldn’t be able to sit in the middle of the row because of her leg. She asked one man sitting behind if he would be prepared to swap seats, but he declined. She then asked another woman and she agreed to the exchange.
We had booked for Cinderella by Prokofiev. There were no really hit tunes in the show but I still enjoyed the music. The whole production was very traditional, but very well staged and danced. I find it a little weird that the female ballerinas have to spend so much time moving on their toes. It looks excruciatingly painful. Ev very movement is exaggerated in the traditional ballet dance formula. The two ugly sisters, played by two male dancers (Bernard doesn’t approve), provided the comic relief to the show.
There were two intervals for the 3 hour run through. On the first we explored some of the terrace and drank water.
The second time round I had a scotch while Maggi stuck with the water.
The last seen where the Prince and Cinderella fall in love and walk up the staircase to heaven won many a ooh aah from the audience, and rightly so as it summed up the whole magic of the fairy tale. There were quite a few encores at the end of the show.
These encores included several by the ugly sisters to finish their comedy routine.
We came out of the Royal Opera House and went to an Italian Restaurant just beside it. Bernard had booked it and actually booked a specific table. When we arrived the table was already ocupied by a group of women who had been there for over 3 hours. Bernard was annoyed but we decided to sit elsewhere. I had vegetarian lasagne which was dreadful. We drank a bottle of wine between us and at the end they gave us a glass of grappa each.
On the journey home Maggi chatted with someone who told her all about his injuries and we met a really nice couple at Finchley Road station while we were waiting for the Chesham train.
On Sunday we went to Jane and Garry’s house for dinner. Garry had cooked a Nepalese meal consisting of 4 dishes for the main course and a starter. We finished off with a voice of two flans. All too much and a lot of effort on Garry’s part. Jon and Lizzy were also present and we had lots of laughs.