It rained most of the day. Gord and I were planning to go shopping for a suit and a dress, respectively, because we had been invited to a charity fundraiser. In the end we decided it was too complicated, first to find a suit that could be altered before Friday, then to get it back home in December. And I can't tell you how much fun I have shopping for anything, let alone a gown.

So we stayed in. Gord spent the day reading student papers and I spent much of it on Facebook trying to have meaningful discussions that really went nowhere. Too much talking and not enough listening to each other. I don't understand why we can't agree that the hate speech is wrong. Enough of this. I had promised myself that this blog would not get political, and I did pretty well until this week.

We left the house at five o'clock and set off for London Bridge. We wandered around the Borough Market area looking for a place to have dinner. I was surprised to find that the market was open that late and was quite crowded, because it closes at five during the week. We had a decent meal at Black and Blue.

We had tickets to see the London Concertante performing in Southwark Cathedral at 7:30. I have walked past it many times but had never been inside. It's pretty impressive and a great visual venue for a performance. But I found myself wishing for the wonderful acoustics at the Zankel Music Center at Skidmore. Still, the music was just what I needed. The first half was all Baroque music, beginning with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. Then they threw in another piece not listed on the program, Pachelbel's Canon in D, that same piece I had hoped never to hear again after listening to a version of it played over and over while I was on hold with the French airline back in September.

They finished the first half with Vivaldi's Autumn and Winter from The Four Seasons. At the first quiet section I heard what I thought was a phone call to someone's mobile that was set to vibrate. As it continued I realized it was someone snoring. I'm not sure where the person was but everyone around me could hear it. It continued until the intermission. Was this person alone? Why didn't someone nudge them? It was very odd and distracting. Equally distracting was the woman sitting directly behind me who was humming along with the music. It wasn't loud, but it was audible. I get it, these are the classics and we all know them. But, really? And throughout the program people clapped after every movement, but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe most of the audience are new to classical music, and that's good. We want new people to attend and fall in love with it, after all. Before the interval they threw in yet another short piece, a tango, by Piazzolla.

During the interval I found the alabaster statue of William Shakespeare below the stained glass window that shows various scenes from his plays. It was night, so I couldn't get a photo of the window. He is not buried here, but the window is dedicated to him.

The second half was devoted to Romantic music, specifically Mendelssohn's String Symphony No. 10 and Dvorak's Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22. The cellist, who talked incessantly between pieces, told the audience that there were five movements, but people still clapped after every one. I just hope they enjoyed it and will come back. The snoring resumed in this half, too. The humming woman, it turns out, was sitting in the wrong seat, so she had to move at intermission. For an encore they played another Piazzolla tango. It was an enjoyable, and sometimes humorous, concert in a beautiful setting. I'm glad we went.


Read: William Samson's "The Wall" (1944) and Elizabeth Bowen's "Mysterious Kor" (1945) from London Stories