Les Azuriales Opera

Sarah and Mark Holford brought their Les Azuriales Opera to a private house in Queen's Gate Terrace with performances from some of the younger singers who have performed for them at the week-long Les Azuriales season at Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild on Cap Ferrat. There was some superb singing of a dozen pieces, accompanied by Bryan Evans, their musical director. Some photos and a video are available here. Click the heading for a longer video

Favourite Places

A lovely view of Stocks cottages from Old Winchester Hill, taken in 1998. This photo (with a superimposed image of a chap from Defra) appears in the March 2009 edition of Country Life. The viewpoint is similar to these photos as well as this one

The O2

The O2 on the Thames at Geenwich, resurrected from the Millenium Dome as a concert, sports and entertainment site, is one of the largest indoor venues in Europe, seating 20,000, Since opening in 2007 it has been the most successful concert venue in the world after Madison Square Garden and the MEN Arena. Tina Turner was in concert there - a fabulous show. Click the heading for some photos and videos from the event.

Favourite Poetry - The Wilderness

The Wilderness

I came too late to the hills: they were swept bare
Winters before I was born of song and story,
Of spell or speech with power of oracle or invocation,

The great ash long dead by a roofless house, its branches rotten,
The voice of the crows an inarticulate cry,
And from the wells and springs the holy water ebbed away.

A child I ran in the wind on a withered moor
Crying out after those great presences who were not there,
Long lost in the forgetfulness of the forgotten.

Only the archaic forms themselves could tell!
In sacred speech of hoodie on gray stone, or hawk in air,
Of Eden where the lonely rowan bends over the dark pool.

Yet I have glimpsed the bright mountain behind the mountain,
Knowledge under the leaves, tasted the bitter berries red,
Drunk water cold and clear from an inexhaustible hidden fountain.

Kathleen Raine

Picasso Exhibition

The original painting Las Meninas by Velasquez at the Prado and Picasso's version

The Picasso Exhibition at the National Gallery attempts to show Picasso in the context of his radical reworkings of the great paintings of the past. It's interesting and comes with an exemplary iPod accompaniment which includes photos of the paintings from which he was drawing his inspiration, but compared to the quality and tranquillity and of Christie's exhibition of St Laurent and Berge's collection, which included some stunning and less contrived Picassos, some of these pictures seemed rather tiresome.

Red Mansion Exhibition

The Red Mansion Foundation promotes artistic exchange between the UK and China, and its director is Nicolette Kwok. She held an exhibition at the Foundation's gallery at 46 Portland Place to show some new work, incuding some stunning video creations. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to show them, but a few photos are available if you click the heading

From The Study Window

There's a lot going on here....the squirrel has taken the bait of hazelnuts and has been pushing the cage about with his nose to get the last ones; but hasn't yet ventured in. A few minutes later he did and snap! He's now joined his brothers and sisters on Wandsworth Common and the roof is taking a rest. You can also see a very early daffodil and a morning cobweb on my study window, and behind the bush some snowdrops brought up from the Wettons' garden in Wiltshire

The Eden Project

I am amazed at the energy and enthusiasm which has created the huge Eden Project in an exhausted china clay quarry near St. Austell, Cornwall. The website says: "While restoring the Lost Gardens of Heligan in the early 90s, Tim Smit became fascinated with stories that connected plants to people and brought them alive. He enlisted the help of Philip McMillan Browse (former Director of RHS Wisley and Horticultural Director of the Lost Gardens of Heligan) and Peter Thoday (former President of the Institute of Horticulture), to put together a team of expert horticulturalists with a touch of green guerrilla in them".

Click the heading for more photos from the project - although it's practically impossible to take photos in the tropical zone as one's camera lens mists up as one enters.

Barbara Hepworth Studio Exhibition

St Ives is blessed with both the Tate and Barbara Hepworth's studio, the latter left intact with a number of works on show as a permanent exhibition. Click the heading for some more photos.

Hotels and B&Bs

As with restaurants and pubs, where I have come usually to prefer the latter, a good B&B is generally much to be preferred to an hotel for holiday breaks. There are some superb B&Bs to be found in Alastair Sawday's excellent guides, offering a style of country house life that is becoming a rarity, with charming hosts, dogs and gardens, sumptuous breakfasts and free wi-fi - all for about £70 a night.